PSYCHOBILLY c/d, s/d

Search: Flat Duo Jets, Krewmen

FDJ are my vote for greatest obscure rock band ever. Dex Romweber can channel everyone from Eddie Lang and Django and Der Bingle to Poison Ivy and Pete Townshend. Krewmen were as fast as it got until Jim Heath came along and got even more wiggle into those thrash tempos.

This stuff was pretty popular in Hammersmith in about 1985.

Search: The Meteors
Terminate with Extreme Prejudice: John Robb

search - the folk devils and The Orson Family

Seen the Meteors, Tav Falco, the Rev. Horton Heat and the Cramps (they were called psychobilly when they first came out, in many ways pioneering the form) live. My wife's the bigger fan in our house, though; she likes all of the above, plus Demented Are Go! and some others I can't recall right now. Anyway, it's tolerable in small, infrequent doses.

I stumbled into a FDJ show once at the Elbow Room in Ypsilanti and was blown away.

Everything else? Well, I really liked Heat in high school.

Always associated psychobilly with bands directly inspired by the Meteors. The Cramps are something else. As is Tev Falco, an incredible performer, who should be in a David Lynch movie someday.

xpost: Come to think of it, I actually saw the Orson Family, way back when. Hilarious audience banter. Was reminded of them when I saw "Sons and Daughters" more recently. Now there's a great band, in a neo-rockabilly vein. Dan Sartain fits in here somewhere, too.

I'm pretty sure the Cramps coined the term Psychobilly on one of their gig posters. But the Meteors and the whole Clubfoot scene that followed really ran with the term. Seems to have a broader application in the States than UK.

Anyway, it's tolerable in small, infrequent doses.

I used to love this stuff unquestioningly, but other than the major bands (and the original 'billies) it wears out it's welcome pretty quick. Like all the Gen X dudes with beer guts and flamey shirts and spikey-but-thinning bleached hair and goatees and dice tattoos and Betty Page wives, it hasn't aged well.

Meteors are good too. Gas Huffer doesn't exactly qualify, but has a lot of what's missing from generic Psychobilly. Most of what followed in the wake of Horton Heat is pretty awful. Though Smoke 'em, Full Custom Gospel and Spend a Night in the Box are all classic, and none of his stuff is dud. All Cramps albums are pretty essential up until Stay Sick. All the Flat Duo Jets albums are worthwhile, and the first two and Lucky Eye are nearly perfect. Romweber's solo albums are great too.

Search: Bands that are influential on the psychobilly scene (Cramps, Tav Falco, etc etc)

Destroy: Douche "punk rock" rockabilly dudes that actually call themselves psychobilly

Australia's Scientists have this category wrapped up. Search their two compilations _Blood River Red_ and _The Human Jukebox_.

Johnny Cash used the term 'Psychobilly' in 'One Piece at a time' in 1976.

If we're defining it broadly, The Gun Club deserve a mention.

fyi:

Soma Records are about to put out an Andy Weatherall mix chock full of this kind of stuff.

Title: Andrew Weatherall - Sci Fi Lo Fi Volume One

Joe Boot & The Fabulous Winds – Rock N Roll Radio
The Rebs – Renegade
Gene Vincent – Crazy Beat
Hipbone Slim & The Knee Tremblers – Snake Pit
Tav Falco & Panther Burns - Jungle Rock
Charlie Feathers – Jungle Fever
Johnny Burnette – Wampus Cat
The Milkshakes – The Grim Reaper
Link Wray – 5-10-15-20 (Can Your Monkey Do The Dog)
The Strangeloves – I Want Candy
T Rex – Free Angel
The Fall – Big New Prinz
Flaming Stars – Spilled Your Pint
Primal Scream – Bloods (TLS Mix)
Tropics of Cancer – Upside Down
Shockheaded Peters – I Blood Brother Be
The Cramps – New Kind of Kick
Killing Joke – Bloodsport
Andrew Weatherall - Feathers

more info here

Would this mix be a good introduction to the genre?

Lots of really cool stuff on here, though I don't think Killing Joke or the Shockheaded Peters have a damn thing to do with psychobilly or rockabilly, fine though they are. Go ahead and buy it anyway, but for my money The Cramps 'Songs the Lord Taught Us' is the record you really need.

I don't think there's any actual psychobilly on that comp.

Although the Cramps are pretty much psychobilly even if they aren't generally thought to be. I mean, 70s punk + 50s rockabilly is as good a formula for the Cramps as any.

I don't think the Scientists really fit into this either. They are totally awesome, but not psychobilly.

You're not wrong.

As I say, I associate it the term with tall flat-tops, tattoo sleeves and Meteors riffs, strictly speaking, but it's all good.

King Kurt and baked beans.

Slim Gaillard, a veteran US jazz figure featured in 'On the Road' who wound up living in London in the 80's, was an unlikely King Kurt fan: "It's these white kids pretending to be John Lee Hooker. The moment they start playing, all their fans try and stand on each other's heads." I can't imagine they ever got a better review.

UK Psychobilly in the 80's was a really odd phenomenon: the influence of the Cramps colliding with the eternal British Ted/rock'n'roll/rockabilly lifestyle subculture and elements of the hardcore punk scene. If you were into garage punk you couldn't help but get involved. A lot of snakebite and blood was spilled, though I don't really remember many good records.

The Psychobillies I knew when I was growing up, mid-80s, where pretty keen on the punch-ups. This huge lanky guy nearly broke my jaw slam-dancing one Friday night.

Chicken dancing! Lethal.

Violent, violent scene. One of our local acts got the shit kicked out of them by the Meteors road crew. Over and above the cuts and bruises, I think it must have been pretty grim to get beaten up by your heroes' core fans.

No love for Nekromantix?

Fun fact: members of psychobilly band Demented Are Go recorded an album as the Klansmen with Ian Stuart of Skrewdriver in the late 80s.

What's the diff between 'psychobilly' and 'shockabilly,' anyway?

Ha I actually know Demented Are Go, they're quite loveable underneath all the silliness. I think the Ian Stewart-related line-up was completely different to the later line-ups (hope so otherwise I'm shooting myself in the foot here). 25 year old spiderweb facial tattoos don't look very good though I have to say.

Shockabilly was a band which included Eugene Chadbourne on guitar/vocals, Mark Kramer on bass/organ, and David Licht on drums.

Shockabilly released a number of albums during their brief existence (1982-1985). Most were later re-released.

(from Wikipedia, is there another meaning?)

Didn't know that was members of DAG. Have the current band ever been challenged about it?

The singer's the only long-term member really, all the psychobilly bands still going seem to swap the same few musicians merry-go-round style. Good luck getting a coherent sentence out of him...

i like how these folks cuff their jeans

much like ska, anything past the 1st wave = totally duddddd

11am in a town centre, near Glasgow, 1986:

http://b7.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/00390/72/88/390568827_l.jpg

King Kurt are great. They are a psychobilly band in the same way that Madness are a ska band. They started out that way but after being picked up by Stiff Records they were groomed somewhat and progressed beyond pure psychobillyness. They quickly became a wacky/laddish pop band in the mould of the Dickies (who had acheived 9 hit singles in the UK), Tenpole Tudor or Madness taking with them only whichever genre signifiers worked on Saturday Morning Kids TV.

Specifically, Stiff may have hoped they were going to take over from Madness, since King Kurt started having a couple of minor hits round about the time that Madness' appeal was becoming a little...uh..."selective".

Evidence:http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l126/kingkurtgallery/Discography%20Singles/bananafrontcover.jpg?t=1191346501

"Zulu Beat", "Destination Zululand", "Mack The Knife", "Banana Banana" and "Road To Rack And Ruin" are all good singles with good b-sides if you like that kind of thing.

And like someone said upthread, you couldn't avoid the psychobillies if you were into garage rock or punk in the 80s. The Meteors and their fans were vicious bastards and all the drunken, sweaty, shirtless chicken dancing was kinda alienating, unless violent gay orgies were your thing.

There were much better bands who were not psychobillies but were slotted into the scene somehow or had similar fans - Toy Dolls, The Primevals and The Prisoners for example. All much better than the psychobillies like Demented Are Go, Guana Batz etc. Unfortunately their gigs were sometimes ruined by the idiotic antics of these psychotic dorks.

guana batz do an ace cover of springsteen's "fire".
also, lots of japanese and german psychobilly bands at one point. check "zorch monsters of the far east" comp.
wot's a chicken dance?

The chicken dance is essentially a violent mosh with a LOT of elbow action.

Just remembered a great lost 80's nugget: The Vibes "Inner Wardrobes of your Mind" EP - absolute killer 12" which mixes garage, psych and psychobilly. Featuring 'Hasil Adkins in my head'. Incredible sleeve.

Holy Crap. Just saw a smokin' set by NYC band The Arkhams. So good. Straight up high energy rock and roll. Done right. I'm a sucker for that doghouse bass. The tracks on their myspace are kinda slick but live they tore shit up.