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Music by Aubrey McInnis THE VULTURES with 66 Breakout and The New 1-2 September 23 Night Gallery First take The Mullens’s axe-wielding Matt Mayo and put him in a bar watching a Pretty Things show with guitarist Heath Heemsbergen of Estrus Records' all-stars, The Fells. Then get those two collaborating with a thunderous rhythm section consisting of Matt "Sky" Remple (ex-The Statics) on bass and Matt "Mickey Finch" Rendon (ex-Resonars) on drums. Give ’em all a chance to growl into a microphone and you've got a drool-inducing new rock band ready to pick up exactly where they left off with previous projects – off your seat and shakin' what your mama gave ya. Known as The Vultures, the saucy Seattle quartet has quickened the pulse of garage rock fans since word of mouth got around about their collaboration. With only one release under their belt, The Vultures are determinedly high-octane rock fuelled by teenage daydreams with a soundtrack which starts with The Beatles, Kinks and Rolling Stones and concludes with The Real Kids, The Dictators, The Boys, old country and blues. And that's just the beginning, according to Matt Mayo. "There's just a whole world out there. You know if you think you've heard it all, you haven't. I'm sitting in this house with my bandmate (one of the other two Matts) upstairs – he's got twice as many records as I've got. Everybody in this band, if I could sum it up, is in it for the music. Y'know, we all are music fans ourselves and we're just trying to let that show as much as possible by coming up with a fun set. "I like feeling and soul behind music, and I feel that a lot of the music that's being given to people today just doesn't have that. I would rather hear music that I feel is influenced by a lot more than music that's influenced by what's come out since 1988 or ’90. Commercial music that's put out today, it all sounds like a television commercial. There was a time when a singer, an artist or a band could release a 45 rpm, have somebody actually play that record on the radio and have it mean something to some people, and bam, the band takes off," he says. "I know that there's about a zero per cent chance of The Vultures or a Mullens song being played on a regular radio format. I mean, we get played on independent or specified shows on college radio, but even it seems on college radio, those types of shows are getting taken out – I don't know why." In the meantime, when The Vultures arrive in Texas to play a show, Matt will be hooking up with one of his other bandmates, The Mullens's frontman Tim Stile, to record more material. While Matt has been in Seattle, Tim has been putting the finishing touches on the latest Mullens Get Hip paralyzer, tentatively titled Tough To Tell. Until then, Matt will be working with his touring band to keep the magic of rockin' and a rollin' alive and well. "Sometimes, I feel that that's why people like us are doing this is to try and keep that alive, so y'know, if you put out a record and it doesn't do anything now, maybe it influences somebody else to play rock and roll 15 years down the line. Then, I think there's a definite magic to that."

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