Garage Powerpop on the Rocks !
That's a bit short to describe Dee Rangers, from Stockholm, Sweden, but that elaborated cocktail has to be served chilled & loud on your turntables before you're the one who gets hot listening to their foot-stomping headbangers.
Dee Rangers are :
Johnny Elfström – bass
Nicke Öhman – organ, lead guitar
Per Nyström – vox, guitar
Ulf (Uffe) Pettersson – Drums
Dee Rangers won't bother you with their bio on their website, but as some music explorers might be interested, here are a few words about the band, as Johnny greatly helped me on that quest, for only scarce info can be found. Here's their story as it was kindly brought to me :
Dee Rangers started out in 1995 with the members above. Each of them had played in different bands before, e.g. Johnny & Ulf played in The Maryland Cookies (Swedish 80s garage band with several records out). They started out playing lots of Kinks, Sonics and Link Wray covers among original songs.
Just before the recording of the first Estrus EP, Per (singer) was replaced by Mike Eriksson ( ex-singer in Maryland Cookies) and stayed in the group on the first 5 singles + the 2 first albums (1996-2003).
The music during this time was 95% songs by Johnny & Nicke & Ulf.
“The Pretty Ugly Beat” (2003) was recorded in London at the Toe-Rag Studio. The band had a great time there and also had Don Craine (Downliners Sect) in the studio, and he did a guest apparence on marraccas, tambourine and backing vocals. We also had Parsley The Lion (ex-Solarflares) playing all organ-parts on this album.
After that album, Mike was replaced by Per (original singer). Parsley also joined the band fulltime on organ.
And this was the start of the real Dee Rangers !
In 2004 they recorded "Back from the Past, Bollocks to the Future", a kind of best of album + some new songs in Montana, Stockholm. This album was only sold at shows.
In the years of 2004-2007 Dee Rangers toured Europe several times, mostly Spain and Germany, but also Paris, played festivals as Primitive in Rotterdam, and Festival Beat in Italy. They recorded 2 albums in Gijon in Spain together with Jorge from Dr Explosion at his studio "Circo Perotti". During this years the band members lived in 3 countries (Per in Madrid, Parsley in London and the rest of Dee Rangers in Stockholm).
All guys flew in to Stockholm for rehearsals every other month, or met on tour (which worked surprisingly well).
In 2007 Parsley said goodbye and they were now back to the real original 4 Dee Rangers guys.
In 2009 they released a new single "Upside Down/ Down and Out" on the Bootleg Booze label and Nicke moved to Cambodia with his girlfriend (they are back now).
Eventhough, Nick came back several times to rehearse and play gigs AND record the new album, "Down In The Playground" during 2010. Their latest album was recorded by friend Måns Månsson (Crimson Shadows, The Maggotts) and was released in February 2011.
Since 2009 the focus has been on songwriting, as Johnny explains, and the band has moved slightly from the garage into powerpop. Although Dee Rangers recently released “Down In The Playground” they already have enough material for another new album !
So all the guys are back in Stockholm now and are as always ready to conquer the world!!
Dee Rangers are playing the 99th Floor in Landet, Stockholm tonight and are heading to Spain as front band for a 3 day festival in Logrono (La Rioja / in northern Spain) in June.
Thank you Johnny !
For the bio and also for helping me getting to know more of your music ;)
Links include :
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dee-Rangers/112879428769490
http://www.soundflat.de/shop/shop.cfm?art=DEE%20RANGERS&CFID=120858498&CFTOKEN=16713108
http://garagepunk.ning.com/profile/deerangers
http://www.myspace.com/deerangers
Now you are ready to listen to Dee Rangers !
@+/bye/bis bald/saludos (listening to Dee Rangers, Powerslam III, track n°7 from Down In The Playground, which cover has a taste ot The Ramones' Hey Ho, Let's Go – Anthology)
Guillaume / Rockandrockets
PS : Buy music, or bye-bye music !
PS 2 : Have no fears, open your ears...
