Ralph Traitor
A SOUNDS pseudonym used by Barracudas frontman Jeremy Gluck.
49 articles
List of articles in the library
Mari Wilson And The Imaginations: Dingwalls
Live Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 19 December 1981
IT SINGS, it dances, it's an amazing Do-lt Yourself Motown Upsidedown-town Kit including one aloof chanteuse, two saxophonists (with shades and poseable hips), drummer (Las ...
Glenn Branca: The Ascension (99 Records 990011p — Import)*****
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 2 January 1982
GLENN BRANCA has accomplished with this debut release what others often strive in vain for over many years, that is, to catch the listener entirely ...
Wipers: Youth Of America (Park Avenue)***½
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 12 January 1982
THE WIPERS come from Seattle Washington, deep in the great American Northwest, home previously to the likes of The Sonics and Paul Revere and the ...
Alan Vega: Collision Drive (Celluloid)
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 23 January 1982
ALAN VEGA'S recent departure into ersatz neo-rockabilly will elicit a variety of responses from his admirers. Some will call it a sell-out, but that's a ...
The Gun Club: Fire Of Love (New Rose Records)
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 6 February 1982
FIRST THERE was The Flesheaters, carving Americana with a lurid libido and off-colour arcana. Now the same frame of mind and music has thrown up ...
The dB's: The dBs: Repercussion (Albion)
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 27 February 1982
THE dB's PANDER to no-one, patronise no single style, are interdependent on each other and independent of just about everyone else. Repercussion is better than ...
The Birthday Party: After The Pope's Blood: Gatecrashing The Birthday Party
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 3 April 1982
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY? Well, yeah, like in blowing out candles on a cake. This party is a crashed party and anyone with a part of ...
Christian Death: Only Theatre Of Pain (Frontier)
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 17 April 1982
HERE I sit, twiddling my thumbs, meanwhile – "Incurable disease on the day of rest/Walking on the water in a sea of incest/I've got the ...
The Blasters: Blasters: The Blasters
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 8 May 1982
PLAY IT on mono and it could be 1956, just play it once and you could find yourself buying a gross of Brylcreem, a shipment ...
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 5 June 1982
TRY NOT TO laugh...Curt, one of The Marines currently on manoeuvres with Mari Wilson, is telling me wryly straight-faced that when the name game that ...
Sonic Youth: Sonic Youth (Neutral Records Import)***1/2
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 5 June 1982
SONIC YOUTH, the first release on avant-garde missionary Glenn Branca's Neutral Records, is an EP in LP's clothing, and in many ways the music it ...
The Church: The Blurred Crusade
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 17 July 1982
THE CHURCH, by christening their second album The Blurred Crusade, provide us with an emblematic image of their music which, like so many churches throughout ...
Psychic TV: Force The Hand Of Chance (Some Bizzarre)***
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 20 November 1982
IMITATING COUNTLESS gurus before him, Genesis P-Orridge embarks here and now on a cynical and puerile journey to the heart of pantomime profundity, stopping at ...
Report and Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 30 April 1983
ONE DAY soon the borough fathers of Brixton will unveil a plaque outside the Garage, Friday night fixture at The Frontline Theatre. A dignified crowd, ...
The Textones: Dingwalls, London
Live Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 1984
THE WORLD'S just one big bar room to The Textones, a very American band whose shortcomings in content are made up for by the zeal ...
The Jesus & Mary Chain: ICA, London
Live Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 12 January 1985
JESUS SLAVES! ...
Run-DMC: King Of Rock (Profile BR LP504)*****
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 9 March 1985
Born to Run ...
Leonard Cohen: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 11 June 1985
JOHN LENNON'S celebrated quip about the upper crust rattling their jewellery might be adapted to Leonard Cohen with a small adjustment. To wit: rattling their ...
Bruce Springsteen, Nils Lofgren: Nils Lofgren: Nils Desperandum
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 6 July 1985
On the eve of Springsteen’s London dates Ralph Traitor tracks down Nils Lofgren, the latest resident on E street. ...
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 19 October 1985
THE LONG RYDERS might be all things to all men. An article of faith to those who have waited, unrequited but unbowed, for the advent ...
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, March 1986
CANDY APPLE GREY is Hüsker Dü's fourth consecutive classic and their first album for a major label. Since 1982, this image-free Milwaukee [sic] trio of ...
Iggy Pop: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 3 January 1987
MEET ME IN LAS VEGAS ...
Steve Earle: Highway Patrolman
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 20 June 1987
STEVE EARLE is the outlaw who's going to give Bruce Springsteen a run for his money. On the eve of his UK tour and the ...
These Immortal Souls: Lost Souls
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 12 December 1987
Rowland S. Howard turns singer and leads his cohorts from crime and the city to become These Immortal Souls. Then he meets... Ralph Traitor ...
Alex Chilton: Wildman On The Edge
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 9 January 1988
In spite of his reputation as a cult artist, ALEX CHILTON likes to see himself in terms of a hit singles factory. Here he discusses ...
American Music Club: Ace of Clubs: American Music Club
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 16 January 1988
IF YOU’VE EVER walked down a big city street and narrowed your vision to exclude everything except the garbage, savouring the contradiction between wealth and ...
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 16 January 1988
IF'N'S LABEL proudly displays an autograph-cum endorsement from that grand-old-man-down-the-road of American rock 'n' roll, John Fogerty. Most bands taking such a public liberty would ...
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 16 January 1988
During 1987 the US indie underground began surfacing in much the same way as it had here a full decade earlier. BYRON COLEY, co-editor of ...
Mission Of Burma: Mission Of Burma (Taang Records TAANG 20/US Import) ****
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 30 January 1988
ALL'S NOISY ON THE EASTERN FRONT ...
Thin White Rope: Sir George Robey, Finsbury Park, London
Live Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 9 April 1988
THIN WHITE ROPE dwell in a strange netherland 'twixt an indulgent affection for the late '60s, with all the circuitous riffing that implies, and a ...
The Ramones: Rocket To Ramonia
Retrospective by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 25 June 1988
The Ramones' road to ruin looks to stretch until the end of the century. Ralph Traitor goes on their endless vacation ...
Tipper Gore and the PMRC: Not In Front Of The Parents
Report and Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 10 September 1988
The PMRC scored major brownie points recently when its chief, Tipper Gore, appeared on MTV. RALPH TRAITOR hears the woman who Guns N' Roses' Slash ...
Live Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 17 September 1988
SUICIDE, ALAN Vega more than Marty Rev, have drawn some flak for looking/being old. Vega, his black, tightly-curled pompadour resembling a cheap hooker's wig, lets ...
Hank Williams Jr.: Hank Williams Jr: Wild Streak (WEA 925 725-1/CD)***
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 1 October 1988
HANK WILLIAMS Jr is a hard-rockin' Southern statesman who dotes on the libidinous, bad-man image that validates his thoroughbred boogie. ...
Michelle Shocked: Shock Tactics
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 1 October 1988
With her synthesis of folk and hardcore, Michelle Shocked has successfully created a new vehicle for political pop. Ralph Traitor tunes into the voice of ...
Steve Earle: The Country Outlaw Turns Rock Renegade
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 15 October 1988
Not only has Steve Earle recently been on the wrong side of the law, but now he's risking his neck further by turning his back ...
Suicide: A Matter Of Life And Death
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 21 January 1989
It’s midweek, midday, underneath Times Square, aboard a filthy express subway train. ...
Profile and Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 28 January 1989
DAN STUART IS about to take his beat-up '65 Dodge across a Tucson railway crossing when a Southern Pacific freight train begins crawling by. Stuart ...
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 11 March 1989
THE MORNING before my interview with Spacemen 3, as I'm rewinding their new LP, Playing With Fire, my Walkman starts to emit a peculiar pulsing ...
American Music Club: Club Class: Fly AMC to California
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 25 March 1989
"ELEKTRA WERE GONNA give us a 300,000 dollar distribution deal through Frontier so we had full artistic control. Then they saw a video of an ...
BALL, Bongwater: Kramer Versus Kramer
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 8 April 1989
Ex-Butthole Surfer mark Kramer turns both cheeks — BALL and Bongwater — to Ralph Traitor. ...
The Lemonheads: The Big Squeeze
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 1 July 1989
LEMONHEADS' RENOWN on the American underground scene originally derived from their tender ages. When Hate Your Friends, their Taang! debut, was released, they were all ...
The Hoodoo Gurus: Hoodoo Gurus: Magnum Cum Louder (BMG PL90362/CD) ***½
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 2 September 1989
Cum on feel the noise ...
24-7 Spyz: Harder Than You (London 828167-1/CD) ****
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 16 September 1989
Harder than the rest ...
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 9 June 1990
Ralph Traitor talks to the legendary Alan Vega, and finds one of rock's true originals with his finest solo album in years, and a man ...
Napalm Death: Harmony Corruption (Earache) ***½
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 1 September 1990
No harmony done ...
Clint Black: Put Yourself In My Shoes (RCA)
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 9 February 1991
"IF I COULD only put myself in your shoes I'd walk right back to me," sings country sensation Clint Black on the title track of ...
Dinosaur Jr.: Green Mind (Blanco Y Negro) ****
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 16 February 1991
J MASCIS' propensity for slothfulness is legendary, so it's reassuring to see that, with the end of the century – and possibly civilisation as we ...
Nine Inch Nails: Pretty Hate Machine (Island) ****
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 23 February 1991
NINE INCH Nails is Trent Reznor, and it's fitting that his surname borders on 'razor' because Pretty Hate Machine is musical mutilation of the first ...
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