Livends
"Of Demons" 
(self)

In a moon-stabbed Lone Star cemetery, bony claw-hands thrust upward from shovel-turned soil; it crumbles all around as the fingers writhe and grasp at icy air. 

Four fearsome figures rise.

These growlingly morbid, hyper, helter-skeleton tracks were recorded in 2008 for Hairball 8/Psychobilly US. That label -- sinister sanctuary also to Demented Are Go and the Koffin Kats -- collapsed prior to the Livends disc release. 

So, the band members themselves have now released it. And their maleficent mission thus continues...


Recommended "We Are the Night," "Faces Of Death," "When Ghouls Come Seeking," "At Dawn They Rise," "Nightriders," "Night Of the Bats," "Murder At High Moon"

Video "We Are the Night"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h6d4us2fHE

https://www.facebook.com/Livends-Official-197088293642504/about/?entry_point=page_nav_about_item&tab=page_info
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/livends4
https://livendstx.bandcamp.com/releases

Johnny Legend
"I Itch" (Bluelight)

Tales of elective hardships and obstreporous sub-cultural postures, intoned against ominous and stormy crack-up zone rockabilly, are expected (and eminently dug) from an icon whose thunder road untraveled included storied stops in such underground scenes as horror films, pro-wrestling, porn, and, of course, rock and roll. (Indeed, Legend's work at Ronnie Weiser's 70s/80s Rollin' Rock deserves particular recognition. Are you hep to it?) Top accolade this time belongs to Legend's dramatic revivication of the haunting, folk-heroic theme from 1963 Disney miniseries "The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh." And I'd thought I was alone in remembering it.

Recommended "Scarecrow," "I Itch (Like a Sonuvabitch) "I'm Loaded," "Mexican Love," "My Baby Ditched Me," "3-D Daddy"

Video "Scarecrow" 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxg3NuYmd0o

http://www.rockabillyhall.com/johnnylegend1.html
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/johnnylegend

The Quakes
"Live By the Sword" 
(Paul Roman/Orrex)

Characteristic of Paul Roman's adroit songcraft, forbidding tension lurks in ripped flashes, its sinister eyes slitted. But more often, buoyant, head-aloft optimism speed-marches on inexorable mission. Also characteristically, the Quakes throw out some of the brawniest and most insistent rockabilly on offer. Making it all the more arrestingly piquant is natural fellowship of psycho, punk, and new wave manners. I see the gauging arrow has spun off of the Cool Meter.

Recommended "Silent Type," "Under the Radar," "Fuck You"

Video "Fuck You" 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4bcIvFsdRA

http://thequakes.com/
https://www.facebook.com/TheQuakes/?fref=ts
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/thequakes
https://itunes.apple.com/fm/artist/the-quakes/id77857803
https://www.amazon.com/Live-By-The-Sword-Mini-CD/dp/B01DODCYGM/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1471000112&sr=1-1&keywords=the+quakes+live+by+the+sword

Igor and the Red Elvises
"Bacon" 
(Shooba Dooba Records)

Those smart enough to buy this will find themselves in a kaleidoscopic technicolor ticker tape-showered bacchanalian scene where rock and roll, funk, polka, surf, reggae, disco, and folk clap hands, throw back laughing heads, and jitter bop into hysterical fracture. Equal dollops cleverness and roll-about hilarity. A distinctive Eastern European vibe informs each dance step through an uproarious exercise literally unlike any other, though, at moments, redolent of antecedent popular cultural muses.


Recommended "Smell the Bacon," "Best Looking Girl," "Everybody Polka," "Tika Song," "Beer, Babes, and BBQ," "Monster From Mars"

Video: "Bacon" (live) 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9sD4kLh7ic&list=PLOPIcKRiTMqUD4g6ZXxd8a0mjD7XAb4jC&index=6

http://www.redelvises.com/
https://www.facebook.com/igorandredelvises/
https://www.amazon.com/Bacon-Igor-Red-Elvises/dp/B00LX668BU

Sandbox Bullies
"Cadillac Smile" (Loaded Bomb Records)

Read through six rawboned arrangements, jaw-jutted rockabilly detonates in all directions, knocking flat moonage malcontents as if they were pomaded tenpins elated at the full-bore aggression.

Recommended "Cadillac Smile," "Gimme," "Train"

Video "Cadillac Smile"
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-O3Zer-aB8

https://www.facebook.com/SANDBOXBULLIESsince1998/
http://loadedbombrecords.com/sandbox-bullies
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/sandboxbullies12

Kenyon Lockry

"Family Man" (self)

An easygoing buddy you didn't know you had has got a CD out. With gentlemanly, sunbeam-strobed home-folk bounce, Kenyon shares his world and the cherished ones populating it. An unhurried, loose-limbed family album of universal import.

Recommended "Ramblin'," "We Got a Good Thing," "Finger Lickin' Good Cookin'"," "Minutes Pass," "Lil' Kenyon," "Sweet Lil' Nora June," "Let Your Worries Blow Away In the Wind"

Video "Ramblin'" 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6OI6k-hyfw

http://www.kenyonlockry.com/

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/kenyonlockry2

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/family-man/id1080481924

Dex Romweber
"Carrboro" (Bloodshot)

All about in Dex's works float ghosts lugubrious, stricken, and, at sudden moments, jaunty and piano-rolling. His is a booming voice summoning desperately contemplative, assertive flawed humanity. All of which strides and soars in confident confederation with authoritative guitar appropriately echoing into greater grasp.

Recommended "Nightride," "Taking My Baby Away," "Smile," "Midnight At Vic's," "Trouble of the World," "I Don't Know"

Video "Trouble of the World" 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzMgVViLeuA
https://www.facebook.com/dex.romweber?fref=ts
https://www.bloodshotrecords.com/album/carrboro

The Meteors
"The Power of Three" (Mutant Rock)

It was never seriously disputed. "Only the Meteors Are Pure Psychobilly." Contumelious. Brutal. Supremely indifferent to opprobrium. They are at smirking, stomping ease being malignant. And just as they were the primeval sinister brute creations, so too will they always be the only ones indispensible. 

Recommended "Rockin' At the House of Strange," "Psycho," "Do the Blood Feast Twist," "On the Devil's side," "The Curse of the Hunger For Crawling Things," "Look Behind You," "The New Primitives," "We Will Rise"

Video "We Will Rise" (taster) 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seEiFR3KZLw

http://yendor71.com/
https://www.facebook.com/themeteorsofficial/
http://www.shop.outofvogue.de/mutant-rock-records/

13 Cats
"In the Beginning, Vol. 1 & 2" 
(13 Cats/Revel Yell)

A felicitously aberrant rascal mission whose storied big beat-ministers hailed from glory-scribed walks the Rockats, Stray Cats, and Polecats, 13 Cats may have been just too cool for this world; their flame burned briefly, but oh, so brightly. Danny B. Harvey, Tim Polecat, Smutty Smith, and Slim Jim Phantom crafted stunningly novel admixtures of literate, fantastic, scarlet lyricism and burly roots musics jetted up into tomorrow. They rocked headfirst into a tilted and technicolored taboo delirium dear to maddened cobblestone acolytes. And, though they ultimately went different ways, and discovered fresh joys, we have this stormy portrait of the momentary wonder that was.

Recommended "Flesh For Andy Warhol" (demo), "Hell Bop" (live radio broadcast), "Teddy Boy Kung Fu Weapon" (1996 debut show), "Chanting For Cadillacs" (demo), "Rockaholic Baby," "Snap, Crackle, and Hiss" (1996 debut show)

Live in Vegas video 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWQbMggzEXs

https://www.facebook.com/the13Cats/home
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/in-the-beginning-vol.-1-2/id1141229941
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/13cats22