Calling From Nowhere Land: Live in Vancouver 1994 – Pillbox (Vicious Kitten)
Pillbox wasn’t a household name in the 1990s – unless you lived in what was left of New York City’s Lower East Side tenements and had a big jones for swaggering sleaze rock.
The band’s solitary long-player, “Jimbo’s Clown Room”, came out on CD way back in ’93 and despite being re-released on vinyl, their output remains so far from the mainstream of modern popular music to qualify Pillbox for lifetime outsider status. Just like you.
So good on the Gray Brothers from Vicious Kitten for pressing this unruly CD of a 1994 live show and demos from two years earlier for the rest of the world to hear.
Our own JD Misfortune hipped y’all to the re-ish a few years ago so if you took his advice, go straight to the Bandcamp pages of Vicious Kitten or Pillbox to load up on this one. JD opined that the line-up of World Famous Mister Ratboy, Chris Barry, Steve Mach, and Joe Rizzo were the Real Deal. If “Jimbo’s Clown Room” proved it, “Calling From Nowhere Land: Live in Vancouver 1994” is validation.
But let’s go back to New York Fucking City three decades ago and Pillbox sounded like so much that was around at the time yet nothing like anything else. Few remnants of the Lower East Side musical culture of the ‘70s remained intact; like toothpaste in a battered tube, it had been squeezed out by gentrification and high rents and was clinging to the edges of the cap, all crusty and dried out.
Like venues CBGB and Coney Island High, Pillbox hung in there. Powered by ex Motorcycle Boy member Mr Ratboy’s ballsy guitar-work and the character-laden vocal of Chris Barry (39 Steps), they were a little Thundersesque and a dash Dolls-y, but went beyond those influences with an engine room of Joe Rizzo (The Waldos, Jane County) on drums and Steve Mach on bass that possessed genuine swing.
Here’s a taste of a 2011 reunion show with latter day vocalist Mark Phelan subbing for Barry (and, yes, it’s a Saints cover):
On to the CD and it’s an audience recording, so don’t expect the full audiophile experience. Once the soundie sorts him/herself out, the quality isn’t half bad and it’s been tweaked by the ubiquitous sonic wiz, Ernie O, at his Secret Compound outside Melbourne, Australia.
“We’re here to rock your world”, Chris Barry tells the audience and he’s positively a chatterbox as the band bumps and grinds its nimble way through a nine-song set, peppered by classics like the soaring “Get Hip” and the gritty and grim “Come Up Heroin”.
There’s some scorching Ratboy guitar (cf. the psychedelic “Sister Caroline”) and lots of reverb. The set’s well-paced, ending on a high-note with a surging “What She Wants”. It doesn’t need Dobly (sic) to sound real.
The ace in the hole, however, is the ’92 demo tracks (all nine of ‘em) which were presumably preparation for the album. Naturally, there’s less polish than on “Jimbo’s Clown Room” and a couple have different personnel, but they all convey the spirit that would have pushed Pillbox into the spotlight, if only they’d been around a decade earlier.
Out October 1. Mucho recommended. 
Buy it in Australia
Buy it in the Rest of the World
