Dead Moon "Dead Moon Night" 1988-1989(rec) 1990(comp)*****

I saw Dead Moon perform a bunch of times in Greece, most often at the AN Club in my old neighbourhood. Each time was exhilarating, but the first one was an epiphany "so that's what the real thing looks like!". All passion, no fake rock star poses and no flourishes. Their shows were very intimate and intense, guitar feedback all over the place, Fred's shrilly voice often cracked with emotion. His wife Toody helped with the vocals while also playing the world's most badass bass (according to none other than Lemmy). Drummer Andrew Loomis used to fasten a Jack Daniels bottle with a lit candle in it on his drum kit, and then proceeded to beat the shit out of it. Their music was a mix of 60's garage punk, folk, psychedelia, and hard rock. Together with fellow Portlandians The Wipers they preceded and influenced grunge: despite never becoming famous, they enjoyed cult status in The Northwest, and many Seattle grunge bands acknowledge them as an inspiration. But the story of Cole begins way back in the mid 60's when he dropped out of high school to play rock'n'roll with his band The Weeds. 

Intending to drive to Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft, they ran out of gas in Portland where Fred (then 19) met and immediately fell in love with Toody, whom he married and with whom he was inseparable until his death. Renamed as The Lollipop Shoppe, The Weeds played support to the likes of The Doors and Janis Joplin, and recorded an almost hit: the fantastic garage rocker "You Must Be A Witch" which was later anthologized in the influential Nuggets compilation - but after a year they called it quits. In the late 70's, while punks were discovering Fred's music through Nuggets, he formed a punk band with Toody, called The Rats. The couple spent the next 4 decades playing passionate rock'n'roll and touring together under different monikers while also running a small music business and raising a family - I remember Toody amusingly complaining during a gig "our kids are so square, they don't take drugs and they don't understand us at all". Anyone interested in their story can seek out the excellent 2006 music documentary "Unknown Passage"

In the US, Dead Moon (i.e. Fred+Toody+Andrew on drums) distributed their albums through their own label Tombstone, but in Europe they were signed by German indie label Music Maniac Records. "Dead Moon Night" is a 1990 LP compiled by Music Maniac to introduce Dead Moon to European audiences and contains material from their first 2 LPs "In The Graveyard" (1988) and "Unknown Passage" (1989). Every song included is a veritable anthem, but "Dead Moon Night" and "54/40 Or Fight" are the two rugged garage punk dynamites that always ignited onstage, with "Black September" an equally aggressive third. On the other side of the emotional spectrum, Fred can also sound pretty vulnerable ("I Tried", the terrific ballad "I Hate The Blues", the country-ish "Dead In The Saddle"). "My Escape" is another angsty song, featuring a guitar sound reminiscent of their friend Greg Sage of The Wipers. "Echoes To You" is a gorgeous folk-rock ballad, akin to Love circa 1966. "Graveyard" and "I'm Wise" have similarities to The 13th Floor Elevators, which isn't surprising seeing as Fred -one of the original 60's garage/soul screamers- was a peer to Love's Arthur Lee and The Elevators' Roky Erickson. The 2 dynamic covers here (Love's "Hey Joe" and The Chambers Brothers' "Time Has Come Today") are also from the same period. All songs were recorded live at the Cole's residence, just like all subsequent Dead Moon LP's, then mastered in lo-fi mono and cut by Fred himself in a vintage lathe - ostensibly the one used by The Kingsmen for their '63 hit "Louie Louie". Curiously the Music Maniac reissue denotes "stereo" even though the original albums where these tracks first appeared were mono. Not that it matters, the sound is still very raw and unpolished. This LP was my first taste of Dead Moon, and I adored it - even more so after I witnessed the band live. They would produce a string of similarly great records, the only downside being a sense of repetition - if repeated awesomeness can ever be considered a downside. Alas Cole's death in 2017 (and Loomis', the year before) robbed us from the world's most authentic, passionate, truly underground, rock band. And most of us didn't even notice...

***** for Dead Moon Night, Dead In The Saddle, Echoes To You, 54/40 Or Fight, I Tried

**** for Time Has Come Today, I Hate The Blues, Graveyard, My Escape, I'm Wise, Black September, Hey Joe

[Mister Twister] Мистер Твистер "Мистер Твистер" 1990***

I was visiting the beautiful old town of Amersfort for work, but (of course) still found time to visit the local record shop, where I saw this at the used LP section. Immediately my absurdity alarm bell began ringing: 3 teddy boy style guys posing in front of a wall with Cyrillic graffiti? Made in The USSR? I don't have anything like that in my collection! I wonder what it sounds like... I asked to listen to it, and was convinced after listening to a few seconds of the first song: "Come On!" is a great slice of neo-rockabilly, every bit as good as The Straycats albeit sung in Russian - which makes for a surreal experience. The band do not seem so much concerned with rocking hard or replicating the fifties rock sound (which they do) they're just full of enthousiasm and fun. Their playing is good all around, but on that first listen I especially liked the sax which reminded me of Louis Jordan. On returning home, I googled them, and came across their source of inspiration: If the title Mister Twister reminds us of Chubby Checker (Is it a biiird? Noooo...Is it an aeroplaaane? Noooo...Is it a Twister?) to those growing in the Soviet Union it had a different meaning: Mister Twister was a popular satirical children's poem whose protagonist, an obnoxious and racist American millionaire, was cleverly tricked and punished for his arrogance by a Soviet hotel clerk. 
So the band name is not just American and retro, but also mocking of the communist propaganda of the older Russian generation. Starting out in 1985, Mister Twister quickly became the country's leading representatives of a youth movement called "style" (meaning retro? mod? not sure myself), which explains why their 1990 debut for the state record label Melodiya sold an estimated 1,7 million(!) copies - meaning it's not exactly a rarity. Indeed while the album rarely appears at Western record shops, it can easily be obtained on second hand vinyl from The Russian Federation and other former Soviet Republics. Whether you should get it depends on whether the idea of Russian language rockabilly appeals to you. Purely musically it's good but not exceptional: You either like rockabilly or not, and there's only so much you can do within the genre. There's a bunch of fast tunes that remind me of Gene Vincent, like "Rockabilly-Rock", "Rock-n-Roll Without Validolum", "I Often Hear The Question", and the sole cover "Shake, Rattle & Roll". These give the guitarist the chance to shine, laying those fancy licks thick on the ground. Next to the rockers there are some mid-tempo jazzy numbers ("We`ve Parted", "Blues For J.", "Fat Hands Blues", "Arbat Shuffle"), 60's pop ("By The Blue Sea") and ballads ("Tenderland", the romantic "Moscow Nights") signifying the boys have been listening to a lot of Elvis. I personally prefer the faster songs, but I have to admit that Russian as a language is a more natural fit for ballads. In any case, besides being an interesting curio, this is as good a rock'n'roll record as any made in the West during the same time period. I was quite happy to add it to my collection.

**** for Давай! (Come On!), Mы Расстались (We`ve Parted), Pокабилли-Pок (Rockabilly-Rock), Pок-н-Pолл Без Валидола (Rock-n-Roll Without Validolum), Блюз Пуxлых Pук (Fat Hands Blues), Арбатский Шаффл (Arbat Shuffle), Московские Hочи (Moscow Nights), У Cамого Cинего Mоря (By The Blue Sea)

*** for Блюз Для Ю. (Blues For J.), Рок Bокруг Дискотеки (Rock Around The Discotheque), Shake Rattle & Roll, Bечер Pок-н-Pоллa (Rock-n-Roll Party), Pок-Tерапия (Rock Therapy), Я Часто Cлышу (Bопрос) (I Often Hear The Question)

** for Cтрана Hежности (Tenderland)

The Sonics "This Is The Sonics" 2015****

Well, this is another band I never expected to see live. I discovered the Sonics in my late teens via The Fuzztones whose version of "Strychnine" was a staple of Athens rock clubs in the 80's. So I went back to the source and discovered the rock'n'roll treasure that is the Sonics' first two albums. I immediately connected with their combination of raw energy and unhinged fun, and started playing their records as loud as I dared, dancing wildly alone in my room with the shutters closed - lest the neighbours thought I had an epileptic fit and called an ambulance. The original band had disintegrated in 1967 with members going back to their dayjobs or whatever, so who could ever predict they'd be touring their great garage-punk songbook around the world 50 years later? Of course when I discovered a few days ago that they were about to play in Amsterdam, I jumped at the chance to see them. The venue was Paradiso Noord, a modern concert hall only a 5-minute ferry ride from the city's Central Station. Unbeknownst to me, though, the band was not the (more or less) original Sonics that reformed a few years back, but the touring version: Founder member Rob Lind, a couple of latter-day members and guests Evan Stone (Boss Martians) on guitar and Jake Cavaliere (a Lord of Altamont, and former Fuzztone to boot) on keyboards. So it was really a sort of all-star garage band, rather than The Sonics. Which didn't stop me from having fun after overcoming the initial disappointment, since the music was loud and exciting as always. Now if only they had a vocalist that could scream and shout like Gerry Roslie... The musicians shared vocal duties amongst themselves, and even had a guest singer (from Norwegian Sonics tribute band Strychnine) for a couple of songs, but still didn't sound like the band that recorded "Boom" and "Here Are The Sonics".

Which is, improbably, not the case with this, their  2015 comeback LP. I mean who the hell could expect them to match the wild energy of their debut, half a century later? And yet, they (very nearly) do! Rob's howling sax and Larry's shredding guitar are a thing to behold, but the real stunner is Gerry, shrieking otherworldly, yelping and banging his piano like a young Little Richard. Maybe nowadays there's a bit more grit in his voice, but since when is that a bad thing? The band wear, like always, their influences on their sleeve, paying tribute to R&B pioneers by gleefully and violently ripping their classics apart before pulverising them and stomping them to the ground: Hank Ballard's "Look At Little Sister", Bo Diddley's "You Can't Judge a Book By the Cover" and Eddie Holland's "Leaving Here" are played at maximum volume. Best of all the covers is Ray Charles' "I Don't Need No Doctor", the definitive version of a tune previously covered by the likes of Chocolate Watch Band and Humble Pie. Apparently it's sung by bassist Freddie Dennis (and "new boy" together with drummer Dusty Watson) formerly of The Kingsmen.
A slight evolution in their sound is evident in the more classic rock-oriented tunes like "Spend The Night", "Save The Planet" (because "it's the only one with beer") "Be A Woman" (a song given to them by Aussie indie rockers Hoodoo Gurus) and, their speciality, mean-woman put-down "I Got Your Number" ("...and it's 666"). Lead single "Bad Betty" is a wild garage tune about a tough biker chick and "Sugaree" another R&B scorcher with wild sax and piano. Lastly "The Hard Way" and "Livin' In Chaos" are noisy garage punk similar e.g. to the Dirtbombs, whose bassist Jim Diamond did a fine job producing this album: Recording in mono, he managed to retain the raw energy of their old records while giving them a clearer, lively, modern sound. All in all, it's probably the comeback album of the decade and a worthy successor to their classic 60's trilogy. A highly recommended purchase, look for the vinyl version that comes with a bonus CD so you can listen to this album on the road too. And if you do like it, I've got more good news for you: during the concert, Rob talked about a new LP they'll be recording later in the year, and previewed some of the songs including a cover of "Get Back In The Car" by The Lords Of Altamont. I sure hope that Gerry and Larry will be back on board for the recording!

***** for I Don't Need No Doctor, Bad Betty, Leaving Here, Look At Little Sister, I Got Your Number, Save the Planet

**** for Be a Woman, You Can't Judge a Book By the Cover, The Hard Way, Sugaree, Livin' In Chaos

*** for Spend the Night