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Jaded Sun
- Stu Gibson
The
Cripple Creek Fairies
So the band hails from Calgary, Alberta, which is one of the western Canadian provinces. I lived there for a few years when I was a kid. Calgary is known for its annual Stampede, which involves a lot of cowboys competing in cowboy competitions: hog-tying, bronco-riding, baked bean-eating, that sort of thing. The Stampede is a big deal. But I digress again... In case you haven't figured it out, these digressions are really just my way of procrastinating: I played this record a bunch of times because it didn't immediately suck me in, and even after the repeated listenings, it still hasn't really sucked me in. Nice heavy basslines, some wailing guitar solos, and pleasantly-whiny vocals that just don't add up to a lot of excitement, for some reason. But I guess that's just the way it goes, sometimes. Ah well... -Holly
The Lurkers ‘Come and reminisce if you think you’re old enough’
- Stu Gibson
The Eruptors
Post Script: The new album apparently has a sci-fi war-of-the-worlds theme. You should buy it anyway. -Holly
The Dickies ‘When we wrote this song the band Rancid still went by the name The Clash’ Long-running L.A. punk puppeteers The Dickies here caught live pleasuring the punks of Portsmouth (hilariously referred to as Portland, Oregon) in summer 2002 aptly featuring The Toy Dolls Michael ‘Olly’ Algar (introduced as John Entwistle), took their cues from the zany end of the punk colander like The Damned and The Ramones, where entertainment poked the eye of any storm thrown at it and any anarchy is a result of revelry not political sloganeering. Underneath the nightmare Beach Boys apparel and antics and undoubted influence on bum-fluff-lite like The Offspring and Green Day, lie some incredibly well crafted songs, only bolstered by being beguilingly bonkers, in turn bettered by being brayed by Leonard Graves Phillips’ Jello Biafra vs Feargal Sharkey in Celebrity Deathmatch. This set serves as a soiled live album, sounding like the mixing desk was slap bang in the middle of the mosh, but also as an introduction, featuring as it does songs from all stages of their chequered, striped, ripped and luminous-pant past, including their penchant for indulging in ludicrously fast covers of cowering classics (here Paranoid, Nights In White Satin with Toy Dolls Nellie The Elephant along for the stomp, along with ,of course, Banana Split) from 1979’s Manny Moe And Jack to the then current Howdy Doody In The Wood Shed. A flawed, well-gnawed and glorious artefact for the curious to be converted to. -Stu Gibson
TV Smith And The Bored
Teenagers
- Stu Gibson
Eater
-Stu Gibson
Thee Merry Widows
- Stu Gibson |
The Scourge Of River
City
- Stu Gibson
Les Savy Fav
- Stu Gibson
Voodoo
Devils
- Stu Gibson
Hell’s Bent On Rockin’:
A History Of Psychobilly
- Stu Gibson
Dead Child
- Stu Gibson
Chop Suicide ‘I can flip inside out and fuck myself…’
- Stu Gibson
Cenobites
The bonus 16-track sampler shows that the long-established Dutch Drunkabilly label have the name it has, collecting up some great rawkin’ from the refined (relatively) brass-neck brawn of Hot Boogie Chillun, the fish-fry of country, swing n’ jump-blues jivin’ outta Runnin’ Wild and The Caravans’ pop 1-2-3 (in this case Blink 182 it seems, on the awesome Psychobilly Popstar) to the grimace n’ grind of The Gecko Brothers and Hellsonics, the Creedence knuckle-crack and Groovies gumbo of The Baboons and Fifty Foot Combo to original Meteors member Nigel Lewis. Oh and those cranked-up Cenobites. -Stu Gibson |
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This further crunk of classic rawk excavated from Ireland’s
increasingly reinvigorated tradition of boisterous blues snaps at, if not
through, the heels of Glyder’s trip through Thin Lizzy’s
shires and The Answer’s cliché clawing from Led Zep. A
bluesier and, paradoxically, slightly more individual effort, for all the
references you can sift through, be it Free, Humble Pie and
even Kingdom Come. Sure, there’s bluster n’ fluff a plenty but they
do the AC/DC kinda cramp kinda well on Breaking Through,
thankyou, and Hey You, Faces bar-ward shuffle to be served
by the Quireboys on Can’t Stop but glossy grunge of He
Knows Home and ball-shrivelling ballad Crave mire it in
meandering MOR. But ‘tis undoubted commercial clout that sees it clogged
by singles that almost write their own video scripts that should see them
cemented in success, especially stateside and on fields of Euro festivals.
The dudes from The
Cripple Creek Fairies like to wear Snoopy vs. The Red Baron-type old
aviator hats and glasses, which I think is kind of cool. Must get kind of
hot onstage, although not as hot as a teddy bear costume, or one of those
Gwar outfits, or even KISS makeup, I guess. For shtick, it's pretty good,
and I'm not usually a fan of the gimmick. But I digress...
Showing that old punks don’t always just fester, they can
often remain footloose and fertile, The Lurkers, still led by original
bassist Arturo Bassick, are back with their classic mix of beer-brewed
humour, straight-forward social commentary and sing-a-long-a-sadness,
abuse, wasted lives and chances. The pertinent, pointed, tongue-in-cheek
yet slightly bitter twist of Come And Reminisce is a worthwhile
attack on punks, or punters in general really, who just stick to what they
know. On a slightly similar theme Why You So Happy To Give Your Mind
Away is a hilarious but oh so true slander of seeing a mate fall under
the thumb, Sick Transit a lament to their late van, Little Ole
Wine Drinker links them with their early days and while not as good as
the version with The Boys’ John Plain isn’t a nostalgia trip to
glory days but a marker that they’re still going strong. Undervalued in
their homeland if a recent gig in 
Forever the
procrastinator, this review finds me a tad late, as the UK's The Eruptors
have already released their new album, "Bad Time To Be Having A Good
Time," from which this cd of demos was just a wee taste. But no
matter--this wicked-fun four-song sampler is cranked-up punk-edged rock
that'll make you smile. And bang your head. I like to kind of whip my hair
around. "Cannibal Holocaust" is fantastic, all crashing cymbals and
searing gee-tars that actually do remind me, strangely, of the movie of
the same name, although I can't really explain how. The "oh oh oh way oh
way oh" chorus of "Go Faster!" is particularly great. "Skate Fast! Die
Hard!" has been around for awhile, as has instrumental "Whoregazm": both
make their always welcome appearance here. These songs make me want to
drink. And dance. And if you know me at all, you know that drinking and
dancing are two of my favourite things. If the demos are any indicator,
and I have no reason to believe they aren't, we should all be skedaddling
over to the local record store to pick up the full-length, which came out
March 3rd. So go already!
Accompanying last year’s album of the same name, here’s the
DVD to cross many a punk aficionado’s path. And a merry yet noteworthy
jamboree it is. With Spaniards Los Quattros backing him, Mr TV
Smith runs through one of the all time classics of its’, or any era, with
all the errors, exuberance and eloquence of a real live proper rock’n’roll
show. While long overshadowed by the top three of The Clash,
Pistols and The Damned through spin, major label exposure and /
or relative commercial success and hackneyed documentaries, The Adverts
debut album is simply fucking astonishing, a tumultuous torrent of dark
scabrous songs with heroic galvanising choruses that remain truly unique,
challenging and an authentic roar of unrepentant, articulate rage. Beneath
punk’s supposed cold, stale nihilistic stare was, and still sturdily is,
this poetic and passionate man, penning scathing odes and celebratory
laments whether the ’77 anthem One Chord Wonders or solo track
Good Times Are Back and the solo live footage on the bonus features.
On stage at this gig, he’s his usual tempestuous self, full of vibrant ire
and raw rapture. Definitely not any nostalgia or anarcho-accountancy
form-filling or flag-waving, if anything is recreated it’s the potent
urgency sorely missing in too much of today’s tepid punk waters. 
Long known, but largely unheard away from anarchy
archivists, as ‘that teenage punk band’, that ranks sniffing n’ snivelling
somewhere around The Cortinas and Chelsea’s crotches, Eater
were pounced on and patronised but here prove that there was more to their
authentic tales of teen-angst than mere novelty. Making The Clash’s
debut seem bombastic in the production stakes, though pleasingly for
punk-rock bonus points, mixed on the Pistols studio time, guitars
slither in the background, sometimes barely audible but providing an
atmospheric sci-fi effect that would be positively goth sleek with pedals
galore to stomp on, the bass bumbles like it’s had it’s shoelaces tied
together and stood up after passing out from three to many cans of white
cider, and wannabe vicious punk missives like Get Raped and gauche
covers of Bowie and Lou Reed should go the way of
safety-pins as facial adornments. But what it does have in its classroom
snook-cocking snotstrils is a clutch of singles – mainly on The
Singles Plus bonus album – and other angry and anguished songs
spat with an affecting stiff-fingered scowl not too many frets and Friday
night feints away from The Lurkers, however scratchily, skeletal
and quaintly charming. But in our sanitised yet insane world where we have
teen bands that we know only too well and inadvertently hear far too much
from, these kids were, and sorta still are, aright. 
Second album from San Fran horror-flick ‘billy chicks with
possibly more gore this time ‘round to fuel their ecstatically unethical
but eco-friendly blood-pumps and bikes powered on the final racing pulses
of dead, but not dropped, beats everywhere. The ferocious and feral sound
could chafe at the primped heels of The Horrorpops, though
without the strident ceiling-collapsing song-craft of them or similar
femme fang-barers The Creepshow and Mad Marge and the
Stonecutters. Instead they appear all of a sudden swept up in the
spaghetti western sandstorms trailing wisps of blood that reverberate
around the barrio’s they just cleaved in your simpering soul, while
surfing through garages and burlesque boudoirs with equal fervour. It sure
ain’t pretty but stand up to them, let’s see what hell these chopper gurls
unfurl when really fucking riled. 
Despite a name suggesting a scurrying force of satanic
psycho’s with wrestling masks are gonna invade your speakers and ransack
your rawksack and rumba with your wife while dressed in the latest fashion
from the thrift store that acts as a fence for thieves who make a living
filching from film sets and TV studio’s make-up departments for dis, or
perhaps over -used horror outfits, this Scourge are a surprising
proposition, showing that clattering double-bass propelled by the coxswain
from Satan’s yacht taking new diabolical disciples to summer camp on
Hell’s version of The Hamptons dancing with a tattooed arm returning
those gluttonous ‘billy riffs to slinky splendour with the old tremolo
treatment isn’t just the property of psychobilly. Melding this to the
hardcore antics of Murder City Devils, The Bronx (No
Romance), even Gallows on Shipwrecked and effectively
bleak wanders around barren borderlands (Heart’s Horizon,
Following Sea) mean that while not over-burdeningly brilliant they’ve
put a new slant on both the hardcore and psychobilly sounds. 
Nice to see these 
By its very nature as a mutation of Rockabilly, punk and
beer-ligerent Ted mentality Psychobilly can seem caged in a corner it
created, forever content to charge about its bricked-up b-movie basement,
churned out like Hammer or Roger Corman films. However, it
does remain largely ageless, perhaps due to its cannibalistic bent, and
when it be as good as these French fear-farmers get several times on debut
More! then its eternal vitality when performed with such indecent
correctness shows why it’s growing ever stronger since its immediate
post-punk genesis. Although The Meteors DNA is evident like
Fenech’s best the ‘Devils hammer nails into the wrists of some wanton
wrongdoings. Frazzled speed-surfing guitars strafe clutch-cranking Link
Wray / Johnny Thunders garage savagery on Paranoia,
spooky organ-grinding jig of Monster, bestialize the Batman
theme tune on Voodoo Dust and wrestle with the devil for control of
the wheel on Them’s Baby Please Don’t Go. Tastiest throats
go to the fog-rolling dance-floor thrash of Hellbop that stakes the
Sun Sound to the darkest pits around, as the slide and harmonica-led
Outlaw Man has you noose-bound in no time. While bats are indeed
released and ghost trains ride again unabated these guys are digging with
bare hands back to braying R’n’B and the cavernous energy of early
Rock’n’Roll, not simply re-treading obvious psychobilly clichés. By
burying the more cartoon, ghoulier-than-thou image, the appeal of these
particular Devils may broaden further. 
A timely tome, given that this so-called ‘genre that dare
not speak its name’ (why? It’s not goth?!) is just past (debatably) the
quarter of a century mark of quite often literally grunting away in the
trenches, and currently riding a colossal quiff-shaped tidal wave of
popularity. ‘Tis an admirable, exhaustive effort too, presenting a case
for this much maligned – though often maliciously malignant – style as
being one of the most open of musical melting pots - basically adding
anything to it’s hot-rodded hyperverse of abandonment from garage trash,
horror and sci-fi b-movies, surf, country and seventies glam…oh and that
thing they call rockabilly, so long as it’s rowdy, perverse and suitably
unsubtle. Though an insider (who else would really write it?),
Brackenridge, without resorting to whitewashing, illuminates the
infamously combustible psycho scene beyond being just a cartoon-ish
stereotype of over-drugged glue-heads, bored Goths, perverts and general
hooligans. Charting the whole subculture’s music and fashion as it fuses
almost every downtrodden underground swamp-dweller together, from scooter
to skater, even incorporating death-metal along the way, the author
disassembles the many disarticulated strands of psychobilly’s now
worldwide spread from its original 
You may know what to expect of a band with such a charming
name, but this isn’t a black metal cauldron of complex finger-fiasco’s but
a chug-a-thon of classic, Satanically inclined metal, more trudging than
traumatising with merciless detachment, taut rather than tortuous. So,
rather than (just) an attention grabbing name it is a calamitous, mountain
moving judder-fuck of aural buggery with Halford screeches aplenty,
marching hordes a humping early thrash or NWOBHM style but with tempo to
sub-Sabbath levels changing at the tearing of a tongue out of cheek
into battle formation, enfilading flanks and flanges with lyrics about
boiling legs, souls stolen at midnight, destruction, holy terror, raping
minds and burning yourself alive atop snub-nosed stealth bomb riffchilada.
It is an appealing sludge from swampsville, however, proffering helpful
advice like Never Bet The Devil Your Head and Hammer Horror scripts
like Screaming Skull, Rattlesnake Chalice, Angel Of The
Odd and Wasp Riot belched out by a voice like Bruce
Dickinson being sacrificed at a witches mass which suggests these guys
are ludicrously and endearingly bonkers or have lost the plot so far in
those thickening riffs they should be sturmed und strang up. OK, so it’s
by members of Slint and others but it’s as fun a frolic in metal’s
fortress towers you may have heard for a good meteor shower.
Following the Red Light Rippers ricochet around the
eternally reaping realms of the R’n’R rag-heap, lead ripster Staci T.
Rat forged this fantastically foxy five-tracker, forcing the best bits
from RLR like those bar-room beauties falling outta their bras. RLR’s
rather restrained track record on, well, record, didn’t outstrip their
outstanding rep, but here with Pantychrist’s Danyell adding
the swoon-causing extra sauce and plenty of it with her lacerating larynx
and flirtatious sass to Staci’s righteous whip-cracking guitar wail they
proceed in an awesomely disordered fashion to wreak havoc in your head,
heart n’ haunch. With the finger-wagging strut of Rockabilly Bitch,
brawlin’ porch-fight Here To Stay and tease-a-trauma fluster-fest
fling of Turn It On, this bratty and snotty stomp could pop flies
across continents and oceans. 
These Rotterdam rascals tout the hardcore punk and metal
end of psychobilly and sound like a savage cross-channel ferry of
hooligans gargling James Hetfield with Stella chasers then
recording this six-track bout of insane gut-fuckery before bar-man
Lemmy can pour the next round. Claiming influences from Motorhead,
The Exploited and Demented Are Go they are one brutal
cataclysm, possibly more than all three put together, at least as much as
all three together in solitary, with bad speed and plenty of mind-fuck
Merrydown, with Discharge totalling the points. That they cover the
Sepultura-influenced Brazilian psycho-squad OS Catalepticos
growls it loud and lewd, and raises hell then taunts it with its own
spit-flecked fandango of funny games.