Love's My Only Crime: Laughing Hyenas - "That Girl: Live Recordings 1986-1994"

Check it out: legendary Detroit band Laughing Hyenas issued their first live anthology – and no-one had to do anything illegal to get it

Don’t ask how because I don’t know how. But the day after Christmas, I came into possession of a piece of the Grande Ballroom.

I'm afraid to touch this thing, for fear it will crumble any more. Honestly, I’m afraid to look at it. It sounds like woo-woo nonsense, but it’s got such intense energy that when I opened the box, I sat on the floor and cried. It felt like opening a tomb. Wrapped in plastic and packing tape like the body of a Lynchian sacrificial lamb was a literal, actual piece of rock-and-roll history.

(Never mind this artifact’s removal from its site, which I had nothing to do with. "Love's my only crime.")

I owe a lot to "Detroit rock," however you define that. The motor city has consistently bred a noxious, foaming something that I can’t find in any other rock-and-roll. I will write about it every chance I get. I’m not the only one who can’t get their fix. The Stooges seem to be reissued ad nauseam these days: Rhino just put out another “hi-fi” Funhouse. They’ll be reissuing Kick Out The Jams and only Kick Out The Jams on every combo of red-white-and-blue wax ’til I’m dead, as if Kick Out The Jams was the only album the MC5 ever made!

So what happens to bands who aren’t the Stooges or the 5? Who else is a heroic Detroit rock dose?

A band like Laughing Hyenas were not designed to “succeed.” By way of their unpredictability, air of danger, sheer volume, and inability to compromise, they were designed to self-destruct and be revered from afar. Laughing Hyenas alchemized in 1985 and burnt up in 10 years’ time. Bearing a fearsome combo of Negative Approach frontman John Brannon, Larissa Strickland of L-Seven, and a rotating cast of rhythm section players including Kevin Strickland, Jim Kimball, and Ron Sakowski and Todd Swalla of the Necros, I’m honestly shocked the Hyenas had a record deal to begin with! They simply could not be captured in the studio – Butch Vig tried twice. If any band needs a live album to truly represent what they were, it’s Laughing Hyenas.

That Girl: Live Recordings 1986-1994 was curated by John, from his personal archive. The material shows the Hyenas at their truest and most volatile form; at rehearsal spaces, gigs, radio performances, and a phenomenal 1990 set at CBGB’s. These recordings were transferred from cassette tape, mixed, and mastered by Jack White collaborator Bobby Emmett, for release on White’s Third Man Records. That Girl's 19 tracks come out to a double-album package. This career-spanning material more than warrants such.

Given the relative obscurity of Laughing Hyenas outside fans of the Brannonverse (“Toothpaste and Pills,” anyone?) That Girl would greatly benefit from liner notes. There are none. It’s a single sleeve for two discs, and a black-and-white fold-out photo booklet. No lyrics sheet. Aggressively straight-forward, it only includes what matters. (I went with the standard edition, sans gray marbled vinyl and bonus 7" single. Especially Spartan.)

My main takeaway is all of me clasping my hands in my lap and saying, “Good grief, Laughing Hyenas were one hell of a band.” Having taken inspiration from the Stooges in their peanut-butter-flinging prime, of course they’re my cup of tea. (Clearly I don’t mind tea that tastes like the bottom of the river.)The sinister bass guitar crawl and pounding drums at times resemble the feral Birthday Party – also a no-brainer. They built the perfect foundation for Larissa’s rudimentary, bloody guitar playing. As she’d only just started playing when the Hyenas formed, she slashed at the strings with very little inhibition. She placed sound above all else and I can’t help but love it. Her riffs were cold and sharp like a razor, cutting deep on “Sister” and “Let It Burn.” It’s not “cool” to be in awe of any man or band these days, but I’m in awe of what John Brannon can do. He channels his anger into his powerful performances. All who’ve seen Negative Approach know this to be true. But for some reason, John just had it in the Hyenas. It’s rock-and-roll cliché, but it might’ve been the danger of it all. In his episode of the Detroit Punks docuseries, John simply said, “I survived the Laughing Hyenas. It was a rough ride.” He harnessed some primal force, coming up through his feet and into the mic like a lightning bolt from hell. To the listener, it feels like forcing plus-ends of magnets together. A good frontman captivates his audience. A great one repels it.

That Girl succeeds in showcasing how the Hyenas found their sound. After all, who’d know that journey better than John? The album is bookended by recordings from “the Hyena House” in the band’s first year. Something of Negative Approach still lingers on “Hell's Kitchen." “Playground” is very Birthday Party. By the time the anthology progresses through live show recordings from the nineties, the Hyenas have honed in on their own brand of derangement and are pushing it as hard as they could. “Wild Heart” from the Hyenas’ WNYU set is the cream of the crop. The whole band locks its monster jaw down on it. The CBGB’s cuts are similarly exceptional in their rabid energy. “Everything I Want” is searing-hot and explodes sharp and in all directions like a nail bomb. Sonic Youth surely envied those sheets of feedback. “Dedications To The One I Love” just steamrolls the listener. While their peers in the underground mellowed into mainstream palatability, the Hyenas couldn’t be moved. Though I’m partial to their early to middle period, “Black Cloud” from Seattle in 1992 and “Crawl” from a New Jersey gig in ’93 are back-to-back highlights. John’s performance is doomed and astonishing, putting a voice to Goya’s Saturn devouring his own son. Larissa’s guitar stalks the song, and the bass on “Black Cloud” pummels through gravel and dirt.

That Girl proves Detroit rockers’ respect for their hell-raising forefathers is evergreen. John’s brooding, brattyperformance on the title track invokes Funhouse-era Iggy’s greasy snarl. The Hyenas whipped out their cover of Alice Cooper’s “Public Animal #9” as part of their bruising set for WNYU. A 1993 performance of “I Want You Right Now” sounds like it’s about to launch into “Starship.” (The squealing guitars and John quoting Rob Tyner’s “This is a song called…” gave me a serious case of deja vu.) “I Want You”’s mic-stand-humping hormonal stench is lost, but the Hyenas had the ferocity to do the 5 justice. The lineage is clear. Not to mention the riff of “Everything I Want” is literally “Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa”’s.

Given these tapes were untouched for 40 years and all the different sources at play, That Girl’s recording fidelity is all over the place. Distortion and degradation are the natural life cycle of a cassette. Hellfire guitar and voice melt into one ice-cold howl on “Let It Burn” – I just about flew out of my chair when the sound cut out and in. “Sister” seems to tear itself apart as you listen. The tape drags, bursting one of John’s screams apart. His vocals and Larissa’s riffing were the obvious focal points; the molten core which everything else revolved around. On That Girl, the crust cracks, and the Hyenas' various primal, hypnotic rhythm sections bubble up. The record’s degraded fidelity actually bolsters its own impact. My mouth hangs open when John unleashes another gale-force scream and I wonder how one person could get so much air into their lungs. But That Girl’s shreds of humanity are what grabbed me. I gasped a little when I heard Larissa step up to the mic to prod at a light show guy before the band hurtled themselves into “Love’s My Only Crime.” I’d never heard her speak before. She simply steals the show.

When the Michigan ice and snow melts this spring, there will be nothing left of the Grande Ballroom. The roof has caved in. The stage the greats once sweat on, bled on, split their pants on, and flung themselves around will rot to nothing that’s worth stealing. Though the Grande closed its doors 13 years before Laughing Hyenas’ inception, they possessed the same potent and fearsome energy as the Ballroom’s architecture.

I can’t stifle this album in layers of plastic, tape, bubble wrap, and cardboard, or hide it away in my office so I don't have to reckon with it. We shouldn’t have something this strong in our collective possession, but we do now. Like people are apparently compelled to venture into abandon buildings, I am compelled to write about this music. Good grief, That Girl is one hell of a live anthology. I really hope John’s got more tapes in his basement.

In the words of the man himself, “Check it out.”