The It*Men “Greatest Hits”

(Stow House) I’ve been thinking a lot about the recently departed Peppi Marchello, lead singer of the Good Rats, and one of my favorite stories involves him screaming in a towel as a teenager trying to make his voice scratchy and raw so he could get the proper vocal tone for rock ‘n’ roll. The singer for Cleveland rock garagers The It*Men either wore out his mother’s towels or just genuinely lived through the tough stuff, all those sorry stories scraping against his vocal cords. Considering what we know about Cleveland, I bet it’s the latter. I call them ‘rock garage’ and not ‘garage rock’ because these roughnecks are more Ac/DC than Sonics, more Motorhead than Mysterians. But they ain’t slick rockers above the garage, they are budget rock roughnecks singing about handjobs, drugs and whatever “the Bowie Dick Test” is.  This is It*!