Videos from Purgatory : Mother's Finest - Hard Rock Lover/Like a Negro

Mother's Finest has been Rocking The shit since the 1976, and have managed to keep it going for over 30 years so far. Although they can hardly get arrested for anything besides "Rocking While Black" in America, they've become a huge - I mean HUGE - band in Europe and England and they haven't Stopped Rocking' Yet. This 2003 performance from a German TV Show, featuring "Hard Rock Lover" and "Niggaz Groove/Like A Negro" makes that point very clear.



Like a lot of other Black Musicians, they've faced pressure to do a "Straight" R&B and in 1989 actually gave into the pressure to produce "If Looks Could Kill" , which essentially went Plywood. They responded to that with a blazing Hard Rock Record that would make Ozzy Blush called "Black Radio Won't Play this Record" which includes the original version of "Like a Negro". I actually managed to catch a copy of this the one time - and I do meant ONE TIME because I watched every week - that the video was shown on Head Bangers ball on MTV. I sent a copy of to DuG Pinnick of King's X because the guitarist was wearing a "Faith Hope Love" King's X T-shirt, just like the one Hal Sparks wears all the time. Amazingly, on their next record they had a song that went "Huh!" on the downbeat too - but Dug always denied that it was inspired by the MF Video I sent.

I've seen MF Live twice, the first time was at the Palace in Hollywood - across from the Capital Records Building (The Label that made them do the Lame R&B Album), at one point Jean Kennedy (Co-Lead Singer with her Husband Glenn Murdock) actually put down her Mic at one point and managed to Sing Over The Band and still be heard - her voice is THAT powerful. I managed to meet them, and Angelo Moore (Of Fishbone - who hosted the show) backstage after the gig.

The Second Live MF show I saw was at the Coconut Teaser during their "Black Radio" tour with a Lineup that included the legendary Spacey T (Sound Barrier/Fishbone/Year of the Dragon) on Guitar. That was a Show I'll NEVER Forget, they Rocked the SHIT outta that place. and I'd seen a lot of bands at the Teaser before it was eventually shutdown - the only band that came close to MF that night was Total Eclipse (which featured 2 members from Sound Barrier - Bernie and Dave - and 2 from The Bus Boys - Victor and Andre). TE played like a Machine they were so tight - my friend (bassist/multi-instrumentalist) Les July used to joke "Is It Memorex"? - it sounded that good.

Legend has it that when the Teaser used to be called the Starwood in the 70'[s it was the club where Gene Simmon's originally discovered Van Halen, it's also the place whose former owner had been robbed of a bunch of drugs aided and abetted by none other than Porn Star John Holmes. (A creepy scene similar to this real event was included in the Film "Boogie Nights") Lots of History in that part of Hollywood.

Vyan