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 Some more tasty treats from the deviant delicatessen
that is the Voodoo Rhythm label. Oh yess. Hot on the
heels of Thee Butchers Orchestra late last year -
screeching tyres, scratching paintwork, scuffing up
kerbs and bashing bumpers - comes Hipbone Slim And The
Knee Tremblers with an excellently titled set of
self-proclaimed 'Delinquent Rock'n'Roll' (and all
courtesy of the equally excellently monikered Sir Bald
Diddley). Switchblade sharp and Chevrolet streamlined
this bunch of miscreants and derelicts (featuring
members of Thee Milkshakes and The Kaisers plus Holly Golightly on the bitchy, catty cool as you 'What Do
You Look Like?') regale you with an authentic caboodle
of Rockabilly, Swampy Blues and pure crazed
cinema-chair crushing Rock'n'Roll straight from an
exhaust-fume filled garage in middle England right
while their neighbours go about their daily lives;
bicycling to the shops, walking the dog, and tending
to the weeds in their garden.
But it's early Rock'n'Roll and R'n'B that underpin the
actual chassis of this sleek classic. 'One Way Street'
and 'What Do You Look Like?' have faded tattoo's of Bo
Diddley's 'I Can Tell' and 'Say Man'; 'Pathfinder' has
a rumbling Bo backbeat like a platoon of Chindits
stomping through the jungle; instrumental 'Jostlin' is
a gas-guzzling Link Wray / Sonics stumble through
sticky swamp mud and despite opener 'Blind Eye' almost
stopping to give The Beatles 'Can't Buy Me Love' a
leer, a lift home and an offer of a quick coffee, this
is a rapturous half hour rave-up. Cool, quick and the
perfect soundtrack to a gangster flick, songs to suit
a torture scene, a murder, a car chase, a night in a
club on the scotch 'n' coke. Style 'n' sass a go-go.
Take 'I Fell Off The Wagon' as it revels in the
reeking fumes of a three day binge and extends a rigid
digit to passers-by before waking up with bits of vomit, wine and kebab all over his person ('My friend
said won't you just have one' - know it so well). The
blurry reminisce nightmares and pure evil self-hate
kick in on 'Lonesome and Loathsome' - bringing out a
nice shade of blue that'd have suited Peter Green in
his beatific, balladic heyday. Also from the pit of
despair singing into the ether but it makes him feel
fine anyway is 'Leave Him' - a beautiful Chris
Isaac-style swoon, though without such over the top
hics and gurgles that Mr Isaac would try to pass off
as a natural singing style and not the bubble and hiss
of oxygen escaping a gaping bullet hole in a grunts
gullet.
Elsewhere the vocals are Rockin' with Gene 'n' Eddie
with unbridled ferocity. The pleasing attention to
detail of aficionados is evident in the exquisite
touches of tremelo and ravines of reverb which make
the drum fills crash like calamities, causing your
balance to pitch around with the flow of the music as
you lose your centre of gravity, kinda like a
microscosm of the Earth's magnetic poles shifting. The
powers of RockaBilly, eh?
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