Slumlords

From the ashes of Shooting Gallery had emerged Slumlords.

Billy Dragon (Kill City Dragons, Shooting Gallery), Dave Tregunna (Sham 69, The Lords of the New Church, The Cherry Bombz, Kill City Dragons, Shooting Gallery) & Paul Garisto (Iggy Pop, Psychedelic Furs, Shooting Gallery) have teamed up with Takashi "Jam" O'hashi from the American/Japanese sleaze rock band Cats in Boots to form the group. How it did happen I don't have a clue.

You won't find much infos on the band these days and this statement was probably already accurate in 1992 cause nobody seemed to have heard of them at the time. A shame really cause it was worth it.
I only discover the existence of the band in 2007 and finally get a copy of the album a couple of weeks ago.
Signed to the japanese leg of EMI,  the promotion of the band didn't get too far obviously and there was only a mini-album recorded. Did they tour or at least played gigs in Japan ? We can only guess.
Once again it was a short-lived project and Billy Dragon disappeared from the music scene since while the other members can be (musically) traced until the present day.




 Slumlords "Har-Dee-Harhar"  - 1992 - EMI Japan

At first I've been kinda disappointed. Try to understand, during 6 years now I had imagined how it could sound and I was expecting something more rough around the edges while it's quite the opposite. But this is the kind of record that grow in you, listening after listening.

Only 6 songs -but diverse yet coherent- creating a whole. Every details are perfects, the songwriting is great with each band members involved, the musicianship is, of course, top-notch and I'm pretty sure that even some people who didn't like Billy's voice might change their opinion  since he's showing here much more variety and a more subtle and soft side of his talent.
A song like A little bit of faith is more radio-friendly and could have been a (hit ?) single but Tomorrow or Haven could have been too..The 3 other tracks, Goodbye Tokyo, Big spin and Let's play are also pretty good.
All in all, a must have. But there's one tiny problem : find a copy.