De La Rocka

"The Vampire"   single

(Self-issued)

The dapper ebony attire sported in accompanying video by six-string savage Panu De La Rocka and volatile affilates - including voice-of-menace Dax Dragster - is bitingly apt, given the scarifying nature of the minstrelsy revealed. Darkness from the nethermost zone infuses ghastly proclaimings, whilst direful passages rocket in tower block ear-shatter.

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The Shake Bombs

Originals!!!   digital album

(Self-issued)

The three sporting chrome-finned coolness, in 10 compiled razorings, evidently have zero regard for studio handstand trickery. And that's a very good feature. Eschewing audio counterfeiting leaves the roadway clear for rubbery tread scars, ones that mean nitro-powered Neo-Rockabilly's on the highway market for blond, brunette, and scarlet-tressed hitchhike dolls.

Recommended: "Baby, Put Your Coffee On," "My Big Foot Gal," "Tempe Town Blues," "Saturday Sale at the Goodwill Store," "New '35," "Pretty Baby Blue," "Smoking Hot Body"

Videos: "Baby, Put Your Coffee On"   "New '35"   "Pretty Baby Blue" (live)

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Joe Bombast

"Not Wild Enough"   single

(Martone)

Municipal pencil jockeys may know him as Joe Martin, but Bombast is the descriptor preferred 'round these streets. To hear the one-cat-band let loose with febrile hoots and off-rocker hollers, you'd suspect the ghost of a legendary, tongue-tied hiccuper must've descended and inhabited. But Joe's plainly more intent on swinging like a gate in bash-down Rockabilly gusto, than seeking ghost-doctors' prognoses. Which is so much to the better, for us. 

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The Sensational Second Cousins

Pepper and Salt   digital and limited 10" vinyl

(Topsy Turvy Records)

Ravin' Jerk beats stuffing out of every drumhead in the house, as he and guitar throttler Hectic Henri swerve exultantly through rootsy landscapes whose soil is rich with Punk dynamism. Just when it seems probable that someone spiked Henri's mystery liquor with some experimental substance - given his eyes-popping vocal catwheels - the pair close the platter with slow-dance decorum of such refinement, chaperones return to their seats.

Recommended: "Pepper and Salt," "She's a Witch," "Friends with Benefits," "Just a Quickie," "You Only Live Once"

Videos: "Pepper and Salt" (live)   "Friends with Benefits"   "You Only Live Once"

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Ronald / Fréquence Humaine

Said elsewhere to be reworking of a 1978 French novelty effort, the cut at hand burns past famed askew Tower with sparks shooting. Makes case that no tension encumbers relationship betwixt cranial-plumaged chord-uppercuts and courtliness. 

Video: "Je Suis en Gentil Punk"

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Otoboke Beaver

These kittens have claws, and they don't hesitate using 'em to dispense what initially seems Punk shambolism. Upon additional scrutiny, though, one digs that while the Punk part is legit, clever construction is also afoot. 

Video: "I Don't Need to Be in Your Strike Zone"

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Colin Winski 1956 - 2007 

Rebellion and the unheard grail

"A very special and fabled musical crossroad exists in America," I wrote in a Blue Suede News article, while Colin still breathed. "One that would defy cartographers' attempts at location. 'Rockabilly,' reads the signpost. 

"Countless hopefuls journey in search of it, and some even produce wondrous works that capture its lightning between grooves. But few call it home. Colin Winski lives at that rural intersection."

I recall his self-reflection: "Throughout my life, as long as I could get up onstage and put on a wild, sweat-drenched show and was appreciated for it, then yes, I felt redeemed. Sort of like a baptism of sweat and a little of Janov's primal scream therapy." 

The serpentine-hipped L.A. shouter didn't so much replicate fires that preceded, as vent a blaze independently within. Born of Ronny Weiser's legendary indie Rollin' Rock, in an otherwise ordinary, Van Nuys garage, he leapt to the fore of 1970s/1980s Neo-Rockabilly voices. 

I first spoke with Colin in 2005, for that Blue Suede News piece. Following the article's publication, he and I maintained our telephone connection. He was both witty and clever. I'm proud to say we were friends.

He had recorded several 1970s singles for Rollin' Rock, and later performed globally as a member of Ray Campi's Rockabilly Rebels. He cut two albums with Ray, and also released solo discs. Wholly apropros Rockabilly Hall of Fame formal acknowledgement came to him in the 1990s.

Three solo albums captured his specialness.

1980's Rock Therapy (Takoma) loosed upon unsuspecting ears a wildman whose hiccuping, sonorous entreaties and dizzying-height shouts painted dangerous Neo-Rockabilly of mercurial quintessence. 

Erstwhile Ray Campi bandmate Jerry Sikorski, his helter-skelter guitar wielded as incising banderilla, drove deeply and savagely into each unfolding arrangement. Notably, Colin here covered the Burnette Trio's "Rock Therapy," which was to become his signature selection.

Follow-up disc Helldorado (Fury) didn't appear until 1993. Colin had by that time relocated to Arizona and wrestled with demons familiar to aspiring creative souls: self-doubt, substance reliance, and a vocation-uncertainty sword of Damocles whose sinister shadow had already crossed his dirty-blond pompadour.

None of those negatives, though, dimmed Helldorado. Once again within Rock'n'Roll's mad clutch, Colin was restored. Shimmering with delirious ferment, he delivered up a testimony so reckless and bold as to render all about in spectacular wonderment. 

And that leaves the last Colin Winski solo recording. It is, at the moment of this writing, doubtful most will ever hear the unmarketed Rockin' at the Calderon. 

Among its perhaps forever-secret documents are mournful hillbilly laments, jumping and laughing bop, even songs leaving orthodox Rockabilly in swirling, take-off exhaust as they zoom upward.

 

I was fortunate enough to have been sent a cassette dub by the man himself. 

Colin and I had agreed, earlier in what turned out to be his last year, to make efforts at securing label interest. I wrote promo copy that drew on vintage Lucky Strike advertising:

TAKE THE COLIN WINSKI CHALLENGE:

Does your Rockabilly sound different lately? Not as satisfying or thrilling as before?

Make the move smart cats and chicks do! Switch to Colin Winski! Colin blends the rich, good-time hillbilly and bluesy flavors you
crave with electrifying additive Psychobilly!

So, take the challenge! You'll agree:

CW/MFR -- COLIN WINSKI MEANS FINE ROCKABILLY!


We made a few tries, focusing on US and UK independent labels that catered to his style's market. Sadly, though, we found no interest. 

Colin just stopped trying. He took his own life.

The world may never hear Rockin' at the Calderon.