legendary tiger man from portugal, of course rev. beat-man!

Dead Elvis & Bloodshot Bill ofcourse, but i'm gonna pick Ottoboy from Holland. Look him up, cool stuff

Mississippi Grover http://www.myspace.com/mississippigrover

 

BBQ

Joe Buck for sure. Going to his show here in San Diego on the 21st

Zoot Allures said:

Seems like Hasil has inspired a new generation.
Anybody heard of Joe Buck?

How about Richard Johnston, out of Memphis. Bloody Ol' Mule from Dallas is pretty good too. They are the only two off the top of my head I can think of right now. I think Johnston playing his cigar box/ broomstick guitar is pretty cool.

Of course Hasil Adkins is the supreme ruler!

I've also seen and loved Bob Log III, BBQ & Dead Elvis.

Havent seen Ty Segall live yet but we listen to him alot at our house.

My friend Fred has started a one-man band, I haven't seen him yet but I think its called "Fredovitch" and he also plays organ in King Khan & The Shrines- here is a video I found on youtube of him:

No problem. If you are on a budget, the Peavey Classic series is actually pretty comparable to the Fender tube amps. Also, the Crate Vintage Club and Palamino series, although not made anymore, are quite good for vintage surf tone. On top of that, it depends on what you are going for. If you want a really 'surf' sound, you are going to need a great reverb. While the Fender outboard reverb units are the most desireable, they cost a hefty penny. Boss and Fender teamed up a few years back and released a pedal called the Fender Frv-1, 63 Vintage Reverb. I cannot recommend this pedal enough. It is as close as you will ever get to the outboard unit and you can get them new for 130 bucks. They react in very much the same way as the outboard units, including overdriving and have an amazing 'drip', which I have yet to find another reverb pedal that even comes close.

 

As for me, with Kill,Baby...Kill!, I use a Peavey Blues Classic, which is the same as a Classic 50, but with a 15" speaker. On the pedal end, I have an Ibanez Tube Screamer and the FRV-1 reverb pedal. Those are my primary tools. I have other pedals on my board that I integrate into certain songs but are not really part of the overall tone. I would compare the sound to mid-year Man or Astro-man? guitar tone. You can sample some of the live sound at www.myspace.com/killbabykill

Thanks Buddy !

Bye 'surf punk' what are some examples? Agent Orange? Man or Astro-man?

 

I know Agent Orange were using the Crate Vintage Palamino amps a few years back.

 

MOAM? use Fender amps, of course.

King Automatic (french guy), The Butchers Orchestra (Brasilians)

Good call!  I like the fe fi fo fums, too. "My Baby got the BOOM BOOM!"

i listen to the dutchess and the duke as well, the duke was the singer of the fe fi fo fums, a decent garage band.

dumfuk said:

Personal and the Pizzas
the Dutchess and the Duke (not relly garage-punk,but totally addictive)

thee Makeout Party-Play Pretend LP, today.

We usually write as a band. Either I will have most of the music in my head already or I'll have a couple riffs that I have been working on and we will play one over and over until the singer starts to find his words. Once we have a verse or two then we try to make some changes. Organize and mapping comes next. Then we usually record it so we can listen and come up with more ideas. The song on my page Do it is the rough recording about ten minutes in. I had an Idea of changing the chords in the chorus after the second verse. Probable after listening to a bunch of early Sonic Youth. We are about to re record it with a drum track that I just finished. Let me know what you think.

I have always played mostly power chords but I'm trying to write melodies on single strings now..it sounds a lot more garage and less punk rock that way.  it feels a lot catchier too.

Jamie said:

I tend to come up with some kind of riff or idea on the guitar then think of some idea I want the song to be about and then come up with words. I'm really slow at it though and don't write as often as I would like. So far for the band I'm in I've tried to not really sound like any thing in particular but I plan on trying to do some more pure "garage/punk" songs eventually.

I tend to come up with some kind of riff or idea on the guitar then think of some idea I want the song to be about and then come up with words. I'm really slow at it though and don't write as often as I would like. So far for the band I'm in I've tried to not really sound like any thing in particular but I plan on trying to do some more pure "garage/punk" songs eventually.

I usually write lyrics and then figure out the melody and then write the music.  Then it gets tweaked with the rest of the band.  I like to have a good buzz on for this writing process but occasionally out of the blue the whole song comes out at once and is done in minutes.  whats your method?

Old Ampeg reverberocket is what I like. I tried a 90s one at a friends house as well as a more recent ampeg reverberocket headand. The newer ones didnt have the same raunch factor. This is with a junior lester as well. I like the fuzzrite in front of it, or seymour dunkie pickup booster set to the treble boost for more fenderish clean chime.

ChazMatthews said:

I'm gonna agree on this one. I too, used to have an Ampeg Reverberocket. I was using a Gibson LP Jr at the time and it sounded amazing through this. I have an Epiphone Galaxie all tube from the mid 90s now, which is pretty close.

kopper said:

I used to have an Ampeg Reverberocket. That thing was awesome. Wish I still had it!

Thanks! Just downloaded it.

I'm planning to get the book in the near future :):)

I go-go danced for Nobunny in 2009 at the Funtastic Dracula Carnival and it was really really fun and ever since then I've been such a fan of his songs, he's a real talented and hard-working bunny- he tours constantly!

 

this is also awsome...on a show in sardinia in 2009 NOBUNNY climbs a wall and fells into the drumset...

THE BLACK OUT OF GRETELY – GONN

THE UNIVERSE IS PERMEATED WITH THE ODOR OF KEROSENE
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

I WAS WALKING DOWN THE STREET AT NIGHT
THINKING IN MY MIND THAT MY LIFE WAS RIGHT
THE MOON CAME UP AND I LOOKED AROUND
THE STREET LIGHTS WERE ON NOWHERE AROUND.

MY EYES WERE DARK AND MY HEART BEAT FAST
I KNEW THAT MY DARK SIDE COULD NOT LAST

IT WAS DARK AS IT COULD BE
A DEEP SEA DIVER COULD NOT SEE
CARS WERE DRIVING WITH HIGH BEAM
YOU COULDN'T EVEN TELL IF MR. CLEAN WAS CLEAN.

I LIT A MATCH AND I WALKED ON HOME
MY NIGHT SIDE DARK TIME COLD AND ALONE
WALKED IN MY DOOR AND TO MY SURPRISE
I HAD SUNGLASSES ON MY EYES

CRAIG MOORE, 1966
Main Riff

G||------------------||
D||------------------||
A||-7-7---5---7-6-5--||
E||-----5---3--------||

Break

G||------------------||------------------||------------------||------------------||
D||------------------||------------------||------------------||-5----------------||
A||-7----------------||------------------||-5----------------||---5--------------||
E||------------------||-5----------------||------------------||-----5------------||

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
February 11, 2011

One of the lonely things about being a music critic and a lover of off-the-beaten-wall music is that you tend to get very excited about songs and albums and artists that nobody you know, not even your hipper friends, not even most of your hipper online friends, has ever heard of. You’re the one person in the forest when the tree falls and you scream, “Yes! There was a sound!” But even those who believe you don’t really care.

That’s basically how I felt when the self-titled new album by Simon Stokes and The Heathen Angels came out. It made my day when I got a review/airplay copy in the mail (in an envelope I suspect was addressed by Stokes himself with actual Kate Smith postage stamps. God bless America!). But the few people with whom I shared my excitement only seemed puzzled.

I don’t care. This album is everything I like about Stokes — boozy biker rock, some credible honky-tonk, even some mad folk-inspired ballads that would make your typical folkie wet his pants in fear. I might just crank up my iPod and blast it in my car when I stop at red lights and inflict it upon other drivers and hapless pedestrians. Those with ears to hear will know the weird joy that is Simon Stokes.

What you should know about Simon Stokes: He was born in Michigan, the grandson of a big-band leader, and moved to Los Angeles in the mid-’60s to dive into the rock ’n’ roll biz. He had a band called The Flower Children — though it’s hard to imagine that this tough old bird was ever a flower child. The group had a song called “Miniskirt Blues.” However, I never heard this song until the ’90s when it appeared on The Cramps’ album Look Ma, No Head, with guest vocals by Iggy Pop. (There’s a powerful new version on Heathen Angels.)

In the late ’60s, Stokes formed another band called The Nighthawks, which reportedly signed to Elektra Records on the same day as The Stooges and The MC5. In 1973, he released The Incredible Simon Stokes & The Black Whip Thrill Band, which unfortunately became more notorious for its S/M themes than for its bruising blues rock (and a pretty outlaw-country tune called “The Devil Just Called My Name”).

Stokes seemed to disappear after his 1977 album Buzzard of Love, resurfacing in the ’90s to team up with Dr. Timothy Leary on an album, Right to Fly — also known as LSD (Leary Stokes Duets); the best song from that collaboration is “100 Naked Kangaroos in Blue Canoes.” Stokes also helped produce The Radical, a cool album by American Indian Movement leader Russell Means.

My favorite Stokes work of all time is his 2002 album Honky. There were guest spots by Wayne Kramer and The Bell-Rays’ Lisa Kekaula, but this definitely was Stokes’ show. Songs like “Amazons and Coyotes,” “Johnny Gillette,” “Ride on, Angel” (a Black Whip remake that’s even better than the original version), and “No Confidence” represent Stokes at his rough-riding strongest.

Look Homeward, Heathen Angels: The new album is definitely Stokes’ greatest since Honky, but that just means I like it better than the one album between the two, Head, which was a good record with some great tunes, though more homemade and lo-fi. Most of the songs on Heathen Angels feature a full band — a solid group of rockers who perfectly complement the old master.

The opening song, “Hey You,” is an instant Stokes classic. With the Heathen Angels playing a thumping beat behind him, Stokes sings about a confrontation between a man on edge who basically is irate with the world and someone who looks at him wrong. “Don’t need no lawyer tryin’ to steal my dough/Don’t need that crap they’re playin’ on the radio. ... Hey you, are you looking at me/Hey you, I don’t like what I see.”

Brantley Kearns’ fiddle is out front on the song “Infected,” a minor-key rocker with the refrain, “Everybody’s infected, ’fected ... everybody’s gonna die!”

Another happy little tune here is “Down For Death.” This almost-seven-minute dirge is what Fairport Convention would have sounded like had Fairport Convention been fronted by a homicidal biker. Actually might be “The Black Angel’s Death Song” by The Velvet Underground. A man’s wife and children have been slaughtered by evildoers. It never says exactly why; there’s just the understatement, “a deal gone bad.”

But that’s the last understatement here. As Kearns goes nuts on his fiddle and Michael Starr’s guitar snarls menacingly, Stokes describes in bloody detail how the bad guys get theirs.

It’s definitely not for the squeamish. But that’s OK. The squeamish have their own music.

Besides “Miniskirt Blues,” another old Stokes tune revived here is “A Boa Constrictor Ate My Wife Last Night.” Originally appearing on Black Whip Thrill Band, it’s a dumb ditty, but it’s a fun little tune with a melody similar to that of “Honky Tonk Women.”

Stokes proves he’s got country in his soul on the song “Let’s Do Wrong Tonight.” It’s a duet with Annette Zilinskas, former bassist for The Bangles who also sang with the country-rock group Blood on the Saddle. This is a 100-proof honky-tonker that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on country radio in the ’70s.

There are a couple of cover tunes here including a wild take on “One Night of Sin.” Stokes doesn’t have the vocal talent of Elvis (who did the best-known version of this Smiley Lewis song). But it’s a spirited rendition that works on its own rag-tag terms.

Then there’s “Moth and the Flame,” an obscure song written by the late Sky Saxon of The Seeds.

Whenever you get discouraged and start to believe that most so-called rock music has become too artsy, too foo-foo, too slick, too poppy, too politically correct ... seek out Simon Stokes. He’ll restore your faith.