ROCK CITY ANGELS

I suspect this will be a suicide thread....a half dozen posts then kaput, But I'm doing it anyway...if for no one else, fomy brother TALL TYRION.

ROCK CITY ANGELS officially sprung onto the scene in 1988 with their ambitious double length debut "Young Man's Blues". They were wrongly lumped into the GN'R Sleaze camp, when what they did was much more akin to a Southern injected slightly punk rawk thang. Bobby Durnago's growl fit the music superbly... JOHNNY DEPP even played guitar for them for a short while...

There is also alot of urban legend surrounding this band....They were signed to Geffen for one of the biggest signing sums in history. Legend has it this was to keep them from "Competeing" with Geffen's Big Guns at the time, a little band kown as GUNS N' ROSES. Geffen herded the RCA boyz to Timbuktu to record the album, then released it with nearly no promotion and the band faded away....the legend is peppered with nice tidbits such as attempted murder, extortion, drugs... all that fun stuff... RCA basically disappeared.

In 1999 New Renaissance Records reissued their s/t debut cd (originally from like '86) And While I love it, I strongly warn anyone who fell in love with the "Young Man's Blues" sound...this is not the same this is an edgy GUN CLUB meets NY DOLLS sort of punk vibe....

There have been rumors recently of a reformation...a new cd...touring...but nothing that I know of as certain....

Anyway...there you have all I know about another of the most tragically overlooked bands ever....

If you love bands like: GUNS N' ROSES, JUNKYARD, THE HANGMEN, SMASHED GLADYS, ROYAL COURT OF CHINA, LITTLE CAESAR, CHINATOWN, DANGEROUS TOYS...NEW YORK DOLLS and ROLLING STONES....

track this down..."Young Man's Blues" was reissued and can now be gotten for under a zillion dollars, unlike when I got mine years ago

I've heard of them but never heard them,if ya know what I mean.I love Dangerous Toys,so I will try to find this.Thanks Shiney!

I used to have this on cassette. I haven't heard this in ages.

You mentioned them to me ages ago. They're on my list.

Rock City Angels



More like a suicide band Shiney.

Probably one of the most interesting stories in rock n' roll, so much myth and mystery shrouds this band. But having said that alot of the myths can be debunked.

I don't buy that Geffen signed this band to keep them from stealing Guns N' Roses thunder despite them maybe inclined to think that since once they signed Guns N' Roses, Rock City Angels immediately took over Guns N' Roses club fan base in El Lay. Oh yeah by the way Geffen signed them for 6.2 million dollars on a 7 album deal!

Ann Boleyn of Hellion was their manager before they were signed, and she claimed death threats if she didn't stay away from the band and even claimed someone tryed to run her off the road in Laurel Canyon one night. This all mean't to be coming from Geffen, although me thinks Ann is a bit of a crazy smurfette so this may be all lies.

Anyway Geffen shipped them off to Memphis to record the album, but this move mean't their guitarist Johnny Depp had to quit the band because his acting career was starting to take off in L.A. Some say Geffen did this as a ploy to break the band up but again why would you spend 6.2 million dollars just to do that. Anyway i heard that band themselves wanted to move there to work with producer Jim Dickinson who had just produced the Replacements classic Pleased to Meet Me, Jim wouldn't move from Memphis to work with them so they moved there. But anyway the recordings they did with Dickinson were scraped by Geffen because they didn't like them and they got another producer to produce the album that would be released, but i can tell you having downloaded the original recordings that Dickinson recorded are amazing and way better than the ones that turned up on the album and thats saying alot because i think that album is near flawless.

Geffen didn't get behind them much with the album, only releasing one video from it and once that didn't break they all but gave up on the album. Rock City Angels recorded a 9 song album dubbed Rock City Angels II but Geffen didn't like it and it was never released. But i downloaded it and its up to par with Young Man Blues.

The band pretty much fell apart, with a revolving door of musicians. With only singer Bobby Durango and drummer Ringo Dukes left they amazingly recorded a 4 track demo with Thin Lizzy's Brian Robertson on guitar. Yeah i know how many bands can say they've had Brian Robertson and Johnny Depp play guitar for them.

Anyway theres a new album about to be recorded, i only know Durango is on it but i think Ringo Jukes and Andy Panik are going to be on it. I have a feeling the sound of the album will be like that of modern day The Hangmen, which is great by the way.

Oh yeah as for the music, the album Young Man's Blues is an album that reminds in scope of the Rolling Stones incredible opus Exile On Main Street, covering all the roots rock bases with touches of soul, R+B, funk, blues, country, punk, southern rock, hard rock and a healthy amount of gutter sleaze. At times Hanoi Roxy as well. You know these guys could of gone down well with the Black Crowes crowd if Geffen had patience.

These guys are the very definition of Underrated!


Heres their site were you can download a whole lot of that unreleased stuff for free!

http://www.rockcityangels.com/mp3s.html


Heres their promo clip for Deep Inside My Heart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0DkrApDSMs

You guys rock.

I first heard of Rock City Angels back when I used to listen to Metal Shop religiously every Saturday night. RCA were the featured band one night in the "Fresh Metal" segmen. I remember I was still going to college and living at home at the time, but it must have been some time later that my local record shop could finally track them down, because I was already married when I finally got ahold of Young Man's Blues. What a great album!

It was a three-sided album (15 songs). I noticed that Johnny Depp, then beginning to become famous for 21 Jump Street and a movie or two, was listed as a writer on a few songs. I figured he was just a friend of the band, so imagine my suprise years later to discover he was actually a member of the band!

Great, great stuff. I understand that Depp later described RCA as "Muddy Waters meets the Sex Pistols". Sounds like a great description to me. These guys were much bluesier than Gun's 'n' Roses, but had all the bad boy swagger and attitude of the Gunners and then some.

I heard the rumors about Geffen trying to buy off and bury RCA so as not to overshadow Gun's 'n' Roses, but I tend to disbelieve them. They did spend a lot of time in Memphis and got an album and a half of material out of the sessions, but they were also notoriously into smack at that point, so I doubt that all of the delays were Geffen's fault. I also heard that RCA were shelved in order to push Depp into acting instead of sticking with the guitar. More plausable to me, but who knows?

As for RCA ever doing a reunion album (supposed called "Use Once and Destroy"), I'll believe it when I see it. I cannot find the RCA message board anymore, but from what I remember, Andy Panik pissed off a WHOLE bunch of people on that thing, including his bandmates and a lot of the fans. It would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath.

One more thing. I had the long-play cassette of Young Man's Blues. I loved that thing, played it almost constantly. Then one day my wife called me and asked if it was "available anywhere". I got a sinking feeling.......

You guessed it. She had ejected it from the tape player and put it on the car seat to play one of her tapes, and it got melted. I cracked open the case and transferred the magnetic tape to another shell, but it never did sound very good after that. I have it on CD now.

R.C.A. is one of those bands I had heard OF but wasnt' sure if I'd ever actually HEARD them till I clicked on Rattpoison's YouTube link... as soon as I saw the video I went "Ohhh yea, I remember these guys." Good stuff.

Johnny Depp was really their guitar player? For real? I always thought that was some kind of B.S. story. Sheesh, he's rich enough now that he could easily throw his old friends a bone and bankroll a new album for them, or at least a reissue campaign of their old stuff!!

I do remember seeing this band's debut (on 2-LP vinyl) in stores back then and wondering how they managed to swing getting to release a double album as their first release. I figured maybe they had blackmail photos of David Geffen in a compromising position with a goat, or something.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Johnny Depp was really their guitar player? For real? I always thought that was some kind of B.S. story. Sheesh, he's rich enough now that he could easily throw his old friends a bone and bankroll a new album for them, or at least a reissue campaign of their old stuff!!

If I ever chanced to meet Depp, I would ask him all about Rock City Angels.... LOL

Yes, he was the guitar player. IIRC, he hooked up with them in Florida, then the band moved to LA, and Depp got noticed by someone in the movie biz... the rest is history, as they say....

Quote :

I do remember seeing this band's debut (on 2-LP vinyl) in stores back then and wondering how they managed to swing getting to release a double album as their first release. I figured maybe they had blackmail photos of David Geffen in a compromising position with a goat, or something.

I would have loved to have that vinyl, now. It was a three-sided LP.

They did re-issue Young Man's Blue's a few years ago....And you can still fairly easily nab their s/t....I sggest anyone interested in the band do just that as both rule.

And TT....if you have not ever done so...track downand buy the catalog by THE HANGMEN....

Awesome, thanks! They're still releasing stuff too.