Doyley & the Twanglords

Reverbatron   digital album

(Diablo Records)

Just as opening minutes flash walloping imagery of Venusian waves crashing green-sand shores -- while the Republic Robot shoots the single-digit salute to two-headed gremmies -- closer "Lost Soul" introduces Old Country accordian into fast-flung instro proceedings. Betwixt the two hurtle wordless wonders that explore just how far six-strings can go to unite Bikini Beach and Forbidden Planet.

Recommended: "Reverbatron," "MoonSurfer," "Il Monstro," "Badaboom," "Robostomp," "Lost Soul"

No related videos were available. But here's a fun interview from years ago.

Diablo Records

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The Psychodelics

Small But Mighty   EP

(Psychodelic Records)

Rising from the lab tilt-table is a creature stitched from outsider stylings. Punk, Psycho, and Rockabilly flesh are joined in crazy-quilt calculations that couldn't seem more torpedo-savory to quiffed wrecking-pit grapplers who have mail delivered to all-night monster-movie marathons.

Recommended: "Small but Mighty," "We'll Never Die," "Talk To the Dead," "Shut Up and Drive," "Good Kitty"

Videos: "Small but Mighty"   "We'll Never Die"   "Good Kitty"

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X (Erik Hinderer, lead guitarist/songwriter)

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elasticStage

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Atomic Leopards

Hypnogogic Hellucinations

(Atomic)

Spanish brothers Santi and David Lluch learned thoroughly lessons imparted by past Blues, Rockabilly, and Country masters (including as Hellbilly Club founders). Now, the axe-swinging throatist and his bass-slinging sibling pool knacks with ex-HC drum demon Marc Illas to contrive fuzz-dripping spike-jive that laces its projectiles with kool venomousness that gyrates on the wild side.

Recommended: "Devil Car," "Hello Mr. Bates," "Ready for the Blackout," "One More Battle," "I Wanna Be a Punk," "Everybody's Movin'"

Videos: "Hello Mr. Bates" (Official video)   "Ready for the Blackout" (Videoclip)   "I Wanna Be a Punk"   

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Back in the Day, 2009

Ella Mae Morse

Best of the Rockabilly Rockin' Years

(Rockabilly Records)

Don Raye: Well, what you say, baby? You look ready as Mr. Freddy, this black. How 'bout you 'n' me goin' spinnin' at the track?

Ella: What's that, homey? If you think I'm goin' dancin' on a dime, your clock is tickin' on the wrong time!

Don: Well, what's your pleasure, treasure? You call the plays, I'll dig the ways.

Ella: Hey Daddio, I'm not so crude as to drop my mood on a square from way back. I'm in there, and have to dig life with Father, and I mean Father Snack.

Don: Well, baby, your play is my way to solid flip! You snap the whip, I'll make the trip!

As is surely past knowledge to dusty-vinyl connoisseurs en masse, sterling siren Ella raised hepster hullabaloos, as she fronted '40s and '50s big bands with a wink, cascading ebony tresses, and a voice so delightful it seemed straight from zoot elysium. Her swank readings of immortal tracks well familiar (and granted fresh animation by everyone from Jerry Lee to Alex Harvey to the Funboy Three to Matchbox to Levi Dexter) were brassy ballyhoos that made no promises of refined decorum. 

(Especial credit belongs to Ella's longtime bandleader Freddie Slack; he knew exactly how to fashion swing of executive order.)

"I ain't got no time to waste, workin' hard just to make me a lotta dough / Work's OK but not for me, it interferes with my fun so it's gotta go!...I'm livin' the life I love, and lovin' the life that I live!"

Recommended: "Rockin' & Rollin'," "Tennessee Saturday Night," "Forty Cups of Coffee," "Money Honey," "Livin' Livin' Livin'," "Jump Back Honey," "House of Blue Lights," "How Can You Leave a Man Like This," "Razzle Dazzle," "Organ Grinder Swing," "Piddly Patter Patter," "A Little Further Down the Road Apiece," "Get Off It and Go," "Oakie Boogie," "Rock Me All Night Long," "Smack Dab in the Middle," "Seventeen," "Give Me Love"

Videos: "Tennessee Saturday Night"   "Livin' Livin' Livin'"   "T'ain't Whatcha Do"   "Jump Back Honey"   "House of Blue Lights"   "Seventeen"   

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qobuz

Bugs!

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Kyle Eldridge

Chief doubleneck-wrangler Kyle wrote this one hisself, a bouncing stepper 'cross Western-Boogie backroads. Featured are the flutter-fingered exploits for which the man gets howdie's the world over. (Kyle's TNM custom doubleneck was constructed for him special by ace-high luthier Terry McArthur.)

Video: "Catawaba Boogie"

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Swelltune Records

Billy Barton

Billy's from-up-in-the-hills compositions were waxed by Opry-caliber personages, including Ferlin Husky, Red Sovine, Rose Maddox, and Ernest Tubb. But much of that transpired later; first came this jitter-howl number that probably sideswiped jukes into alleys.

Video: "Crazy Lover"

Apple

13 Cats: Too cool for planet Earth

            

Tim Polecat. Smutty Smith. Slim Jim Phantom. Danny B Harvey. (Plus sometime auxillary bassman Jonny Bowler.)

As formidable as that gallery might appear in print, it devastated when behind mics.

A felicitously aberrant rascal mission whose storied big beat-ministers hailed from glory-scribed walks the Polecats, Rockats, and Stray Cats, 13 Cats flickered brilliantly, albeit shortly.

They crafted stunningly novel admixtures of literate, fantastic lyricism and burly roots musics jetted up into tomorrow. Much-loved Rockabilly nuggets, newly drunk on adrenaline joy juice, were catapulted through flick-knife Punk and Psycho back alleys. And self-penned, splintered reflector tableaus reeled crazily amidst jubilant uproar.

One brief lyrical citation illustrates sufficiently:

She walks the Information Highway, he's on vine from Monday to Friday. They get together when the weekend comes. She digs Sinatra, he beats his drums.

Jungle Man and Robot Girl, victims of the modern world.

Sadly, waxings are sparse. 2001's in the beginning (Revel Yell Music) preserved studio reanimations of Charlie Feathers, the Rockin' R's, and Bill Allen and the Backbeats' shout/jump standards, as well as band originals (including "Teddy Boy Kung Fu Weapon" and "Flesh for Andy Warhol") captured on radio and at live spectacles. 

2003's full-length 13 Tracks (Raucous) presented nearly all freshly-coined jaunts -- like "Leather Straitjacket," "Jungle Man, Robot Girl," and "Snap, Crackle, and Hiss" -- the sole exception being 13 Cats' conflagratory take on Bill Allen and the Backbeats' 1958 "Please Give Me Something."

The swaggering supergroup's irregular brainstorming was further typified by originals "Poison Candy," "Chanting for Cadillacs," "Sex Hex," and "Hell Bop." In each, raceway rocketing that likely stole committed witnesses' oxygen proved the equal of message uncanniness.

(Two other selections, "13 Cats" and "Teddy Boy Kung Fu Weapon," had turned up in 1999 film The Rage: Carrie 2.)

Subsequent years brought two or three repackagings, rarities compendiums, and a performance DVD. But by that time, members had dispersed and discovered crisp attractions. New individual glories were mined.

But, oh -- what was! 

Eruptive, scintillating guitar-led Neo-Rockabilly that spanned Blues, Country, and primal Rock'n'Roll. Flamboyantly idiosyncratic gestures colluded with flabbergasting instrumentation, in rave-up  flammables of adventurous mien. 

Modern-day Sci-Fi/ fantasy was grafted onto vintage rompings to father a bloodshot-eyed creation full of verve, strut and cat-styled swell.

We had 13 Cats for what seemed but a twinkling. One tilted moment. They'd rocked headfirst into a topsy-turvy and taboo delirium dear to senses-fevered apostles. Perhaps from blueprinting, theirs had been envisioned as a fleeting escapade.

Whatever the case, recorded portraits and gray-matter snapshots are all we have left of the wonder that was.

Videos: "Sex Hex"   "Snap, Crackle, and Hiss"   "Teddy Boy Kung Fu Weapon"   live in Vegas (36:27)

Bandcamp (in the beginning)

Bandcamp (13 Tracks)