The Head came through here recently on one of their too infrequent visits to this area. The newest album, 'Electric Guitar' was just released, so we thought we'd talk to lead singer/rhythm guitarist Dave Rave and ask him a few questions about the new vinyl, bringing our 'discography article' printed in What Wave #15 up to date. The album was reviewed in the local newspaper, and the reviewer's words were less than kind, but that didn't seem to bother Dave in the slightest, in fact he expected a less than favourable reaction from the mass media. Hopefully not too many people will base their buying decision on that review, because the album is one helluva lot better than the review suggests.

The album opens with a real rockin' dance tune, 'She Rips My Lips' and this mood continues through most of the album. Back are the short rockin' songs with catchy guitar licks and sing-a-long choruses from the old days of the Head. A couple of the songs, most noticeably 'Your Sister Used To Love Me' and 'You're The One I'm Crazy For' sound heavily Ramones influenced, with their buzzsaw guitars and repeated verses. Fun stuff for the whole family! Overall the best Teenage Head album since the days of 'Frantic City'. We asked Dave if the band was going back to it's roots on this album: 'Ya, in an unconscious way. Going back to the roots by stepping forward. A lot of times when you consciously go back to your roots, you try to reproduce what you did before and that's a really bad sign. You can't say you're a band and can do anything with a guitar. The reason why those (early) albums were good is because you weren't thinking that. Instead, this time we just said let's have fun and get the songs together.' And despite criticism by some mainstream reviewers, the band is very satisfied with the album: 'This is the first album, since I would say '81, for myself, personally, that I'm satisfied with the whole album.'

We asked Dave about what's next for the band and he replied that he'd like to take the band in a more acoustic direction: 'I've been putting down a lot of stuff with acoustic guitar and I want to see where that lies, what we could do. I'd like to get more acoustic into it. We didn't get enough acoustic (on the new album) to my liking.'

As usual Teenage Head have been busy playing and trading licks with whoever they can. Guitarist Gord and bass player Steve recently went down to New York and practiced with Iggy: 'They had a good experience playing with him. They thought he was a great guy and he definitely wants to keep in touch with them and us for the future. They played in a studio, like a warehouse, and they heard his new album (before it was released). Iggy wanted to do some old stuff, so they went through all of his stuff and they said it was real good. That's neat though, we've had a chance to meet some of the people who've influenced us. Like Johnny Thunders, Sylvain and Iggy. That's really nice.'

And we thought we'd let Dave have the last word(s) on Teenage Head: 'I think the people who have had any doubts about Teenage Head in the past, I think they should check out the new album. At least give it a shot. I think it's a good one and it is definitely not a bad album. I think this album will get us fans from people who like went (thumbs down hand gesture) in the past. We still feel good and energetic. This has been like a rebirth for us and hopefully the bad omens won't get on us and kill us. As long as we can fight the outer omens and keep our fists up, cause you have to do that in this business. We don't even think of it as a business anymore, this is like a pastime. We used to think of it as a business, but screw that, you start getting too serious and you think "career moves". Now let's get to the music and have some fun, you have a good gig and a bad gig, it doesn't matter. Just rock, that's how we feel now. All these new bands coming out really encouraged me. It means there is hope.'