Richard Barone’s Got A Secret: Diamondsnake

Fronted by the nervous guitar and earnest vocals of Richard Barone, the Bongos grabbed the torch from the Talking Heads to light the way into the 1980s for a second generation of eye-opening New York bands that sounded nothing like their predecessors. Dedicated to the proposition that the tired and huddled masses could still find comfort at CBGB (or at Maxwell’s across the Hudson River), the Bongos ruled the greater-NYC roost. A stimulating succession of solo releases, topped by this year’s Glow (Bar/None), leaves no doubt that Barone is still hitting on all cylinders, a vital and imaginative force in today’s music scene when most of his contemporaries have fallen by the wayside. Barone will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with him.

Barone: When I got the email from Moby announcing his new band, I already knew I would love it. Just the fact that the lead guitarist (and sometimes bassist) in a hair band would be bald was amusing enough. Then Diamondsnake‘s logo—the kind that might have been created before their first song was even written—caught my eye. By the time I heard and saw the video for their lead track, “Storm The Fucking Kastle,” I was hooked. A rare performance at the Highline Ballroom in NYC soon followed, and as the crowd gathered outside on West 16th Street I was suddenly transported back to high school, going to my first rock concert. The anticipation in the room was ridiculous: Everyone knew what to expect, yet at the same time had no idea. The band stormed the fucking stage like the last two decades never happened, with huge slabs of solid rock and testosterone-fueled tunes like “Switch Hitter,” “Woman, Yeah” and simply “Yeah.” Power-chord-drenched tales of love, lust, good women, bad women, the power of rock and predatory sea creatures. Sayeth Moby, “Diamondsnake is, essentially, parking-lot anthems from when metal was young and oblivious.” Sayeth Barone, “Diamondsnake totally rules!”

Video after the jump.