JOHN FELICE & THE LOWDOWNS - Nothing Pretty

JOHN FELICE & THE LOWDOWNS Nothing Pretty  LP/CD  1988 

Don't Be Telling Me / Ain't We Having Fun / I'll Never Sing That Song Again / Not The One / Perfect Love / Nowadaze Kids / Nothing Pretty / Dreams / Don't Make Me Wait / Can't Play It Safe
Produced by Richard W. Harte.

John Felice & The Lowdowns: John Felice: guitar, vocal / Martin Paul Rowland : bass, vocal / Billy Borgioli : guitar, vocal / Pete Taylor : drums.

John Felice will always be best known as the beer-fueled, hot-wired frontman for Boston proto-punks the Real Kids, but that band's work didn't represent the full range of his musical abilities, and in 1987, with the Kids temporarily on the rocks, Felice offered fans another look at himself with his short-lived solo project, John Felice & the Lowdowns. With the Lowdowns, Felice wrote tough but thoughtful songs about broken hearts, busted lives, and the dark side of life in rock & roll, and he put ten of them on wax with the album Nothing Pretty. But for an album that dealt so strongly with lives gone wrong, it was sadly appropriate that the album died before it ever had a chance -- it was released by Ace of Hearts the same day their distributor went bankrupt, which prevented nearly the entire press run from ever reaching stores. It's a shame that it has taken 16 years for the album to finally get a proper release in the United States (thanks to longtime Real Kids boosters Norton Records), but a listen to the disc proves it was worth the wait -- conjuring up a stripped-down ghost of the Rolling Stones with its lean, guitar-based sound (built around the intertwined guitars of Felice and fellow Real Kid Billy Borgioli), "Nothing Pretty" is a superb piece of street-smart, no-frills rock & roll, and Felice has never shone brighter as a songwriter, especially on the bitter junkie's lament "Ain't We Having Fun," the post-breakup kiss-off "Not the One," and the heartbreaking "I'll Never Sing That Song Again," a sad but unsentimental look at a rocker nearing the end of his creative road. In his liner notes for the reissue, Felice says, "I am still more proud of this work than anything I have ever done," and it's not hard to see why -- on "Nothing Pretty", he dug deep into his heart and soul and came up with a minor masterpiece, and while it may have slipped though the cracks before, there's no reason for anyone who cares about smart but hard-edged rock to pass it by this time. Source

Entre Real Kids, Taxi Boys, Primevals, Devotions puis Real Kids à nouveau, voici venir, en 1987, dans la chaotique "carrière"  de John Felice, les Lowdowns ! En fait un album solo de John Felice épaulé par la guitare de Billy Borgioli. Un lp qui reçut de bien mauvaises critiques!

Etait-ce le son ? La noiceur des textes ? Ou l'époque qui commençait à sérieusement merder ?

Il y avait pourtant toujours "...haut perchée, avec juste ce qu’il faut de fêlure, l’incroyable voix de Felice." , comme le disait si bien Monique Sabatier dans le N° 25 de Nineteen,  biblique fanzine des 80's !
Comble de malchance le distributeur de l'historique label Bostonien Ace Of Hearts fit faillite juste avant la sortie prévue de l'album ! New Rose sauvera les meubles et sortira "Nothing Pretty" en France mais les compatriotes de John Felice durent attendre que Norton s'y colle en 2004!

Il va falloir réévaluer ce disque car il contient de grandes chansons: John Felice n'en a jamais écrit une seule mauvaise !

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