We at Side Salad are extremely proud to be presenting a truly landmark album for 2006, "Coming Clean" by Gary Lucas & Gods And Monsters.

It is very rare that an artist produces their freshest and most vital work 25 years into their career, but with "Coming Clean" Gary Lucas has done just that. And not only has he produced the album of his career, he has formed a truly incredible band of legendary musicians wielding staggering power as one, "mind-blowing" (Time Out) unit.

Alongside Gary, this latest and ultimate incarnation of Gods And Monsters features the awesome talents of BILLY FICCA (Television), ERNIE BROOKS (The Modern Lovers), JERRY HARRISON (Talking Heads) (producer of the album's title track), JONATHAN KANE (Swans) & JASON CANDLER (Hungry March Band), all playing at their very best to create a sound that can move and shape like no other around.

And whilst that would be enough for most mere mortals, Gary & the Gods have added collaborations with such rock pioneers as DAVID JOHANSEN (New York Dolls) hitting his very best form on the "monstrous, horn-powered, rythm-and-blues workout" (Mojo) "One Man's Meat". The incomparable ALABAMA 3 perform a unique national steel guitar version of their acclaimed Soprano's theme song "Woke Up This Morning". Ex-Stinky Toy, Elli Medeiros, slides like a lynx around Gary's fluid guitar lines on the fantastic "Skin Diving".

Whilst being well known as the protege guitarist of Captain Beefheart's last great Magic Band and songwriting partner/guitarist of Jeff Buckley for the equisite "Grace" album (Mojo #1 album of modern times), Gary has also produced a solo back catalogue as diverse as any in recent musical history. From 1991/2's original recording with Gods and Monsters (featuring a young Buckley as lead vocalist), through live solo undubbed guitar film soundtracks, a wildly successful album of traditional Cantonese Music and collaborations with the likes of DJ Spooky, Nick Cave, Patti Smith, Lou Reed, John Cale, Chris Cornell and even a young Vin Diesel when he was no more than a lowly NY rapper.

 

It is testament to his pure mercurial talent and voracious appetite for the new and unique that no-one could ever pin him down, and yet Gary knew he needed a bold and definite statement to show the world how powerful he had become whilst away from their prying eyes (like the beast that grows in the basement).

 

Over five years Gary assembled songs that were the best he'd ever written and musicians capable of giving those songs the kicking they needed. The result is an album with enormous scope and ambition. From the uniquely brilliant "Fata Morgana", via. surely the most powerful rendering of Bernard Herrmann's theme from "Psycho" ever heard, through tender and magical acoustic numbers like "Evangeline" and "Follow", the fantastic title track (produced by Jerry Harrison), a live solo guitar (no overdubs!) version of "Autobahn" by Kraftwerk (this version recently voted among The Wire's '100 greatest cover versions of all time' poll), the 21st century binary blues: "Under My Wing", and of course the DAVID JOHANSEN tour-de-force "One Man's Meat", surely his best performance since the days of the Dolls.