HinweiseGenre : Hard Rock
Country : USA
Year : 2007

For a miniscule moment, the Bulletboys took over the American hard rock scene as exiles from the nearly-forgotten King Kobra featuring Carmine Appice. In many ways, the Bulletboys reflected the mid-to-late era of Van Halen, which obviously attracted the latter band’s renowned producer Ted Templeton to their cause. On more than one occasion, fireball frontman Marq Torien lassoed the wild screeches of David Lee Roth while lacing his own bluesy and whiskey-soaked overtones into the mix, which helped put the Bulletboys on the map.

A ripping cover of The O Jays’ “For the Love of Money” and the pounding fuck jam “Smooth Up” are the endearment tunes most hairballs of the eighties latch onto, but beyond their self-titled debut album that most people stop at, the Bulletboys coughed up the equally solid "Freakshow" and "Za-Za" albums as they went out of fashion kicking and screaming along the way—Torien especially with his banshee wails.

I caught the Bulletboys and Enuff Z’Nuff together in the late nineties and part of what fascinated me with Torien and his evaporated original lineup was how he was still a blazing bundle of energy in a fur coat and tight slacks, as he hopped about in the air with hazy eyes and a frenetic determination to recapture the vigor of his eighties heyday. It was a hell of a set for a decade after-the-fact, and the same raw craziness of the gig I saw then sounds generally replicated in "Behind the Orange Curtain."

"Behind the Orange Curtain" is a live document of the Bulletboys that may only contain one-fourth of the original inception in the form of Marq Torien, but his recruits in this ensemble -- guitarist Tommy Pittman, Jimmy Nelson on bass and drummer Pete Newman -- all put in a respectable effort (they’re particularly good on “Toy” and “Walls”). Torien still exhibits some of the same vocal sparkle in many spots like on “Hang on St. Christopher,” “Hell On My Heels” and “Shoot the Preacher.” Unfortunately, he sounds mostly bored throughout “When Pigs Fly,” one of my favorite Bulletboys tunes (and ironically enough, the same song Torien jumped around to enthusiastically like he had something to prove when I caught them). Also, there are moments where time is making its presence known—particularly on “Smooth Up,” where it’s sadly obvious the entire band is trying desperately to summon enough musical Viagra to impel its proper thrust. Mostly it sounds constipated instead of alluring as it’s intended to be.

Regardless, "Behind the Orange Curtain" is a mostly entertaining listen that reminds us that the Bulletboys weren’t just an eighties flash-in-the-pan.