The Dracu-Las
"I'm Blue" b/w "Time is a Maze" single
(Outro Records)
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The Dracu-las succeed splendidly at a formidable task; that being, not only reiterating 1961 Ikettes sweet meat, but doing so with all the shimmy dignity it merits. Silk-swathed voluptuousness undulates, fingers pop, and melodies usher toward rapture. Harmonies that outspread with deliciousness enjoy the complement of reservedly luscious instrumentation.
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Go-Go Killers
Baddest Asset - 1st 10 Years of Trash
(Self-issued)
The Go-Go Killers claim gestation on "Planet Fuck." All who've lost what bent minds they had, happily salute. Hearing the venomous audio-violence these Men of Malevolence untether, none would mount naysaying. The effect is one of haunted castles with walloping ear-blastation capacity. Frontmonster/lyricist Alabama Sharp evokes the glottal-eruptive poltergiests of Hasil and Lux, emitting occasional shriek-whoops that emanate from unexplored eeriness. The Go-Go Killers probably scare the shit out of front row suds guzzlers. Not even Transylvanian travel agents can get you to Planet Fuck. But this outer-fringe-of-evil-madness compendium is the next best item.
Recommended: "I Am a Spider," "Woke Up Bad," "Jungle Fever," "You Look Like You Need to Screw," "Caught a Demon Last Night," "I-565," "Werewolves in Heels," "Yeti in a Girls Dormitory," "Mad Dog," "I Got the Bug," "Fucked-Up Dead Guy"
Videos: live (37:16, 2025) "I Am a Spider" (official video) "Werewolves in Heels"
Mad Marge
Dead and Gone
(Self-issued)
"Every shadow knows my name!," Marge pronounces in "Dancing in the Dark." No matter that the track occupies penultimate location. It embodies all the PsychoPunk stridency that abounded in preceding missives. The power of angry Rock'n'Roll reduces surrounding circumstances to rubble. For years, Marge headed the Stonecutters. Together, she and they hacked jagged orbits though fearsome ranges. Whether personnel has been altered, or only billing changed, nitro-laced spectacle remains the attraction.
At the moment, Dead and Gone exists exclusively in digital format. Vinyl incarnations are planned for approaching days.
Recommended: "The Other Mother," "Most Days," "First Bite," "Love and Pain," "Already Dead," "Dancing in the Dark," "Issues"
Videos: "The Other Mother" (live) "Love and Pain" (live) "Already Dead"
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Alan Vega
Live at Rockpalast 1982 CD + DVD
(Play Loud! Productions)
The vocal half of infamous 1970s NYC exotic Suicide team, the late Alan was truly a unique specimen: A sequins-opulent, street-corner necromancer whose outlaw persona featured alternating yowls and hisses, abruptly punctuated by grand mal epileptic haloos and shrieks that rang into dimensions uncharted.
Some audience members were driven into boulevards by his hyperventilated expostulations, and Suicide partner Martin Rev's synth/rhythm box bubblings. But others found strange merit, in times otherwise made great by Manitoba, Thunders, Bators, and the Ramones bunch.
The beyond-all-reasonable-margins Vega/Rev duo threw synthesized startlingness, Bubblegum ditties, and crackling airs that had survived Brillo-Pad roughing ups into some oddball blender, festooning the product with one-foot-dangling-over-the-palisade poetry. Even now, few could probably listen to "Frankie Teardrop" in its entirety. (And yes, that's a challenge.)
Of course, Alan's between-lyric grunts and whoops had not birthed themselves; Rockabilly progenitors both famed and obscure had imprinted his manic gesticulations. That heritage inspired Alan's subsequent endeavors to weave the Rebel genre into efforts tottering on modern music's precipice. His later reinvention of Gene's "Be Bop A Lula," based around the Peter Gunn theme (and heard, here), evidenced as much.
In the post-Suicide era, Alan's gymnastic larnyx remained his trademark. And that was full-on good. Instrumentation displayed on Live at Rockpalast 1982 is a bit more involved than Martin's one-man voltaged razzmatazz. The more orthodox guitar/bass/drums unit at Alan's elbow had motored his Collision Drive LP a year previous. (It saw release on both the Celluloid and Vogue labels.)
Songs captured here are more than mere aural compositions; they are experiential. Vega's spotlit presentations were happenings, and his shambolic wavings signaled offbeat shamanic ritualism. As best as can be restrained within vinyl grooves, tracks portray a possessed performer in the happy grip of a cool mesmerism which only the committed know.
All that having been said...
Sound quality isn't always optimal. Distortion of a sort not planned makes its appearance. But it isn't nearly sufficient to sabotage listening gladness, and besides, such is sometimes to be anticipated with in-concert recordings. (It does lend an I-am-there worth, though you'll have to imagine jostling fans all around.) Included with this CD is a DVD containing 2002 documentary "Alan Vega: Collision Drive."
Unique specimen Vega may have split gig time between hip-bopping evocations and victorious battles with unseen antagonists from curious realms. We'll never know...
Recommended: "Magdalena," "Goodbye Baby," "Jukebox Babe," "Je T'Adore," "Outlaw," "Be Bop A Lula"
Videos: "Magdelena/Goodbye Darling/Jukebox Babe/Be Bop A Lula/ Sexy" (abbreviated Rockpalast live clips) "Jukebox Babe"
The Psychodelics
"Shut Up and Drive" single
(Psychodelic Records)
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The accompanying video depicts bands' real-life, pre-gig activities: Driving concrete ribbons that criss-cross our land, and unloading cumbersome amps and gear, are occupational hardships not glimpsed by bar patrons. (The present writer knows well the heft of a Marshall speaker cabinet at 3AM.) Behind all that - and countless practice hours, plus abundant out-of-pocket payouts - a hell of a lot of appreciation is owed bands.
Especially when the songs are this bludgeoning.
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Pat Todd & the Rankoutsiders
A One-Sided Affair one-sided, six-song, 12" clear vinyl
(Ghost Highway Recordings)
Crank stereo volume to utmost reaches. "Classical, 1970s-type Hard Rock" might be the assessment offered by someone ignorant of the music's evergreen bounty. Of course, guitar-powered tunes featuring rocket-fueled rhythm sections and too-devastational-to-ignore vocal bombardments give absolutely zero damns about any calendar that Hallmark might roll out. Wild don't age. Those wise enough to search out this disc will thrill to a succession of tunes whose muscles ripple, and which are greatly more planet-splittingly powerful than the insipid music product churned by faceless production gadgetry. Being alive kicks ass!
Recommended: "Mercy," "If Love is Outta Style," "Like Trash on the Ground," "Hey 2 Face"
Videos: "Mercy" "Like Trash on the Ground" "Hey 2 Face"
The Brigade Street Rock and Roll
self-titled
(Lumpen Creativo)
The cool thing about being unable to discern Spanish-language songs' meanings, is that it's inconsequential so long as wall-slamming Punk is involved. I'm unsure whether to class these four as adroit musicians, or perhaps assaultive disrupters for whom instruments are implements of bushwhack. Both choices seem valid.
Recommended: "Las Normas," "Aquella Noche," "La Brigada," "Ellos Sabrán"
Videos: "Las Normas" (live) "Ellos Sabrán" (live)
Stompin' Mutants
"My Way" single
(Alexandre Salton De Sousa Aranha)
Ol' Blue Eyes don't live here. Brazilian monster-men crawled from whatever unspeakable haunt they prize as refuge-from-normalcy, to put to tape four minutes of growling/bashing/kick-over obstreperousness that cares not one whit for ravaged casualties scattered in their wicked wake. All instruments are set on destroy. Consider this a dead cat's dare to listen.
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The Caezars
During this Spanish festival soundcheck, AJ, Danny, Steve, and Mikey throw out bop so galvanic that at-home viewers may well leap from chairs and rocket into Gone action.
Video "Shakedown"
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Red-Hot Dynamos
The union of barn-party Country tunefulness and beat animation pleases no less now, than back when lanky ranch hands and lipsticked kittens went to town amid oak rafters, hay bales, and backy-spittin' dance callers.
Video "Excuse Me"
Marley Bone
"Neesey Smile" single
(Marleybone Records)
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There's a time for stridence and pugnacity, but life also offers tender moments. Couple spells, during which lidded eyes lock, caresses inspire, and the clock's hands lose meaning. For, just as the sun's rays banish dismal cloudiness, so dimples dash away despondence. Would that all combos were similarly adept at contriving hushed romanticism. Brushes imprint snare, strummed chords hint at beatitude, and basslines articulate empathetic structure. Blissful stirrings are brought to a head by womanly radiance.
Video "Neesey Smile"
Murry Robe
Move it Over
(Untamed Records)
A phrase-turning laureate, who sports finger-snapping finery and manhandles longnecked gut-boxes like they stole something. Great White North slickster Murry, on leave from the Shook Boys, sequestered himself at home so as to cobble this spartan demo bundle. It cruises with aplomb, occasionally hinting at hijinx. And despite couch-and-coffee-table surroundings, he hiccups like he's at a little nightspot on the outskirts of town. That's the way to be.
Recommended: "Hate Our Youth," "Dance with Me," "Wild Ones," "Move it Over," "Rockin' the Lake"
Video: "Wild Ones"
Haunted Rhythm
Scare Dance four-track EP
(Tessy Records)
Recommended: "Scare Dance," "Serpents and Spiders," "Dance, Dance, Dance," "Fade Away"
Videos: "Scare Dance" "Serpents and Spiders" "Dance, Dance, Dance"
Screamin' Meemies
The Trap
(Self-issued)
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Shrewd production by chief Brain Rene De La Muerte allows every plugged-in deviser to be heard unto the extreme. And for his part, Marcel Bontempi fashioned startling cover art that, were it a movie house poster, would ensure swarming streams of bloodshot-eyed ticket-seizers.
Chord-swiped spectacles arisen are so dark, their poetry so lurid, one imagines Maila Nurmi getting up on the wrong side of the slab and seizing a quill. "Don't Tell Me No Lies," "All That She Wants," and "Motherfucker" stampede crazily into that bad night, busting clean through any impediments at ultra-volumes and without regard for anyone or anything.
Instrumental "Haunted Mountain" veers from bubbling electronics to gleeful brutality, six-string savagery and beats of locked-in purposefulness ushering listeners through what undead surely sounds like.
A Bandcamp advisory notes that conclusive slice "Something is Wrong" "officially closes this chapter and opens the door to what comes next." The song portends ebony desolation to which monsters will surely ransack labs' Strickfaden apparatuses and tear up moonshadowed countrysides.
The lid now closes. But know that it will again crack.
Recommended: "The Trap," "Drivin' Me Crazy," "Don't Tell Me No Lies," "Haunted Mountain," "All That She Wants," "Motherfucker," "Something is Wrong"
Videos: "All That She Wants" "Motherfucker" "Something is Wrong"
Jinx Jones
Under the Neon Moonlight
(Vibrosound)
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Bow low, when entering the palace chamber. Jinx pulls up a pillowed seat at the same roundtable as Barry Ryan, Chris Spedding, George Benson, and Danny B. Harvey. (From yon wall, gilded portraits of lamented heros like Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, Matt Murphy, Jimmy Bryant, Danny Cedrone, Charlie Christian, Danny Gatton, and Franny Beecher peer down on proceedings.) The guitar case Jinx hefts is festooned with stickers proclaiming genres from which he samples, an idiosyncratic admixture the end product. Jazz accentings daub passages as only they can. Rockabilly assertions jump up. Blues pensiveness murmurs. Even Bakersfield Country contributes. Beribboned cavalier Jinx renders them as coalesced body, and they celebrate spectacularly.
Recommended: "Prelude Noir," "Rumble Street," "Get Out of This Place Alive," "Hittin' the Hard Stuff," "Duane's Train," "Cadillac Love Machine," "Neon Moonlight," "Million Dollar Fool," "Western Orange," "Lookin' for My Next Mistake," "Flippin' My Lid," "Love Letter from North Beach"
Videos: "Duane's Train" "Cadillac Love Machine" "Neon Moonlight" "Million Dollar Fool" "Western Orange"
the Five-O-Two's
Ready to Go digital or LP version
(Backfire Records / Tessy Records)
Rockabilly's twang took a spin around the safety-pin block, and came back all rough. Zero punches are pulled in this party house; revelers will discover full-on dynamism of professionally nimble nature that ensures maximum effect. As subtle as a half-brick to the head. (Paul Burlison tonal flourishes are appreciated, indeed.) On occasion, true, bombardments are kept under tighter rein, but that's only to cunningly switch between facets of the same bashed-knuckle battle plan.
Recommended: "We Want it Loud," "Ready to Go," "Chick Pickin' Daddy," "Lonely Boy," "Pretty Baby," "Opposites Attract"
Videos: "Ready to Go" "Pretty Baby" "Opposites Attract" (live)
Tessy Records (Black and red LP versions)
Jumpin' Rockets
Astro-Bash!
(DMG Germany)
"Astro-Bash!" and "Jumpin' Rockets" unfurl in the intergalactic-kicks spirit of the boss cover snap. But - deft musical gurus to the left and right - wall-to-wall enchantment here isn't solely composed of spaceman shenanigans. Reserved Jazz stateliness conjures in turns like "Everybody Loves My Baby." Songcraft is thoughtful and many splendored. Graceful guitar glistens. Rhythms soothe. Suggestive quietude washes ashore, only to be suddenly animated by vibrant onrush. "Supernova Bossa," a gentle stroll through absolute pleasance, offers harmonies one might find in a sunflower.
Recommended: "Astro-Bash!," "All Night Long," "Fell in Love with a Stranger," "Love Me Right," "Everybody Loves My Baby," "Jumpin' Rockets," "Wring-Out Boogie," "Only Lies," "I Don't Care," "Hot Rod Racin'," "Supernova Bossa"
Videos: "Astro-Bash!" "All Night Long" "Everybody Loves My Baby" "Wring Out Baby" "Supernova Bossa"
Hitchcocks
Tales of Hitchcocks 300-copy, 4-track 7" orange vinyl, or 13-cut CD
(Sunnyboy 66 / Latitude Zero Records)
For a bit of a notion as to the present circumstance, straddle a board atop cresting foams splashing through carnival funhouse mirrors, as beyond-Milky-Way tunery, charged by Don Post trick-or-treat mask-wearing outer space spooks with twang bars, reverbs through the Montgomery Ward transister radio you've pressed to an ear. Yeah, it's that good.
Recommended: "Halloween Night," "Interferencia UFO," "Passageiro do Futuro," "O Regresso," "Vampire Dancing," "Magma," "Spaceman," "A Noite do Besouro Verde"
Videos: promo clip live clip 2nd live clip
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Lee Rocker
"Jungle Rock" digital single / video
(Upright Records)
Evident at each turn is that doghouse-manhandler Mr. Rocker is having a ball, in his frolicsome reinterpretation of Mizell's 1958 safari-territory jaunt. "I was walking through the jungle just the other night / Oh well, I heard a big a'rumble and I thought it was a fight" opens the madcap tale of wildlife whooping it up in fractured abandonment. Lee quickly gets the Sock: "We stopped there to listen, I began to move my feet / It was a jungle drummer doin' a knocked-out beat!" Assisted most ably by cats who are, themselves, adept at runaway, jitter-joint romping (their combined forces total upper-tier prosecution), Lee leads the finger-popping exploratory party's stomping down underbrush, as creatures great and small do dance sensations that are sweeping the menagerie nation.
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Sonny West
The Shuffle CD or limited marbled vinyl
(Killertone Records)
No grooved base is left uncovered: Consider the smoothness-by-candlelight crooner "It's Gone 11," the pugnacious ex-con of danger-vibe "Diamond Tooth," and "The Shuffle" - an everybody swingalong that'll leave each square foot of nightspot dance floor occupied by happy creepers and stilettos. Nine additional jukebox options punch in, all cobbled by a Gretsch-packing, down-slung-forelock cat eminently suited to pink Cadillac sound adventures. (And fittingly, he's joined by lethal associates.)
Recommended: "It's Gone 11," "Diamond Tooth," "The Shuffle" Only these cuts were available at presstime. (The disc I purchased from Killertone hasn't yet arrived.) But their worth gives confidence disc mates also merit high regard.
Videos: "It's Gone 11" "Diamond Tooth" "The Shuffle"
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The Swingin' Blackjacks
Never Tire, Never Stop
(Self-issued)
Interviewed last month by Blues.Gr, axeman/singer Matt Allen made clear a crucial truth that rigid doctinaires fail to grasp: "Blues didn’t shape Rock and Roll by itself; Jazz, Gospel, Hillbilly, and earlier 20th Century Pop music all had roles in the birth of Rock and Roll. It’s like a delicious musical stew with plenty of spice."
Revolutionary 1950s DJ Alan Freed stressed as much, in days when our music was barely out of its germinal stage. And Canadian Matt's Swingin' Blackjacks shout that verity in song after persuasively-jukin' track. Matt, drummer Adam David, and bass player/vocalist Gary Kendall maintain cool and collected Jazz poise, while perpetrating hot and cool, rockin' rhythms that goad flesh-and-blood transportation departments into fancy footwork.
Recommended: "Misery Train," "Deep in My Heart," "Heart Full of Soul," "Rock All Night," "Black Cat Blues," "Let's Pretend We're in Love"
Videos: "Misery Train" "Rock All Night" "Black Cat Blues" "Let's Pretend We're in Love"
X (Matt Allen)
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