When I heard that Ginger, the creative genius behind The Wildhearts was going to play his first solo show in L.A. man I knew that we had to go. We’ve reviewed The Wildhearts and solo Ginger dozens of times for ALL ACCESS Magazine. Well at the last minute we finally got word from our man Gav at Round Records. The only set back being was that the Atomic Chaser had some allergic reaction to his medicine. Was I going solo? Well just so happen that the other third of Dedicated Rocker Productions was in town from Japan (for a RATT show) and she was going to partner up with me on our trip to The Viper Room. For those of you, who missed it, let me say, this legendary artist does not play here often, then, to see him in a small club packed with fans singing along, was pure Rock-n-Roll euphoria. I don’t know how or why this was put together, but it was brilliant. The fact that you got guys from different countries coming together for less than a week’s rehearsals, then playing like youngsters who have been playing these songs for years, it was absolutely fantastic. The band behind Ginger tonight was Camp Freddy’s Billy Morrison on guitar, model expert Scott Lipps on drums and Michael Butler of American Heartbreak was a madman on bass. The Viper Room was hot and sticky as the full house anticipated an evening of hard rock classics from Ginger of The Wildhearts. Once the riffs started and the crowd started singing along, it didn’t end for an hour. Ginger looked great in his kilt and his short 
dread-less hair. The amazing part of the night was the band. It’s hard to believe that these guys had less than a week to rehearse and were STLL tighter than any band that was playing the strip that night. We all know Ginger has quite the sense of humor, but he kept his stage banter to a limit. Why? Because they had plenty of material to run through. They played four giants from the first Wildhearts record like; “TV Tan”, Loveshit”, My Baby Is A Headfuck” and of course, “Greetings From Shitsville”. I’ll tell you, it was like going through a time warp, getting to hear these songs played live in a club. They did two songs from the ‘p.h.u.q.’ cd, “I Wanna Go Where The People Go” and “Just In Lust”. What came as a total surprise was when Ginger pulled out “Sick Of Drugs” from the ‘Fishing For Luckies’ release AND he pulled Ricky Warwick from The Almighty out of the audience to rock out on the song.
I knew the crowd would love “So Into You” and “Vanilla Radio” since ‘Must Be Destroyed” was released here in the U.S. and they opened for the Darkness here around that time. Not only did they play a newer Wildhearts track “The Revolution Will Be Televised” but the crowd sang along to “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” and “This Is Only A Problem” songs off ‘Valor Del Corazon’, one of Gingers best solo efforts. Well, by the time it came around to wrapping the night up, the Viper Room was drenched in sweat and alcohol and I had a sore throat from singing and yelling. That’s alright I can take the pain and how appropriate for a closing song, the classic Wildheart track, “29 X The Pain”. Luckily we were close to the front exit and we got to stop and talk to Ginger out on Sunset Blvd. as he came down from the natural high of performing like only he can. And with a back up band like he had tonight, I’d pay 50 bucks a week to watch them rehearse. It’s only a dream. So the next time you hear us rant and rave about Ginger, take our word, he is the genius we speak about. Just check out his catalog and get ready to be impressed. Thanks again to Gav from Round Records and to Ginger and the guys for getting this together and doing it right. It was just another Thursday night on the Sunset Strip. This was not Shitsville, this was more like Hitsville in Hollywood. What a night!
