"erhn" , sorry that's Gallic for "when".

I've read similar things about Chuck, but always wanted to check him out because I've been listening to him from at least age 5, I grew up with him. Chuck, Elvis, Jerry Lee, and Carl Perkins shaped my musical tastes from a young age, plus I just respect the hell out of Chuck for his contributions to RnR. And of course I always wanted to check out Jerry too haha
The thing about young age is true (I'm 18, but I've listening to this stuff for 13 years.) It all started when I heard Elvis (the 50s stuff, I was never really into the 70s stuff.) When I was in school I was known for liking the old stuff that all my classmates hate, I can't help it I just flat out hate new music, rap & dubstep are just shit in my opinion. I love country but today's country is a travesty, but musicians like Ty Segall I dig. I always tried to get my friends into the older stuff but they wouldn't have any part, so I guess more for me right haha.

YOU HEARD THE MAN. NOW , VOTE FOR HIM.

What? Lol sry I'm new to the site, what do u mean by vote? Haha

I mean , if you run for something , you've got our vote.

But , you don't have to run for anything if you don't want to......

Hahaha oh I appreciate the vote fellas lol

For me it was a combination of things, having a pretty cool (in hindsight) older brother, an easily irritated father who liked Cochran, Vincent and Elvis but hated that scareligious thing called punk....and being a fan of The Monkees TV show, STEPPING STONE was the gateway drug so to speak. As a cheeky and somewhat mischevious 13 year old I had bought The Sex Pistols singles C'Mon Everybody and Something Else more to annoy my dad rather than for any musical inclinations and the flipside of Something Else, Friggin In The Riggin was the mantra of every single schoolboy between the age of 10 and 16 for many a year. The B-side of C'Mon Everybody was a blinding version of Whatcha Gonna Do about It which I guess had a bit of influence on my eventual musical tastes but when The Pistols version of Stepping Stone came out it kind of sealed it for me as I had found a copy of Gravest Hits in Virgin records on import at about the same time (at HUGE expense....to my dad !)...which was really cool as I could piss off not only my dad, but my brother who was a serious Ramones fan and all my soppy buddies who thought that the stray cats were the dogs bollox !!!!

ha ha ha ha ha ....That last sentence says it all ! Admittedly , I found out about The Stray Cats and The Cramps around the same time (Spring , 1981.) . I was just interested in anything that had to do with Rockabilly at the time , because it was new to me , even tho' I knew about Perkins , Cochran , Vincent , etc. , even that stuff , if you did'nt own it , you would'nt have heard it , much. Of course , you could her Elvis , but , not so much "The Sun Sessions". Of course , before The Stray Cats' brief ascent to fame , there were Punk Rockers who say the connection to the original raw Rockabilly (And 60's Garage.) , but , those were the  BIG kids , I was still in High School.... Today , sadly , The Stray Cats have gone back to being the template , along with Big Sandy ( Who's a super nice guy , and always has great players in his band , but only really delivers the good when he's singing Mexican R'n'R with Los Straijackets.). The wildness ain't there a - tall , with a few exceptions (Hi , Lisa. Hi , Jill .).

In hindsight , "Steppin' Stone" really was the first important Garage Punk Protest song (That , and "Pushin' Too Hard.".). The Raiders' original , of course , was pure balls. I met Mark Lindsay , briefly , and someone asked him what he thought of The Monkees having a big hit with the song they did first (OK , SOME SAY IT WAS THE LIVERPOOL FIVE , IF SO , IT WAS CLOSE.) . Mark replied" Ah , The Monkees were cool....They MIMED well..

As you know , there was this serious "Clash" between Teds and Punks , even though they liked some of the same music and variations on the same clothes. The Pistols , of course , were attacked for wearing creepers and drape jackets , and , not even disrespectfully. Those Teds were probably too young to remember when they were the ones who looked strange in the public eye. I like the Teddy Boy stuff , Crazy Cavan , Matchbox , Flying Saucers , etc.... But , the VERY early 80's were an exciting time , to me , because there was so much going on , or that had gone on in the past 5 years , and you did'nt have to swear allegience to just one genre.

Ramones fans not liking The Cramps , HA HA. Of course , they've been my top two bands for well over 30 years. I read about how , when The Ramones took The Cramps under their wing in '76-77 , and got them as many opening spots as they could , they did it at the cost of alienating their own fans , who found The Cramps' music "Repetitive".  HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA.... 

But , you know , I'm sure , who that was at the beginning of The Ramones' "Substitute" video.......

And you must have read about how The Cramps were pissed off at Robert Gordon for covering "The Way I Walk " shortly after they released their version. "At least , when The Ramones did "Surfin' Bird" , they asked for our permission , first !" Lux.

Aww shit, I remember only too well that awful teddy boy revival thing going on, Robert Gordon and Link Wray, Robert Gordon and Willem Defoe in The Loveless ('Grease' for grown ups), Crazy Cavan and that most irritable of Welshmen 'Shakin Stevens' (he covered Green Door in the early 80's) awful, really awful drivel....worse than the stray cats (only just)....Call it chance, call it whatever you like (plain and simple good taste) but I had the good luck to stumble across the Meteors quite early on and they really kicked arse compared to the revival and straight forward imitation stuff that was knocking around at the time, remember that Jim Bobo's (aka Hank Mizell) Jungle Rock had been #1 in nearly every European country during the mid 70's and the European collectors plundered the wharehouses in the US looking for Rockabilly cuts to compile on those god awful white label comps (much of which was to resurface later on the Born Bad series)...all hand drawn representations of teddy boys and the like, makes me shudder even now....Luckily, there were some pretty cool guys who actually 'got it' the likes of Levi Dexter, Lux & Ivy, Nigel Lewis & (Dare I say it, at the beginning) P.Paul Fenech even Canada's Bopcats....that was another really F****** annoying thing about that period, every bloody wannabe postfixed their name with 'cats'....puerile. Apart from The Polecats who actually changed their name from 'Cult Heroes' to The Polecats as their first moniker was toooooo 'New Wave' for a 'Rockin' audience....personally, I loved The Polecats, they were kitsch, they loved T-Rex and Mott The Hoople as well as having the balls to cover a Dave Bowie song for Rockabillies....cool as f***. Dave Phillips version of Tainted Love is a CLASSIC even though I have the Gloria Jones version it's alway the Hot Rod Gang version I listen to........As for Matchbox and their ilk, I would quite happily have set fire to them, crossed the road so as not to have been close enough to P*** on them to put out the blaze ! Harsh, maybe.....however !............Does this constitute a rant ?   

I guess it does (Constitute a rant) , but , it's your right.  I caught up with a lot of the Teddy Boy stuff later. If I'd grown up with it , I might have felt different. I was'nt crazy about a lot of it , when I first heard it . 

I would'nt say Gordon (And , especially , Link Wray.) had anything to do with Teds (Tho' they may have liked him , Don't know.). he just did his own , slick , New York version of Rockabilly (But , not as slick as The Stray Cats' New York version . Gordon made some inroads at a time when you could'nt GIVE Rockabilly away in America , even commercialized RAB , but he was an afterthought by the time The Stray Cats returned from The UK and plundered The US (Same strategy as Hendrix.).

I liked The Meteors , I was probably one of the first people to play 'em on the radio in The US , but , after 10 or 12 years , I lost interest. Psychobilly did'nt start to catch on in the states until less than 10 years ago. By that time, I was long past caring , but , I saw The Meteors , once , in '96 . They played to about 40 people , and it was a great show , even tho' it was like nostalgia, to me , by then. Fenech turned out to be a very nice guy , too ,  tho' I'd always heard the opposite , even from him. 

Yeah , I know about Hank Mizell's fluke hit in '75 (?) . This would'nt have happened here , obviously , tho' there were a few reissues and re- recordings that charted , here , during the early 70's R'n'R revival. Not Rockabilly , of course. 

I bought some the White Label and Bison Bomp comps , mainly because they were so fucking cheap , here.  THE ROCKABILLIES ONLY WANTED SETZER AND THE MOST OBVIOUS SUN RECORDS stuff , here. SOME OF 'EM WERE CRAP , BUT , i FOUND SOME GOOD ONESl. It's only been fairly recent that comps are coming out with GOOD sound and great song selection from The UK , and making their way , here , largely because the copyright laws have been lifted on that stuff , and the tightarsed collector types are coming up with better material , , and with better sound....even on You Tube .

Levi does 'Get it" , I've talked to him a couple of times , good cat. Of course , when Levi and The Rockats relocated to New York , nothing happened , tho' they were accepted by the local club scene , and , he told me , Johnny Thunders was fiercely loyal to them ( And , Jerry Nolan toured with them.). I saw Levi and The Rockats at the last Green Bay festival , they killed it ,man . 

I met The Polecats , once , but , I did'nt recognize them. I thought they were British tourists , buying records. Then , I found out they were touring with that rockin' hellcat , Morrissey (Who at least has hired good bands , The Polecats and The Planet Rockers. TALK ABOUT SOMEONE I , MYSELF , WOULD WALK ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET FROM .) . Good guys , tho' , enjoyed meeting them . I kind of liked the fact that they did'nt bring attention to their band. But , I like that about them , too , that they did Glam songs like "Jeepster " and "John , I'm Only Dancing" that already had a 'Billy base , anyway.

I just found the (Canadian) Bop Cats record , it sure holds up better than that band that rehashed "Blank Generation" !

True, true with reference to The Polecats 'Glam' influences....I actually am persuaded that the first and only relevant incarnation of The Meteors (all other line-ups are irrelevant) are as important as the Cramps. The initial line up fragmented in late 81 and officially split early 82, far more 'Rockabilly' than anything which came after....they brought to light the likes of The Phantom, Johnny Carroll, Peanuts Wilson, Johnny Powers etc etc....in fact they had a huge impact on the Cramps being adopted in the UK and in France in particular as the foundations had been layed and a lot of what the Cramps did was instantly recognisable to the fans, if you can get your hands on it, grab a copy of the Meteors 'Lost Album' which was originally funded by EMI, but they shelved it considering it to be a little too 'out there' for general release.....the track listing is virtually interchangable with a Cramps set list and it was no surprise they were lumped together and the whole debacle over 'psychobilly' started....it was Johnny Cash who first coined the phrase...apparently, but I'm sure some hick had probably come up with the term psycho rockabilly long before that without the kudos !!! And where as Fenech ran off with the name and some kind of vision to perpetuate and dominate the so called 'psychobilly scene' (I lost interest mid 80's when it became uncomfortably cliched) Nigel Lewis went off in the direction that the Meteors had already been steering to, that of Garage punk (the original line up had already covered 'Get me to The World On Time' as the Clapham South Escalators and with his Tall Boys, Nigel Lewis totally embraced the Garage Punk thing, albeit with a very British 'Trash Twist' to it,...christ this could go on forever !

....People used to tell me they did'nt like the UK PSYCHOBILLY BANDS "BECAUSE THEY SOUNDED TOO MUCH LIKE THE cRAMPS". I did'nt hear that at all , but, I could readily see why the same people would like both The Cramps and The Meteors.   The Cramps were using the term "Psychobilly"(   Which they admitted they'd derived from Johnny Cash's "One Piece at a Time". )   to describe their sound in the 70's, but , I got the impression they thought their connection to the UK PSYCHOBILLY SCENE IN THE EARLY 80'S as a shotgun marriage. They distanced themselves from all that , even if it did help introduce them to a wider audience. They'd stopped calling themselves "Psychobilly" by then , anyway. But , they were diplomatic enough on "120 MINUTES" in 1990 , discussing what had gone on in England at that time , saying "We've been influenced by everying from The Sex Pistols to Charlie Feathers" , and , "The best Rockabilly has always been Psychobilly , even back when it started.".

It's not surprising the early Meteors would draw from a lot of the same material as The Cramps , but , what of The Bananamen ? THERE was a true progenitor to the classic Cramps sound.....

 

 

 

 

.....yes , I'm kidding.

I wouldn't say record, but the first time I saw VLMA live, it became clear to me on what I wanted to hear in music outside of stoner metal. They made music like I wanted my drawings to look. Wild, kill'em all experimental, and scumboppin.