Thursday, December 31, 2015

Wreckin' Ball
"Wreckin' Ball" (Tomb disc)


Yes, forbidding passages lurk, stalk, and pounce, fully appropriate to psycho devastations. But they are intriguingly arranged, charged with angry tempest. And then, in the midst of macabre choreography, all drops into place with blood intimacy.

Recommended "Graveyard Sluts," "Shark Attack," "Bloody Waves," "Bonneville," "Zombie Walk," "Too Dumb To Die," "She Never Came Back"



VIDEO "Alien Invasion" (previous) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWnEtPnCg_4

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Jack Scott
"Way To Survive" (Bluelight)


After decades away from the studio, an original rocker returns to show 'em how it's done. And he acquits himself handily. 

Jack's golden-era hits are legend: "Leroy," "My True Love," "Goodbye, Baby," "The Way I Walk," "Burning Bridges." 

In 2015, the easiness with which he unspools the spring-heeled bop - some moments flash old-school hillbilly spark, others pull up for sonorous, effectively crooned articulations -- evince a realness that is both magnetic and assuringly comfortable.

Indeed, so easy does he make such muscular good-time rockin' seem, you'd nearly think it possible for anyone. Of course, it is not -- it is beyond most. 

But that illusion is the mark of genuine giants like Jack Scott.

Recommended "Wiggle On Out," "Way To Survive," "Hillbilly Fever," "I Just Came Home To Count the Memories," "Tennessee Saturday Night," "You Don't Know What You've Got"




Tuesday, December 29, 2015

The Limit Club
"Wild Four EP" (Phantom Cat Records)


As on 2011 full-length "This is Cutthroat Business," the goth-menace club members break raucous, charging psychobilly wide open. Kaleidoscopic arrangements, incorporating diverse rhythms and buoyant horns, set this on its own. 

Recommended "When You Burn (You're Gonna Scream)," "Laugh Track"



VIDEO "When You Burn (You're Gonna Scream" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbXH26zC_rw


Sunday, December 27, 2015

The Roadtrash Band
"The Roadtrash Band" (self)


10 surly, rambunctious, and distorted guitars-on-high tracks. Vermont's self-billed 'Finest Cowpunk and Thunderboogie Specialists' admirably transfer the rock and roll mayhem of their barroom bash-downs to disc perpetuity. In the mold of heavy influences like the Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Social Distortion, and Johnny Cash, but with enough unique attitude to carve their own niche.

Recommended "DFF," "The Business End," "Don't Blame the Hearse," "Lonesome, Ornery, and Mean," "Mr. Hyde," "Livin' Hard"




Saturday, December 26, 2015

Kickstart Rumble
"Kickstart Rumble" (self/Hellnote)


Lapel-grabbing pop sensibility threads its alluring way through a set of galloping psychobilly, sun-beamed and hook-draped stirrings, and beguiling, horn-fortified dance-floor sirens. Greatly to its effectiveness, said versatility is pointedly and wisely administered.

Recommended "Austin," "Change My Ways," "The Drive-In," "I Only Think About You Sometimes," "Perfect 10"



Thursday, December 24, 2015

WRECKAPEDIA
free online psychobilly encyclopedia




DANGEROUS TOP

"You'll always want to know where
he's playing. But you'll never want
him to know where you live..."



Origin                Unknown

Genres              Psychobillypunk rock

Years active      2011-present

Website            DangerousTop.com

                                 Members

                            Dangerous Top
                                   Thing 1
                                   Thing 2
                                

Dangerous Top is an American psychobilly 
guitarist. He first surfaced in Iowa clubs in 2011, 
and has gone on to establish himself with 
audiences throughout Iowa and Minneapolis.


CONTENTS

Career
overview
             popularity, opposition
  • Press coverage
             alt/music
             mainstream
  • Discography
  • References
  • Links


CAREER

overview

Dangerous Top's psychobilly features high-fevered 
Punk energies and stripped-down arrangements. A 
Ramones  influence is sometimes prominent; at other 
moments, a fierce hardcore/thrash inclination is 
evidenced. The hideous tenors and titles of his all -
instrumental "song projectiles" reflect his trademark 
'undead predatory deviant' character.


legend  

According to an early Dangerous Top press release, 
"An anonymous Iowa punk rock guitarist emerged 
unrepaired from court-ordered psychiatric rehabilitation. 
The gleeful, twisted wretch went on to escape that 
state's notorious execution alley, only to be hunted 
down and lynched by a revenge-maddened mob. 

"On the third night, he rose again -- as Dangerous 
Top."

"It is further whispered that the coffin-shaped case in 
which his skull-and-crossbones Telecaster is interred 
between late-night sprees contains a mixed-bed of soil 
from outside Memphis' Sun Studio and rubble remains 
of NYC's storied punk birthplace, CBGB's." (1)


popularity, opposition

His initial Iowa fan base has been complemented 
by a fast-spreading Minnesota one. Fans have 
been described -- by supporters and critics, alike 
-- as "rabid." "Most outfits would kill for the rabid 
loyalists who mass at Dangerous Top stages. Of 
course, he says he did exactly that..." 
(BoneCats.com) "A rabid and rebellious amalgam 
of Elvis-headed hoods, mohawked punk rock 
cretins, and fallen 'pin up' models." (Family Values 
In Culture)

Dangerous Top is notorious among bookers and 
bands for being inaccessible. He doesn't associate 
with other musicians. No one has seen his face.   .

The ski-masked "guitarist from beneath" has 
sparked an unlikely union of conservative Christians 
and liberal feminists. Following his Minneapolis 
appearances, they decried the rampaging guitarist 
for "celebrating the unspeakable," and fuelling the 
"debasement of popular culture." (2)


PRESS TREATMENT     

alt/music

Coverage of Dangerous Top in alternative, rock'n'roll 
media has been largely sympathetic.

His earliest known mention (6/18/2011) was in the 
Des Moines-based online psycho 'zine BoneCats.com. 
"Last night's unannounced performer at the 
Roundstone was Dangerous Top. New to the local 
scene, the mysterious, hooded psychobilly guitarist 
fronted a slap bass and basic drums. His savage 
instrumentals were brief, but incited to crowd to 
mayhem." (3)

Over subsequent months, press notice increased. A 
Cedar Rapids columnist hailed Dangerous Top as 
"doubtlessly our nastiest and best area rep of the 
foul, netherworldly psychobilly that finds expression 
in the Meteors, Brains,Demented Are Go, and 
Mad Sin." (4)

"Others may 'push the envelope," asserted an essayist 
at SoundsNScenes (Ames), "but this masked miscreant 
grinds it under his creeper, then rips it to shreds. He's 
smutty, outrageous, violent, and despicable. And his spiky, 
enratured cult loves every second of it." (5)

As Dangerous Top continued his Iowa 
crusade, press notices, albeit generally 
of the alt variety, increased. BoneCats.com, 
in particular, touted the hooded performer. 
[CITATIONS NEEDED] 
   
Late in 2011, Dangerous Top turned up in Minneapolis. 
His vicious blend of punk and psycho attracted fervent 
support. A blogger at Bonecats.com witnessed 
Dangerous Top's farewell Des Moines show: 

"Indefatiguable backers Thing 1 and Thing 2 kept up a 
riotous bass/drum hyper-beat. Their hectic animations 
drove the mob at stage-front to ecstatic fisticuffs delirium. 
Emaciated and ashen, each sported a shaved head and 
lopsided, oversized scarlet-paint grin. Demi-demons to 
the Supreme Evildoer, if you will. Dangerous Top is a 
hulking, executioner's-hooded six-string strangler who 
tears off and flings flashes of chunk-chordy fury. And, 
though he seldom abandons his hunkered-down, 
spread-legged posture at the stage-front's center 
point, the "predatory criminal from beyond the grave" 
captivated the tough-as-coffin-nails audience, holding 
it happily in chains through the storm." (6)


Mainstream press  

Attention from corporate-owned Iowa mainstream media 
outlets has been considerably less positive, typically 
reflecting the 'outside the scene' values and perspectives 
of critics.

"Vulger and cartoonishly bombastic," pronounced the 
Des Moines Tribune, in it's weekly entertainment 
supplement. (7)

KCOATV in Minneapolis: "An adults-only" rocker who 
has aroused the organized ire of many." (8)

"That such blatantly sick carryings-on enjoy enthusiastic 
reception underscores the need to redouble positive 
efforts to hoist aloft our state's 'flag of rightness,'" 
editorialized the Twin Cities Reader-Republican. (9)

Other daily Minneapolis and Minnesota 
journals picked up the story, building it 
into a controversy that pitted psychobillies 
against more "respectable" voices. 
[CITATIONS NEEDED}


DISCOGRAPHY

To date, only one Dangerous Top recording is known 
to exist. The 80-copy bootleg, My Will Be Done
was taped live at an unnamed location, and is heatedly 
sought.

Bonecats.com got hold of one precious copy: "5-body 
pileup metallic psycho distemper slams raggedy 
revelers into girly-menacing fracture. Music to force 
unnatural acts by. Dangerous Top's thundering, uber -
distorted Telecaster detonates as anti-social insanity."

Similar praise was lavished on the raw disc by 
Minneapolis blogger Simba Lee Blood:

" 'Damnation Dance Party,' 'I Fisted a Monster,' and 
'Triple X Throwdown'  recall the Ramones' short'n'fast, 
less-is-more ethos. They're over nearly before settling 
in (though mauled corpses strewn in their wake 
evidence chilling passage.) And while some cuts 
endure a bit longer ('Behind Every Pretty Face Lies a 
Skull,' the grimly frenetic 'I Call My Baby STD'), none 
pass the two-minute finish-line."  

"Makes you wanna detonate the planet," was the 
trenchant assessment penned by blogger White Noise. 


REFERENCES

1) press release "Dangerous Top Stalks Among Us" 
    6/15/2011
2) article "The thing about...Dangerous Top" 
    HawkeyeTalk.net 8/3/2011
3) news item Bonecats.com 
    6/18/2011
4) review " 'Unknown Psycho' performs" 
    Cityzine.com 8/4/2011
5) article "A look at this year's crop" 
    SoundsNScenes 8/13/2011
6) online gig review BoneCats.com 
    9/21/2011
7) local "Things around town" briefs 
    Des Moines Tribune 10/14/2011
8) local television news commentary "Dangerous 
    Top Dangerous" KCOATV (Mpls) 2/17/2012
9) publisher's notes "Dangerous Top a stain on state" 
    Twin Cities Reader-Republican 3/9/2012
10) online review My Will Be Done    
      Bonecats.com 3/22/2012


Links


YouTube: "Damnation Dance Party" / "I Fisted a 
Monster" (THESE CLIPS WERE DELETED 
FOLLOWING AN ONLINE PETITION PROTEST.)