When King Flux, the best-kept secret on the Lower East Side, released “The Reign of the Insane” earlier this year, a full album of their hard-hitting sound was… not quite an impossible dream, but certainly a few months down the turnpike.
Well, the months are over and King Flux is coming. And standing at the starting gate, “Man With The X-Ray Eyes” recounts a very strange encounter that befell frontman Richie Stotts.
“New York’s Lower East Side in the ’80s was a place where you could lose your truck, get shaken down at Burger King, and come home with a song.
“Back then, I wrote the music while other people handled the lyrics. Then one night, my pickup truck vanished. Hours later, a stranger called with an unusual proposition: some guys wanted me to buy back my own truck.
“We met at the neighborhood Burger King, where I found a guy clinging to the back of my truck, high as a kite, weaving around and explaining that he needed to pay off some guys nearby who supposedly had my keys.
“I told him I was taking my truck and he wasn’t getting a dime. He cried. I drove him home. Back at my apartment, I wrote ‘Man with the X-Ray Eyes’ in one take, lyrics and vocal melody included. First time I’d done the whole thing myself.
“Turns out, getting your truck stolen can have its creative benefits!”
SINGLE: https://orcd.co/a2bjbjb
Streeting on November 20, the band’s self-titled album packs 16 King Flux classics onto one CD (ten on the white vinyl LP), and features an incredible cast of guests and fellow NYC rock veterans, including Richie’s fellow Plasmatics Chris Romanelli and Jean Beauvoir; Marky Bell (The Ramones), Albert Bouchard (Blue Öyster Cult), Andy Hilfiger, Billy Hilfiger and Tony Petri (Twisted Sister).
Archived for 40 years, and unheard in any form since King Flux’s legendary performances at New York’s Cat Club, and similar city venues, these phenomenal vault recordings finally give the band the album they never got to make the first time around. So it’s a genuine time capsule but, more than that, it’s a reminder that hard-riffing, street-level rock never grows old.
It just bides its time, waiting until the world is ready to hear it.
CD: https://cleorecs.com/products/king-flux-cd
VINYL: https://cleorecs.com/products/king-flux-white-vinyl-lp
DIGITAL: https://orcd.co/kingflux
Track Listing
1. Man with the X-Ray Eyes
2. Reign of the Insane
3. Blessed Be
4. No Time for Dreams
5. Noise is King
6. 1944
7. Big Mistake
8. What You Don’t Know (Doesn’t Hurt You)
9. Kingdom Come
10. C’mon Everybody
11. Livin’ For Today (CD only)
12. Recovery (CD only)
13. 909 (CD only)
14. Want You Don’t Know Doesn’t Hurt You (CD only)
15. Big Mistake (CD only)
16. She’s a Killer (CD only)
