ONE MILLION "UNIVERSAL JUVENILES" BREATHE MAX WEBSTER'S DISINHIBITOR TEST

Canada's MAX WEBSTER delivers their "disinhibitor test" album this month. This three piece band and their assorted musical friends, have been under heavy security and rumour all year. The mysteries and magic of MAX WEBSTER's legend and future have been the talk of ROCK from London to Texas to Munich to Winnipeg to Tokyo. This journalist flew into Toronto, staying two months, to gather knowledge of MAX's new disinhibitor test.

Despite the heavy security, Kim Mitchell (lead guitar and vocals for MAX WEBSTER) was engaged by this writer while entering the recording studio. Mr. Mitchell would not divulge or budge. At the same time, Gary McCracken (drums and percussion for MAX WEBSTER) was seen sneaking into the rear door of the recording studio accompanied by another Canadian band named RUSH. Making contact with them was impossible due to the large crowd standing in line around the studio. I attracted the attention of a young lass in the crowd simply because I was wearing my bright yellow "MAXCOT" button and she asked me if I wanted to hear a bootleg tape of a lecture titled "Freaking and Peaking in the 1980's" given by Pye Dubois (writes all the lyrics for MAX WEBSTER). Because of dying batteries and the noisy crowd this is all I heard from the taped lecture: "Rock and roll by nature is imperfect... so what is this joke they call coping... here's our shoulder to put your chips on... muscle poetry at any volume!" More pre-knowledge of MAX WEBSTER's disinhibitor album was gathered from two sources. The first source, a roadie (wishes not to be named) related that Rush had been invited to record live with MAX a tune called "Battle Scar" and that this tune would be on MAX WEBSTER's "UNIVERSAL JUVENILES". The second source of information were the cleaning staff at Phase One Studio's, bribed to hand over all the contents of the studio's waste baskets during the recording session. Here, exactly as is, are some of the contents of those baskets:

  • "steam'em over, no deal and no compromise" (Alex Harvey's father, Glasgow)
  • nous sommes les MAX WEBSTER qui vont plemer l'apaisseur d' la peau.
  • time coder / 48 tracks / sync Max and Rush
  • Pye's ears are sweating
  • April 13th, 1980 (Toledo)***
  • Geddy / second verse, all choruses
  • 3-D glasses and crying towels
  • every so often (to hell with the theories of fads and phases) a musical force slams down it's fist demanding count-downs.
  • drive and desire micro-synthesizer Mitchell's guitar
  • David Greene

After two months of making my presence known to the Maxies they let me hear the disinhibitor test. I was sworn to "partial secrecy". This is my biased reaction.

The feeling that this album is big is the first feeling: the feeling that MAX is big is the second feeling: the third feeling outlasts the first two and that is that something here is being fulfilled... the spirit of the 1980's may be the drive and desire of universal juveniles... the spirit of the 1980's may be the spirit of MAX WEBSTER... even stars stomach's growl!

For lack of better words I will quote directly from MAX: "Slappy rock for them that want to pivot in the "here and now", "a new language", "uninhibited kicking", "a hunger", "MAX WEBSTER burns like the snap of fingers"!




by: Paul Woods
September 1980