Written by John Tierney
I am firmly in the group of folks you would call “middle aged”. I zoomed past double nickels on the tick tock of time a while ago and there is more road behind me than in front of me, and still I feel I was born too late.
Too late to see CBGBs before it became better known for the tee shirt than the bands on the stage. Too late to see The New York Dolls. Too late to see The Flashcubes in their all too brief glory years when those who saw them knew, what I had to find out, that The Flashcubes were the greatest rock n roll band ever to come out of Syracuse. Full Stop.
By the time I was able to be, as Rhymin’ Simon sang “underage in a funky bar” and started my lifelong love affair with local music, The Flashcubes were gone, split into two excellent bands who I loved going to see, but those who knew, clued me in. I had missed the bus. By the time I got in, The Flashcubes were gone, but you could tell they had been there.
Dozens of bands were playing at dozens of clubs in this city seven nights a week and every one of them was great, and every one of them took the DIY spirt of punk rock and added a dash of British invasion pop, accented with a dash of Raspberries like romantic sweetness and created a sound that was, as different as all these bands were, a uniquely Syracuse take on punk rock in the 80s’
The drummer for one of those bands, The Trend’s Paul Doherty (now playing with the excellent band Perilous) said it best, “The Flashcubes paved the boulevard we all drive on.” If there are truer words about the Syracuse music scene, I don’t know what they are.
There are better writers in this town who can give you the history of the Flashcubes better than I ever could, if you’re looking for one look no further than Carl Cafarelli’s excellent liner notes on this CD. If you’re looking to find out WHY The Flashcubes are still so revered after all this time, the music on Flashcubes on Fire is why.
Right from the jump, storming into “Taking Inventory” with all the ferocity of early period Jam, featuring Arty Lenin’s punk rock vocal, you can picture them stomping all over the stage of the long gone Firebarn Tavern with a sound that had to have shaken the windows of Syracuse’s City Hall just next door.
Next track! The Flashcubes classic, Gary Frenay’s “Wait Til Next Week” with its sing along chorus and Tommy Allen’s fight train drums keeping the song on track and not moving so fast that the whole thing is in danger of derailing. Frenay’s sweet voice coupled with the driving guitars of Lenin and Paul Armstrong make “Wait Til Next Week” one of my favorite Flashcubes songs and a song that shows The Flashcubes not only as pop craftsmen of the highest order, but keen arraigners in how the song is technically constructed. You try listening to it and not joining in on the chorus. You won’t be able to do it.
The CD is chock full of Flashcube’s classic like the indispensable “No Promise” and the wistful single “Christi Girl to name only two.
Of particular delight to my punk rock raised heart is Paul Armstrong’s “Face in the Crowd” a heart on the sleeve punk rock song of alienation and distance.
If you’re looking for proof of the pop craftsmanship possessed by The Flashcubes, look about midway on the CD, the Frenay penned power-pop gem “Beverly” which appears right before their cover of the Alex Chilton classic “September Gurls”. Does the Flashcubes song fit right alongside the song many believe is the greatest power-pop song of all time? Like a glove.
The last six tracks on the CD, from “She’s Leaving” through “Rawhide” pick up a rock n roll head of steam that is nothing short of breathtaking. The kind of performance that would blow my hair back (if I had any).
That the CD exists at all is a testament to good luck and a rare bit of happenstance where the show was recorded By Ducky Carlisle from the soundboard isolated into four tracks and mastered down to stereo. The tapes themselves were in Gary Frenay’s basement studio and painstakingly digitized. If you look at the picture under the CD tray you can see the feet of shredded tape that was often the results of this process.
The product is well worth the trouble as On Fire -Live at the Firebarn Tavern is a fantastic recording of Syracuse’s best band at the height of their power and while I never got to see it myself, I have been lucky enough to see some of the all too rare reunion performances of the band and that energy is still evident whenever Misters Allen, Armstrong, Frenay & Lenin get together.
If there is any doubt, The Flashcubes are the greatest rock n roll band in Syracuse’s history, On Fire -Live at the Firebarn Tavern proves that case without a shadow of a doubt.
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