May 2008 Bob Reuter/ Bob's Scratchy Records

KDHX--FM St. Louis Mo.

The Penetrators...."Live !"...."Bad Woman"

We live in an age where seemingly everyone's a tattooed bad ass - any young
professional with a music room, black leather jacket and a pair of Ray Bans
fancies themselves a hipster - I dont suffer fools gladly and there's no
end to the fools claiming to play rock and roll - so when I heard that these
two aging dirt bags were trotting out the near legendary Penetrators one more
time I knew we were gonna be alright. See there's a difference here -
These boys, Eliot "Spike Kagen and Jack "Penetrator" Lipton
made a commitment to each other a long time ago now - a commitment that had
already been in place when I met them some twenty eight years ago in Syracuse
New York, and with every year that passed and every time they looked around at
what was now passing for the real thing, that commitment only grew stronger.

The Penetrators have never been critic's darlings, the cool kids never
congregated at dive bars like Squires in the "Salt City" when the
boys cranked it up - Interview Magazine has yet to bring the boys in for a
sit-down - In fact this mean old dumb cluck world, this OC and Gossip Girl
addled culture hardly ever rewards what dont glisten smoothly right up there on
the surface and that's never been the Penetrator's meat anyway.

What I heard when I dropped the needle (though you can secure your own digital
compact disk) on this platter is two grown men who are still hungry - much
hungrier than they were as young boys in fact - what I hear now is a man size
hunger. The geeky, gawky young boy's "being bad" stuff is gone -
This is the stuff of hungry grown men! Sure they've brought in some
re-enforcements - most notably upstate musical legend Mark Doyle on lead guitar
to help'em flesh the whole thing out, but the real joy here is the fact that
they finally arrived where they wanted to be! This flame throwing collection of
long time garage gems (some more obvious than others) are all laid down in such
a way that no matter what you have come to except, there's gonna be
something new here to feed you - This is what Rock and Roll was always supposed
to be - this is an art form that has sustained a certain bottom dwelling element
of our society since before the first black and white tv sets were ever plugged
in - and aint that a joy to hear, here in the first decade of an already beat
to hell century? Brothers and Sisters I offer you a testimonial - the
Penetrators LIVE!

- Robert Reuter