Ken Fox & Knock Yourself Out

I’m kind of embarrassed. Until I heard Ken Fox’s new EP, I hadn’t realized that my favorite Fleshtones songs were written by someone other than the band’s high profile front men, Keith Streng and Peter Zaremba. With a slightly different treatment, Ken and his new band have given these previously recorded songs a new life. They’re more vital than ever before. With a couple of brand new tracks added, this is one hell of an EP.

The proceedings start with the Fleshtones classic “One Less Step”, a track Fleshtones will recognize from the 1995 album called Laboratory of Sound. It’s lyrically liberating and sonically wonderful with it’s glorious feedback intact.

Gloriously brash, “Let’s Go!” (also from Laboratory of Sound) is even better than the original and captures the Fleshtones’ sense of style more than any other song in the band’s catalog.

“Lets get drunk. Let’s get in a fight. Let’s do something really wrong. That’s right!…..I got ideas in my brain that’d drive another man insane – Let’s go!”

The new songs are killer, too. As soon as I heard the fiddle opening, I knew I’d like “Love Is In the Grave”. Sure ‘nuff, it’s rockin’. “Stranded (in the Heat)” closes the disk nicely with those familiar horns Fox’s previous band employed oh so effectively.

This EP makes me rethink everything I thought I knew about The Fleshtones.

Ken Fox & Knock Yourself Out is another fine Rum Bar Records release. And the record version of the EP in on translucent orange vinyl! That said, you can get any version (vinyl, CD or digital) at the Rum Bar Records website. GET IT HERE.