Clem Anderson

Students of popular musics recognize that trains are a common metaphor for life changes. But they need to get their noses out of intellectual folderal, and dig that this flat drives.

Video: "Midnight Train"

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Various Artists

Wreckin' the Decades - Volume 4

(Western Star)

Variations in quality being common to various-artist compendiums, exactly that can be anticipated here, though with the good news that plusses predominate. Uncoiling and lashing here are factors characteristic to Alan Wilson's Western Star stable -- including dire topics, rampageous rhythms, brown-paper-wrapper smuttiness, and doghouse-smackaround crownings. 

Recommended: "The Jolly Collier" (The Coal Dust Cowboys), "Billy Turned Psycho" (Dukes of Tijuana), "Living Dead Girl" (The Rock-It Dogz), "Undead Doll" (The Surfin' Wombatz), "Offski Boogie" (Henry & the Bleeders), "Freddie's Luck" (El-Camino), "Three-Holed Electric Love Doll" (The Coal Dust Cowboys),  "Washed Out" (Dukes of Tijuana), "B-Movie Killer Porno Queen" (The Bad Roaches), "The Undertaker's Girl" (Stage Frite), "Decapitate the Establishment" (El-Camino)

Videos: "The Jolly Collier"   "Billy Turned Psycho"   "Undead Doll"   "Decapitate the Establishment"

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The Coal Dust Cowboys

Dukes of Tijuana

Henry & the Bleeders

The Shower Puffs

Powerpuff Twist   digital EP

(Headshrinker Records)

"A sonic punch to the jaw," advised Add to Wantlist's Dennis, utterly without hyperbolic intent. Illustrated anew is that rudimentary instrumentation is all Rock'n'Roll ever needed. (Well, that and loads of danger-zone attitude.) Understated audio has the salutary function of leaving stark and bristly material/performances to leap undraped. Appreciation foams over.

Recommended: "Until the Light," "AI- Angry," "Tobacco On the Rocks," "C4 Psychiatric Disorder"

Video: Full four-track EP

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The Kingshakes

Hard Knocks

(Milkshake Records)

High-octane go-juice (laced with some under-the-counter substance) gushed straight from the pump into these bopification implements - of that, one feels confident. Those words are in no manner intended to slight the fracture-daddies wielding said jive tools; indeed, it is through their knowing administration that eardrums the globe over have been turned inside-out and upside-down - to owners' gratification.

The combo issued three singles besides this 2024 maiden wax: "Those Lips" (2024), "Car 89" (2024), and "Rockabilly Gay Bar" (2026).Also issued was 2024 EP Back Tracks.

Recommended: "Gunnin for the Dog," "Hardknocks," "Hooker" (Sharks forever!), "Bye Bye Girl," "Breakaway," "Lookin' Back," "Do Bad Things," "Down the Dust Pipe," "You Belong to Me," "Big Boys"

Videos: "Gunnin' for the Dog"   "Breakaway" (live)   "Big Boys"

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Planet Strange

Against Abi Gabba Ghoul's insistent snareskin hammerings, and with Danny "Widerbeast" ensuring that rigorous slap-bass rattlings resound up front where they belong, Justin Strange (he of towering wedge and nightshadow cheaters) spits a tale coldly credible -- given his dirt-nap pallor -- with gravel-throated disdain for mortality.

Video: "I Ain't Dead"

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Dom Glynn & His Sunday Best

This Fast Life is Killing Me

(DGSB)

Just recently, Dom and dirtroad associates showcased this material during an album release gig at London's Hootenanny Brixton pub and music spot. (And coming months' bookings are plentiful.) Barnworthy musicalizing of this tenor is most frequently characteristic of Honky Tonk veterans and in-demand studio specialists. No sooner does unassuming genuineness strike observers as appropriate to eras in history's rearview, than it occurs that there's no good reason it shouldn't just as properly reign TODAY.

Recommended: "This Fast Life is Killing Me," "If She's an Angel Straight From Heaven (Then I'm a Devil Straight From Hell)," "Life Without Parole," "Mr. Clean and Mr. Mean," "I Loved You, Cigarettes," "Never Smile Again," "The Doghouse (My Second Home)," "Forever Stay the Night"

Video: "This Fast Life is Killing Me"   "Life Without Parole" (live)   "If She's an Angel Straight From Heaven (I'm a Devil Straight From Hell)" (offstage, dual acoustics version)   "Never Smile Again"

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The Obscuritones

"Keep on running and I’m always out of breath, my body is hurting, heart is pumping out my chest / My bags are heavy and my shoes are getting tight, as I run through the city in the middle of the night!"

No-compromise Rockabilly entirely in touch with its Country heritage, yet channeling pulse-dashing spirit, may well be the only proper soundtrack for this headlong predicament. But that dialogue is insignificant, 'cause the music's pounding steadily and the iron horse is PULLING OUT -- NOW!

Video: "Runnin' for the Train" (live 2025)

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The James Oliver Band

The Bubble Has Burst

(The Last Music Co.)

Never having witnessed James demolish stages, I'm nonetheless certain innumerable orange-and-blue sparks ricochet from his Tele in all kinds of frantic directions -- so alarming are the masterful attacks the man rips screaming with joy from the Blues bible. Classics well-covered always enjoy welcome. Players at his elbow are of first-order rank (and include Mr. Geraint Watkins), turning on dimes as miles flash past. And the casualness with which James tosses off lyrics? Why, that only attests to his natural-born fluency.

Recommended: "Baby What You Want Me to Do," "Messin' with the Kid," "Killing Floor," "Matchbox," "Boom Boom," "My Way," "Red Hot Mama," "Flip Flop and Fly," "Blues in C Natural"

Video: "Messin' with the Kid" (live April 2026)   "Killing Floor"  (live 2021)   "My Way"

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The Last Music Co.

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Around About Dusk

Thin, whimsical Jazz (of the sort that soundtracked early b/w Boop) gambols and somersaults as unfolds a story Grimm indeed.

Video: "The Mouse"

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Back in the Day, 1995

Blue Devils

In Bed with Betty   10" vinyl

(Fury Records)

Throw yourself into the Bluesabilly go-go maelstrom. Guitars graduated Cool School. Sax honkings and head-back screams ricochet crazily off unrefined Big Beat provocations that'd surely scare hell out of snoots. Where matters concern the idealized Dream Girl undraped, all wagers are off and all limitations crash away.

Recommended: "Betty Page," "Mystery Girl," "Bloody Mary." "Sweet Love," "Tail of a Rattlesnake," "She Does the Do," "Vibrations"

Videos: "Betty Page"   "Mystery Girl"   "She Does the Do"

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Pete Vengeance

Scarlett Witch

(El Dandy Records)

Pete Hutton's low, full voice is fathomless in the manner of icons. Ballad dreaminess laps on shores amour, only to be equaled by its uppity sibling. Crazy string licks flash out of Kicks Alley, muscling their way into rumbustiousness marshalled by standard instrumentation required by sideburned orthodoxy. This is the sound and style of kool kats who care not one flung whit about pedestrian opinions, and it ain't goin' nowhere -- if jukebox jivers like Pete have anything to say. And man, Pete does.

Recommended: "Because the Way You Look Tonight," "Black Widow," "Got the Blues," "Would You Could You Fall in Love," "Scarlett Witch," "You Were So Suspicious," "Tempting Kiss"

Videos: "Because the Way You Look Tonight"   "Would You Could You Fall in Love"   "Got the Blues"   "Tempting Kiss"

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Paul Ansell and Smokestack Lightnin'

Between Paul's grained drawl and the robust encouragement of Nuremberg roots-mavens SL -- particularly guitarists Axel Brückner and André Langer -- a pair of hand-tooled ditties kick like home folks in high cotton.

Videos: "Stuck in a Rut"   "Rawhide"  (Yes, the beloved TV theme.)

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Shortstack & Sides

Long Time Coming, Planet Bop, In Person

(Self-issued digital, Always a Hit Records)

"R.I.P Mr. Colin Jones of Shortstack and Sides," read a recent Facebook post authored by Rumble Road Records. "I'll listen to you sing and slap that bass and think about you while you're on your journey beyond us here, show em how to Rock'n'Roll."

Colin and combo consistently rolled halcyon bop that favored the country lineage with which it was thoroughly comfortable. It never affronted nor challenged, just eased down the lane. One gladly welcomed refuge from everyday life severities.

Recommended from all three: "Hobo Blues," "Love at First Sight," "Planet Bop," "So Lonesome," "Broken Heart," "Hey Little Diddle," "Shadow and Me"

Videos: "Love at First Sight"   "Planet Bop"   "Shadow and Me"

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Charlie Hightone and the Rock-Its 

If any reticence was mistakenly in attendence at the last Rockabilly Rave, it tore for the exit when this five-alarm conviction deluged off the stage. 

Video: "Dead End Track" (live at Rockabilly Rave 2026))

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The Forty Fours

Among Where the Action Is airs refreshed in scant bubbly minutes are Donovan's "Sunshine Superman" and a plethora of early-days Lennon/McCartney ones. And, just as chipper '60s harmonies fully bloom, scrupulous attention is paid attire, clipped coifs, and general comportment - all the way to toothy noggin-joggling.

Video: "Now She's Gone"

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Screaming Lord Sutch's ghost won't stand down                  

It was in 1999 that Londoner David Sutch, only 58, bid goodbye to us, one and all. Depression's smothersome bleakness exacted horrible penalty. Among distressing matters, he'd never gotten over the passing of his mum, with whom he'd been quite close.

Details of his mortal coil exit are insignificant to deserved celebration of his singularity.

By his own admission, the self-dubbed 'Lord' was not a gifted singer. But enthusiasm splashed front rows. His knack for shocking presentation was ever manifest, and his place in the pantheon assured. 

Over decades, his ghoulish songs have assumed revered status, having been covered by bands like the Sharks, Gruesomes, White Stripes, and a score of hyper-amped Psychobilly mutations.

Sutch was in the rank of early 1960s British rockers like Marty Wilde, Tommy Steele, Cliff Richard, and Wee Willie Harris. But it would be gross understatement to observe he merely differed from marquee fellows.

While impeccably combed sensations purred of matters fluffy, Sutch set about the horrid business of resurrecting England's infamous Jack the Ripper, and intoning craftily of a vampire's retiring to silk-lined repose.

Notable of that era was the string of Joe Meek-produced, horror-drenched 45s Sutch unleashed upon shops. ("When I went up these rickety stairs, I couldn't believe this was where all these number one records had come from," Sutch would later recall to a BBC interviewer, of his initial encounter with the storied producer.)

Titles "Jack the Ripper," "Monster in Black Tights," "Dracula's Daughter," "Til the Following Night," and "She's in Love with a Monster Man" bespoke dark and fetid phenomena - with a wicked wink.

Spirited covers of "Don't You Just Know It," "Honey Hush," "Great Balls of Fire," and "Good Golly Miss Molly" further ensured his welcome in sideburned surroundings. 

(Later Lordy tunes included "All Black and Hairy," "Murder in the Graveyard," "Monster Rock," "Loonabilly," "Disco Crusher," and "Rockabilly Madman.")

Sutch had nicked his character moniker from Cleveland-born Screamin' Jay Hawkins. He injected into namby-pamby, Pop-crooner days, Rock'n'Roll that made much of its scandalous, wildside mien, with both the snarl of a ghoulish maldoer and the maniacal laugh of a rabidity-ravaged hyena.

Nattily suited, innocuous Liverpudlian moptops may have been "yeah-yeah-yeahing" to swooning schoolgirls on Ed Sullivan's program, but Sutch was of grislier intent. He sometimes slathered on a greasepaint fright mask and wrapped himself in the folds of a black creeper cloak, wielding oversized menacing dagger. 

Other nights, he donned a leopard-skin caveman fur and hefted a cartoonishly awkward axe. Whichever costume he chose, he always scared audiences into fears unforgettable. 

Sutch prowled stage fronts in swirling cloak and horrific creature coloration, cavorting as the notorious axeman of Olde London's gaslit, cobbled roads. His Rock'n'Roll horrorshow costumery and theatrics scandalized sedate Britishers, sent chills down the spines of toe-tapping fans, and recalled the fabled Parisian Grand Guignol.

But they also proved influential.

According to his Wikipedia page: "During the 1960s, Sutch was known for his horror-themed stage show, dressing as Jack the Ripper, pre-dating the Shock-Rock antics of Alice Cooper. Accompanied by his band the Savages, he started by coming out of a black coffin...Other props included knives and daggers, skulls, and 'bodies.'"

(Blurry auctorial recollections: I read, years ago, of Sutch's once appearing on a late-1960s festival bill. Then-unknowns the Alice Cooper band was among others appearing. It's hardly unthinkable that Vince Furnier and his fellows drew much inspiration from monstrous minstrel Sutch. In fact, a later interview portrayed Cooper pulling legs from a spider and expressing his wish that the insect were competitor the Screaming One.)

One tour was dubbed Sutch and the Roman Empire. In related performances, the singer and mates were garbed in suitably-historic armor.

A Dangerous Minds profile read: "Sutch appeared to have done most of Pop's rebellious things (long hair, the wildest songs, act, etc) but never received the credit for any of it."

His assumptive Lordship would eventually jettison "Screaming" from his title. Membership in his revolving cast of bandmates proved propitious for future professional fortunes. Among later-famed players who toiled at the monster-man's elbow over years were Jimmy Page, Charlie Watts, Jeff Beck, Noel Redding, Keith Moon, and Nicky Hopkins. 

A 1972 festival concert featured Sutch, backed by musicians including Moon, Redding, and Ritchie Blackmore. Legend holds that recording the live Hands of the Ripper was done surreptitously, and it wasn't until participating players saw the LP that bore their names on racks, that they even knew of the vinyl's actuality.

A common critical brickbat was "worst record ever." Not that the stalking menace likely gave a toss. (Similarly doubtful is that any 'heavy friends' involved listed the record on their resumes.)

Sutch remained on the road through subsequent decades, spreading his iconic message of Rock'n'Roll's grisly glories to beery punters 'round the countryside. Festival crowds through the nineties also beheld his show-bizzy abominableness.

The top-hatted, leopard-print-coated rouser was in later performances likely to drape a toilet seat/lid about his neck, whilst pumping arms frantically and fixing front-row loonies with a googly-eyed, broadly grinning countenance. 

Whether what transpired next was convivial romping or chilling maliciousness was anyone's guess. (A mixture of the pair often sprouted.)

Donning a piggy mask, fireman's red helmet, yellow construction hard hat, torching fires on stage boards, flapping bolts of fabric, or madly ringing town-crier handbells were amongst Sutch's antics. 

 ("He's a right nutter," a fan might have laughed. "And he's all aces in my book!")

All the while, frantic Rock'n'Roll guitars zoomed piercingly, and thunderous rhythms shook halls. For all the macabre eyewash, Sutch was as solidly of relentlessly pounding musical uproar as any jukebox JD.

During this same period, he inflicted his oddness on English politics as the founder and chieftain of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. (Which may well have inspired Monty Python jesting.) 

The bearer of helter-skelter, willy-nilly ill tidings became something of a curious fixture in electoral spectacles. His gaudy getups and theatrically demented joviality made for gladsome spectacle in otherwise drab doings.

He and other OMRLP party candidates for Parliment always lost, though a couple of small-pond council aspirants did take home victories. Too, his proposed notion of enfranchising younger voters did eventually gain purchase.

Monster Raving in the Long Black Coffin, a 2011 Western Star Records tribute, gave the Sharks, Jack Rabbit Slim, Wild Bob Burgos, Frenzy and more an opportunity to rock out homage to the dreaded cult star in whose wake generations of bop monstrosities had risen. (The same year, the Sharks had themselves issued their own tribute EP: Songs from the Sarcophagus, also a Western Star disc.)

Raise a mug, then, to Screaming Lord Sutch - a flamboyant and histrionic, bigger-than-big, three-chord vulgarian whose ebony carryings-on are today beloved and emulated by Psychobillies both above and beneath sod. His true-believer-from-the-darkside ravings will surely resound into perpetuity.

"Til the Following Night" (1961)

"Jack the Ripper" (1964 TV)

"All Black and Hairy"

"Murder in the Graveyard" 

"Gotta Keep A-Rocking" (From Hands of the Ripper)

"Train Kept A-Rollin'" (video)

"London Rocker"

"The Wolfman Strikes Again" (1984)

1985 Weymouth Rock'n'Roll Weekender (live)

Black Kat Boppers

All Out Rock'n'Roll   digital album

(Swelltune Records)

One pointy alligator shoe stomping in Sun world, the other imprinting Blues swampscape, and mojos cavorting in Mashed Potato abandon all the while. Lauded scene habitués Roy, Luca, Dylan, and Colin affirm again why they're major attractions hither and thither. Don't comb tracks for ponderous cogitation, just grab some pick-'em-up-and-put-'em-downs.

(Collaboration and graphic artwork come courtesy of Clash-mate and dedicated supporter Paul Simonon who, on occassion, also subs on four-string axe at gigs.)

Recommended: "Billy Billy," "All Out Rock'n'Roll," "Scream & Holla," "Black Kat Boppin' atcha," "Casting My Spell," "Rollin' In," "You Silly Thing"

Videos: "Billy Billy" (live at Rockabilly Rave 2026)   "All Out Rock'n'Roll" (live at Continental Club 2024)   "Casting My Spell" (live at Hank Dietle's Tavern 2024)   "You Silly Thing" (recorded in separate locations during COVID era)

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