I can’t say that I had heard of Charles Boyd before – and, on reflection, I am not entirely sure that anyone actually has – but it would appear that he has self-released many albums over the last twenty years so he has, at the very least, persistence in his favour. That, and a total disregard for the modern approach to marketing. Who, these days, would actually call their album “I Fuck Corpses”?
So, what about the music on this little silver disc? Well, it isn’t avant-garde in case you were worried about such things. In fact, and in the best punk traditions, this album sounds more like a DIY experiment involving a laptop and a cheap guitar but I think that was actually part of his plan. On the other gloved hand, his songs take an ironic, and no doubt ineffective, approach to attracting airplay with titles like “Thank You For Being A Slut” and “I’m In Love With A Hooker” unlikely to find favour amongst the less tolerant as they won’t share Mr Boyd’s obvious lyrical preoccupation with hookers, sluts and (ahem) pussy.
Believe it or not, Charles Boyd keeps this up (!) for no less than twenty one monotone tracks. That’s a lot for anyone to take at one sitting – even if you were brought up on a diet of Blowfly and Tonetta – so the more sensitive should probably stick to one or less tracks at a time but, with enough beer, this album actually developed a strange car crash appeal as there was always the hope, or maybe just a delusion, that there would be a future pop classic in there somewhere. There wasn’t.