Tuesday 30 October 2018

Thee Oh No's - Out Of The Garage And Into The Shed (Ski Mask Records 2002)



This 7-song gem is a fast, fun slab of garage punk goodness! 

In an era where originality and freshness of style are extremely rare, Thee Oh No's, epitomize all that is imaginative in the garage rock idiom. These four young men, who hail from Tempe, Arizona, have captivated the attention of almost every musically minded individual around these United States. They mix their musical talent with an exciting stage presentation that is so necessary to suceed. The current lineup is Mr. Moto Oh No (guitar/organ/vox), Drain Oh No (guitar/vox), King Sunny Oh No (drums), and Sumo Oh No (bass). Their music is a blend of 1960's garage, bands like The Sonics, The Imperials, The Frantics, etc and more current garage bands like The Mummies, and The Gravedigger V. Thee Oh No's have released their self titled CD on their own "Skimask Records".

These guys deserve a giant high five. Thee Oh No's play catchy, fast-paced straight up garage rock. The organ thrown in makes you want to pick up your feet and dance dance dance! Not only is the music amazing, but the lyrics are laugh out loud hilarious. DEFINITELY A MUST HAVE!
   -LN Deathbot
 
Thee Oh No's - Out Of The Garage And Into The Shed (Ski Mask Records 2002) FLAC    320

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Saturday 27 October 2018

Cardboard Villains - Cardboard Villains (Ghost Highway Recordings 2013)



Cardboard Villains is a Swedish five piece that write and perform modern songs with a retro feel. Fans of 60's garage rock or vintage pop will find plenty to love about this album. Formed in 2010 by Linus Wallin (vocals and guitar) and Magnus Nordin (bass), this band quickly started writing songs and playing together with drummer Magnus Magnusson and keyboard player Mats Sjöblom. Magnus Ellsveden (guitar) joined shortly afterwards. The band has released one single and one LP on the Spanish vinyl lable Ghost Highway Recordings.   -Source

Ghost Highway have just released the first album from the swedish band Cardboard Villains. After a good single in 2012, repressed in green or purple this summer, the lp is in the same vein of modern poppy garage with great rocking tunes: "Right behind you" with a chorus that reminds me an Only Ones song or "Move It On" drived by the organ and the fuzz, and also good ballads, "Noble art" would reminds another great lost swedish band, The Playmates...    -Source

Cardboard Villains - Cardboard Villains (Ghost Highway Recordings 2013) FLAC    320

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(Lana) Loveland - Order To Love (Vinyl, Groovie Records 2011)



The Lana pulls off a very difficult work that only a handful of Garage Psych revival bands will even bother with by writing songs that go beyond mere cult of vintage melodies. Is debut album “Order To Love”, on Groovie Records is more than the collection of hooky singles that honestly was waiting. It's a real album, with a composite laminate, which I'll continue to listen for an extended period in order to really know and not just because I am addicted Garage and Psych highs. The first two tracks, “Black Glove” and “Missing Illusions”, previous release on a 7’’ at Butterfly Records are, the first a “catchy poppier” and the second a sweet  psych jams. “Theater Of Dreams” is an 80’s revival 60’s song, as “Nervous People” is a stunningly successful piece of vocal feminist and organ-driven, terminating in psychotic state. Of course, that “Missing Link” is easily the album's best track, a topic about staying true to yourself. These songs are part of a surprisingly good argument for screwing the idea of the Garage as a way to always be an emotional realness. Then there’s “Paranoia” a songs that would work well as a basement garage sing along songs, but “Silence Everywhere” and “Constant Furs” show that Lana Loveland can write the kind of catchy, super concentrated psych garage that could leave everybody askin' they weren't able to do this.  
Get this album, learn all the lyrics of all the songs, and then go to the streets and spread the words, peace, love and Loveland.    -Source
 
Wo andere zwanghaft retro sind, wartet die Berlinerin Lana LOVELAND mit immenser Credibility auf: Nicht nur, dass sie bei den FUZZTONES orgelt, sondern auch in Los Angeles unter der Ägide der Sixties-Underground-Helden THE BONNIWELL MUSIC MACHINE. Was sie gemeinsam mit ihrem Bruder Lenny für diese Scheibe unter eigenem Namen fabriziert hat, ist nichts weniger als ein Trip zurück in der Zeit, der seinesgleichen sucht.  
Schweineorgel und beschwörende Stimme stehen im Mittelpunkt der vordergründig überschaubaren, aber tatsächlich verschlungenen, vor Details strotzenden Kompositionen. In „Theater Of Dreams“ etwa ist man sich für Rhythmuswechsel nicht zu schade, und statt ständig dieselbe Stimmung zu verbreiten, schlingern LOVELAND zwischen sexy („Paranoia“) und schummrig („Nervous People“ mit Surf-Anleihen), freudig ( „Waiting“) und melancholisch („Silence Everywhere“) hin und her. Beeindruckend sind dabei die Fingerfertigkeiten sowohl der Frontfrau als auch der Saitenfraktion, die von JARABE-DE-PALO-Drummer Alex Tenas klasse zusammengehalten wird.
Loveland, die mitunter wie Grace Slick (höre das treibende „Missing Link“) klingt, gibt abgesehen vom schleichenden „Bandit“ beim Songwriting den Ton an. Das nölende „Constant Furs“ gehört am Ende zu den besonders eingängigen Stücken eines ohnehin hittigen Albums, dem drei Live-Bonusstücke anheimgestellt wurden. Diese machen Lust auf ein Konzertdarbietung dieser im Vergleich zu den jüngsten Erzeugnissen von Lanas Hauptband stärker zwingenden Zusammenstellung von am Flower-Power-Sound orientierten, aber dennoch aktuell oder zeitlos (Texte!) klingenden Liedern.
FAZIT: „Order To Love“ ist ein Fest für Freunde nicht nur der DOORS, sondern begeistert auch Kenner der Materie Sixties-Garage: Stichwort Linda Pierre King, Jeanne Hatfield und so weiter.    -Source

(Lana) Loveland - Order To Love (Vinyl, Groovie Records 2011) FLAC    320

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Thursday 25 October 2018

Cheeks - I Know What You Did Last Summer EP (Beyond Your Mind Records 2007)


This German five-piece employs a near perfect blend of organ, skewed pop harmonies and guitar to come up with a killer EP. Apparently their last album on the same label was a psych-pop thing but this updates the '60s beat genre with their own stamp. Singer Rono has a warm vocal that sits perfectly with their sound. They sound like an agreeable cross between The Strollers and The Stems. How they stayed under my wire so long (their first long-player was on Screaming Apple in 1997) I don't know but I want to hear more. You should know that Lana Loveland of The Fuzztones guested on organ and the black vinyl they pressed it on is thick enough to be a manhole cover.    -Source

Tracklist 
A1 - I Know What You Did Last Summer
A2 - Memory Line
AA1 - On A Night Like This

AA2 - The Ballad Of Will-O-The-Whisp

The Cheeks - I Know What You Did Last Summer EP (Beyond Your Mind Records 2007) FLAC    320

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Tuesday 23 October 2018

The Hatepinks - Plastic Bag Ambitions (TKO Records 2005)


Sixteen-and-a-half minutes of self-described "maximum minimalist garage-punk” are offered up here from this French four-piece, courtesy of California’s TKO Records. The obvious musical reference point would be the Briefs, or pretty much anything else on Rip Off Records for that matter. A sweet amalgamation of new wave, power pop and ’77 era punk rock that results in a spazzed-out, messed-up, downright dirty and deliciously dysfunctional musical style. Not that it matters, but the lyrics are printed in French, yet sung in gargled and garbled English, so who the heck knows what songs like "Tupperware Love” or "Kissing Cops With My Ass” are about. In summation: hook-laden punk rock that is snappy, snippy, snide and snotty. Pogo!    -Source

 Un, deux, troi, quatre - hier sind Franzosen am Werk. THE HATEPINKS entstammen dem französischen Garage/Punk Underground und zeigen auf "Plastic Bag Ambitions" was in ihnen steckt. TKO Records hat sich dem Quartett angenommen und das spricht in der Regel für ordentliche Punkrock Qualität.
Nun ja, mit anspruchsvollen Texten haben es die Franzosen nicht gerade, denn auf ihren 13 Tracks, die niemals die 2 Minuten Marke auch nur annähren touchieren, kann man beispielsweise über weite Strecken hören, wie die Franzosen bis vier zählen. One, two, three, four hallt es aus den Boxen und da man im Deutschunterricht aufgepasst hat wird auch mal eben ein Song auf Deutsch ausgezählt. Aber mal Spaß beiseite, "Plastic Bag Ambitions" ist ein Album, das Spaß macht. Die rotzige Garage trifft auf kunterbunten Bubble Gum Power Pop und 70er UK Einflüsse. Die Mixtur ist frisch, geht schnurstracks nach vorn und ist nach 16 Minuten 28 Sekunden auch schon vorbei. Was bleibt ist der Finger auf der Repeat Taste, denn das ging einfach viel zu schnell.    -Source
 
1. PLastic Bag Ambitions
2. Razor Lips
3. I Am A Divorce
4. Microwave
5. Girl Migraine
6. Fashion Is A Crime
7. Tpperware Love
8. Kissing Cops With My Ass
9. I Piss In Your Swimming Pools
10. Broken And Kaputt
11. Hate Le Pink?
12. We Are The Fucks
13.
Motherfuquer!
 

The Hatepinks - Plastic Bag Ambitions (TKO Records 2005) FLAC    320

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Monday 22 October 2018

Exploding White Mice - Exploding White Mice (Normal Records 1990)


 

This is the bands selftitled second album from 1990, it's a half-studio, half-live thing and was released in Germany on Normal Records. Here we have the CD-version with two bonus-tracks (= the b-side of their "I Just Want My Fun EP").


Exploding White Mice eponymous second album possesses quite the impressing explosive momentum – exactly as the band name can suggest. The songs are full of punk energy and vividness. And instrumentation shows a lot of fuzzy guitars so that at times it seems that the band is ready to proceed to shoegaze territory.   -Source

Taking their name from a scene in The Ramones‘ Rock & Roll High School movie (1979), Adelaide’s Exploding White Mice hit Sydney in 1985. Their old-school sound – equal parts Radio Birdman and The Ramones – arrived just in time to wow a younger audience who had missed out on the fun the first time around.
Fuelled by blazing twin guitars which had the tone and attack down better than just about anybody (second guitarist Giles Barrow was a Birdman freak who played the Rickenbacker that Chris Masuak had worn on the cover of the overseas version of Radios Appear), the Mice started life as a living garage/punk rock jukebox – covering The Saints, New York Dolls, Heartbreakers, Stooges and ’60s punks like The Shadows of Knight – and always wore their influences proudly.
Amongst their own songs, when they came, were some gems. Burning Red from their debut mini-LP Nest of Vipers was tough and melodic, and the equal of anything from The Ramones’ then current Too Tough To Die album.
The band was the most successful to come out of Adelaide in the 1980s, thanks in no small measure to the support of hometown label Greasy Pop.
They achieved true longevity as well, with guitarist Jeff Stephens and drummer David Bunney leading a line-up of the band into the new millennium.    -Source

Exploding White Mice - Exploding White Mice (Normal Records 1990) FLAC    320
 
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Saturday 6 October 2018

Tripwave - Tripwave (Tripwave Records 2005)



From New York City, Tripwave's 6-song 30 minute CDEP is a real trip back to the glory days of garage rocking psychedelia. A key member of the band is Dino Sorbello, who many of you may remember from Laughing Sky and Blacklight Chameleons, both bands who played similar 60's styled psych songs. The disc opens with "Psilocybe" a mind-bending space rocking psychedelic song created with liquid acid and fuzzed guitars and classic 60's organ. "Razzled By The Dazzle" is similar, but with sitar injecting a cool tripped out vibe to the already rocking psychedelic proceedings. "Freedom Afterwards" is an excellent garage psych rocker with playful verses that bring to mind an ultra psychedelic take on The Who. The fun continues with "Another Sip" and "Back to the Stone", both genuine in-yer-face power psych tunes with searing acid guitar licks. And rounding out the set is "Bardos", an example of Tripwave performing live. The song consists of sitar, guitar and rhythm section jamming along in flower power raga land. The band jam along for a while until peaking with a power jam that features both sitar and guitar rocking out. Wow, probably the trippiest song of the set.
The magic of Tripwave is not just the retro psychedelic style of music they're playing, but the songs themselves are well written and really outstanding, and the production is impeccable. Seeing these live with a liquid lightshow must be quite a happening. I hope they're working on a full length album. If you long for the sounds of yesterday you can't do much better than these guys. Mandra Gora Lightshow Society is probably the best analogy that comes to mind, which gives you a pretty decent idea of what to expect. Intrigued? Check 'em out.    -Source

For more information you can visit the Tripwave web site at: http://www.tripwave.com.

Tripwave - Tripwave (Tripwave Records 2005) FLAC    320

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The Riviera Playboys - Ambassadors Of Rock-N-Roll! (Screaming Apple Records 2005)



It's time to introduce you to the new ambassadors of rock'n'roll and believe us, we're talking about the real thing! Here comes this band that has captured the musical phenomenon which came creeping out of millions of garages from the late 50's to the mid 60's and carries it forward into today's dreary world of lame mainstream rock and inedible lo-fi bullshit.  
Calling Rochester, New York their home, THE RIVIERA PLAYBOYS represent the epitome of a new breed of 60's garage rock'n'roll combos. The band that includes ex members of THE CHESTERFIELD KINGS, THE PROJECTILES, THE INSIDERS and SUSAN & THE SURFTONES delivers timeless music that has a powerfully menacing quality, and is best described in their own words as "raw, electrified r'n'r!". Driven by fuzz & reverb drenched guitars and wailin' organ sounds, all their songs got this distinctive primal approach, but the music still has this veritable melodic content and amazing vocal harmonies. 
They guide us through their wonderful own little musical world, a place where you can still find those primitive garage-punk rituals done by prehistoric cavemen banging big rocks together, a place where people still wiggle to the classic sixties beat, a place where the beauty of twangin' folk sounds is still respected, a place where people don't have to be ashamed to be devoted to traditional r'n'r. 
If you can't get enough of all the "pebbles" and "nuggets" from the roaring 60's and you adore the early CHESTERFIELD KINGS and the MAHARAJAS, you certainly don't wanna live without this masterpiece of the "ambassadors of rock'n'roll", the mighty RIVIERA PLAYBOYS!    -Source

Die CD-Version auf Jargon Records aus den USA ist ja schon seit Ende 2004 raus, jetzt legt Screaming Apple Records das Vinyl nach, allerdings nur mit 14 statt 18 Songs. Und seinerzeit schrieb ich: Die Garage-Rock'n'Roll-Veteranen aus Rochester, New York haben ein neues Album am Start, und auch dieses erscheint wieder auf Jargon Records, dem Label von Bassist Dave Anderson.
Nicht wirklich überraschend dürfte die Feststellung kommen, dass die Herren, die auf eine imposante Liste von Ex-Bands verweisen können (THE INSIDERS, HIDDEN CHARMS, THE PAWNS, THE PROJECTILES, SUSAN & THE SURFTONES, MC FADDEN'S PARACHUTE, SWING SET, CHESTERFIELD KINGS) sich mit den 18(!!!) neuen Songs nicht wirklich verändert haben.
Gitarren mit ordentlich Fuzz und Reverb stoßen auf herrlich harmonischen, mehrstimmigen Gesang, Schellenkranz und klassisches Rock'n'Roll-Drumming sorgen für den lässigen Beat - da weiß man, warum man im Zweifelsfall einfach auf die Genre-Klassiker setzt, auf Musiker, die diesen Sound mit der Muttermilch eingeflößt bekamen und ihn seit zig Jahren perfektioniert haben.
Mögen Jungspunde wie MANDO DIAO oder KINGS OF LEON auch größere Töne spucken, das hier ist der "real shit", der authentische Sixties-Garage-Sound, mit den besseren Songs und der höheren Halbwertzeit.
Hört euch einfach nur mal einen Schmuser wie "She used to be my girl" an, und ihr wisst, was ich meine. Drauf geschissen, dass die Haare weniger werden und die Falten um die Augen immer mehr, denn wozu gibt es Sonnenbrillen?"    -Source


The Riviera Playboys - Ambassadors Of Rock-N-Roll! (Screaming Apple Records 2005) FLAC    320

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The Riviera Playboys - ...Go Primal!!! (Jargon Records 2003)



2003 CD release! 9 garage rockers featuring the Hit single "I can't understand" plus covers of THE LEAVES, MOTIONS, OTIS REDDING and a bunch more! Man...that version of THE STARFIRES "I never loved her" smokes!!!!

The Riviera Playboys - ...Go Primal!!! (Jargon Records 2003) FLAC    320

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Friday 5 October 2018

The Riviera Playboys - The Wild, Untamed Sounds Of... The Riviera Playboys (Jargon Records 2002/2003)



In this day and age of slick pop music, "alternative rock" and all the other catch phrases used to describe the music of today's young people, it is truly refreshing to find a group who says "screw you" to conventional wisdom and delivers a truly heartfelt album of music that defies all categories. That group is The Riviera Playboys, a bunch of guys who really "let it all hang out" on this, their latest offering.What is it that makes them so different from the rest of today's pop music sheep? Well aside from their deadly good looks (Dan Frank was voted one of Rochester's top 10 most eligible bachelors !!), perhaps it is their ability to unleash a raw, yet tight and controlled delivery of their sonic mayhem. Take for example their rendition of "Make Me Laugh", what was once a flower pop gem, is now a wild, burning mover of a tune that will send goosebumps crawling over the epidermis. But they are not limited to bending and shaping others songs. No, they are also a very creative bunch, offering up no less than five new original songs that are destined to move up the charts of today's jaded hit parade!
So here you have it, the new LP from Rochester, New York's finest group, The Riviera Playboys. Don't forget the asbestos gloves and fire extinguisher. This baby is HOT ! ! !
-Alex Apphedeus (editer Smash Hits! Magazine)
 
Note: The date of release differs, on the CD it's indicated with 2003, on the tray card with 2002 - take what you want!  
 
The Riviera Playboys - The Wild, Untamed Sounds Of... The Riviera Playboys (Jargon Records 2002/2003) FLAC    320 
 
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Thursday 4 October 2018

The Riviera Playboys - Greatest Hits! (Raw Electrified Rock & Roll) (Gee-Dee Music 1997)



The Riviera Playboys got together around 1995 to play 1960's Garage Rock 'n' Roll in the Rochester tradition of The Heard and The Invictas and then reborn with the Chesterfield Kings in the late 70's. Former Projectile's Dan Frank and Dave Anderson teamed up with ex-Swing Set member Judd Williams (currently drummer for THE AMAZING CROWNS). With limited resources (mainly return deposits from Genessee Beer cans) Dan and Dave finally got enough dough to fly Judd in from his residence in Boston and record their first disc "Riviera Playboys Greatest hits".   -Source

Riviera Playboys - Greatest Hits! (Raw Electrified Rock & Roll) (Gee-Dee Music 1997) FLAC    320 

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Wednesday 3 October 2018

The Surfadelics - Bad Little Girl 12'' EP (Media Burn Records 1986)



The Surfadelics were a garage beat band of the early 80’s from East London, fronted by Mark Lee, who became a well known act in the garage and mod scene in England. He was later in Thee Pickles and the Honey Machine and released several solo efforts.
The Surfadelics were challenged with a garage pulled and impetuous, the sound firmly of the '60s but the spirit imbued with punk. They released a 12'' EP in 1986, ''Bad little girl'' on the long-defunct (and sadly missed) Media Burn label - a rare chunk of Surf & Trash.
They got a little fame after the title "Bad Little Girl" became part of the iconic garage series “Battle Of The Garages” on Bomp! / Voxx Records (Vol. 4: Tomorrow The World!).

The Surfadelics - Bad Little Girl 12'' EP (Media Burn Records 1986) FLAC    320

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