I just finished writing this article for a new magazine I want to do! It will probably get a little tidy up before it is published but I've mentioned my music writing around the forums and thought it would be nice for people to see what I do. So here you go...
Super Garage Special
My journey towards buying a Norton split seven of bizarre one man bands covering obscure Stones songs started innocently enough – with a Dirtbombs track which was almost denied a release due to fading out into ‘Hey Jude’. I could hardly believe this anecdote when I read it in the sleeve of a Dirtbombs comp, since although the pre-jude section of the song had given warmth to my veins, like a cold blooded creature sunning itself on a record deck, its reason to be was to fall apart in the fade out. The Love Supremes, stars of the b-side, appear to have been a group of hilariously misplaced hippies armed against the nineteen eighties with only a marimba and a positive world vision. You too can learn to walk on water at http://www.myspace.com/thelovesupremes ! !! !
Somewhere in America, a very peculiar sort of business had been founded upon the apparently financially suicidal belief in a niche market that would not only appreciate such a record, but stand salivating next to the rough trade 7” racks waiting for it to appear. I present myself as proof of it’s existence, and I present the above mentioned one man band Stones split as evidence of how membership of such a niche can enhance your life-quality. A-side architect Bloodshot Bill is Canada’s one man band, whose website proudly states that he is banned from the US for the next five years. He claims that, previous to this, when he was arrested for drunk-driving, the cop (accurately) recorded his hair as ‘black and greasy’. You may consider this an endorsement. His new LP, “All Messed Up” is released not by Norton but by Hog Maw, (http://www.myspace.com/hogmaw), who do a fabulous line in music completely unencumbered by the advancements of the previous five decades and drenched in hillbilly vocal ticks.
They say that if you shine a torch into the darkness all you’ll realise is that Norton Records have released literally millions of screaming rock and roll records and you only own two of them. If you find yourself looking for illumination, you’ll be glad that, according to the Norton website, (http://www.nortonrecords.com) hell officially froze over last December and you can buy a label best-of entitled ‘I Hate Cd’s’ from various online places. Before you go whacking the old credit card for mail order.
Norton mainly dealing in re-issues, you may find yourself dispirited at the lack of twenty first century action. God knows we’d all like to listen to something along the same lines that we can at least imagine is still happening in some bar of ill repute. Let me reassure you that such a thing goes on – the difficulty is in weeding out the straight ahead rockers who will persist in giving garage rock a bad name, and finding bands with the odd ambition above personifying the naked ape.
A good place to begin your search is to take the two best known offenders – the Black Lips and the King Khan and BBQ Show – look up their affiliate bands and labels and branch out from there. I trust that the first of these requires no introduction, but I will pause briefly to remind you to listen to the Diplo remix of ‘Veni Vidi Vici’, which is on the ‘b of the last single, (released by Vice). King Khan and his repeat conspirator BBQ may not be known to you, but their various projects represent a richer and deeper seam to mine. Look up “Spaceshits” on Youtube and you will find a very young and gorgeous King Khan – or ‘Black Snake’ then – and a hooded BBQ telling a US TV presenter his name is ‘Creepy’. (The presenter also brings out a stack of their 7” singles which he can’t understand why they bother to release, ‘do the kids even know what a forty-five is?’). The Spaceshits scored top marks for playing thrashy-style garage punk with unrestrained food throwing glee. Upon their reunion under the King Khan and BBQ moniker, much more joy was to be found in the weepy numbers.
Also on Youtube is the hilarious video for their doo-wop sob-athon ‘Why Don’t You Lie’, which is built around an emotional phone conversation between our two protagonists – now apparently lovers. ‘You said Berlin was romantic.’ ‘It is, but then there was a dark war and the city was split in two.’ There are now two full LP’s available for your appreciation: a self titled debut and ‘What’s For Dinner’, both available from In the Red – http://www.intheredrecords.com. What these records show is that musical progression is not limited to the Radiohead’s of this world – it is a concept that can be every bit as relevant to intentionally ret*d garage rock ‘stuckists’! By drawing on genres such as fifties rock n’ roll, doo wop, rockabilly and country, King Khan and BBQ have regressed in order to progress. Although, the concept hardly matters as much as how impossibly and infectiously happy they both seem – their debut album cover features them skipping down the street arm in arm!
Now is the time for getting our hands dirty delving into a seemingly endless list of side projects and affiliated labels! In no particular order…
1. On a recent limited ed. 7”, King Khan traded in his regular vocalist BBQ for his young daughter Saba Lou. I happened to pick up a Pre single in the same haul, and it struck me that the young Miss Khan bore a strong resemblance to an even stroppier Akiko.
2. The aforementioned single was released on Rob’s House Records, a fabulous little US 7” imprint. By the time you’ve read this, there ought to be Black Lips/Subsonics and Gentlemen Jesse and His Men/Joseph Plunket splits available, which will no doubt be very worthy purchases. However, my personal favourite Rob’s House Record is the Coathangers’ ‘Don’t Touch My s**t’, which is not garage at all, but all-female psychotic rock with the odd synthetic sound.
3. http://www.dieslaughterhausrecords.com/ is the place to pick up both of the aforementioned records, as well as a wide array of other extremely loud sounds. (As well as to have a little cry about the Black Lips rarities all being frustratingly sold out). If your brain is still managing to register the differences between obscure garage bands, and you are not yet drowned out by the fuzz, you should take a look at Goner Records, Douschemaster Records, Shattered Records, and Hook Or Crook Records too.
4. When King Khan feels like being entirely upbeat and heavier on the horns and retro shtick, he trades in BBQ for his Shrines, resulting in the LP ‘What Is?!’. More conventionally rocking, I recommend it for those Friday night, pimping yourself in the mirror moments.
5. As well as your more conventional noisy fare, In The Red records is home to Sparks. What do they have in common with morbid, hillbilly cramps-a-likes Haunted George and unstoppable French beat freaks Sonic Chicken 4? Absolutely nothing at all.
What all of the above has in common is that it comes from all countries and continents that aren’t the UK. My parting shot for you, Hollywood Sinners, of Toledo, Spain, are not going to break this trend, but their new single ‘Todo El Mundo Haciendo El Down’ is getting a release on London’s very own Dirty Water. Abandoning our original premise, these dirty monkeys are the Naked Ape made flesh, or in their own words, ‘Hollywood Sinners is a gang of 3 weird and crazy guys wich only interests is being wild and noisy’.
My final thought is that I wish to emphasise that garage rock in 2008 is not a nonsense. It can be anything from naked apes to Diplo remixes to hillbilly one man bands and I would encourage you to investigate all of them.
Sarah Stilettos
12 Jan 2008, 7:38 pm
OMG. Goner, Shattered, In The Red, and Hook Or Crook are some of my favorite labels. I love Haunted George. I thought the day would never come when I heard such music mentioned on WP. I think we have similar taste!
