Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction. If that name made you grin, you know of the
band. The year was 1988. Tattooed
Beat Messiah was released (some fools would say “dropped” these days), and
the world of hard rock would never be quite the same. I was a fan from the first track, which was
the “Wolf Child Speech.” It was over the
top. Ridiculous. Not to be taken seriously. Perfect.
It was what hard rock should be.
It’s no surprise that this band came out of the same era
that gave us Sigue Sigue Sputnik (affordable firepower), Adam and the Ants, and
Mötley Crüe.
The music was blistering and the lyrics didn’t take
themselves all too seriously … or at least one hoped they didn’t. Zodiac Mindwarp (Mark Manning) put a lot of
swagger in those tales of debauchery, and that’s what made it so great. Sure, there were other bands out there of
this ilk that sang songs of wine and women, but none looked or sounded like
this one, and few seemed so real.
Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction never got much of a following
here in America. It made an appearance
here and there, and some college stations played its songs, but for the most
part it was merely a footnote in musical history, while insipid garbage like
Mr. Big (1989 actually marked the band’s debut album, but it was formed in
1988) captured audiences’ ears and hearts
-- easy listening for the easily distracted. I don’t know why this was the case, but
perhaps it was due to the fact that Zodiac Mindwarp and company looked like a
bunch of coke-up bikers who may be Nazis while Mr. Big looked like a bunch of
Bon Jovi fans from the Midwest who dreamed of playing the Cloverfield County
Fair. Me? I’ll take biker Nazis over cowboys any day. The rest of America, sadly, didn’t feel the
same way. Oh, what could’ve been…
Enjoy the video.
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