Alestorm "No Grave But The Sea" (Deluxe ed.) 2017 ☠️ ☠️ ☠️

Uh-oh! Friday The 13th and no horror rock to post? Wait, here's Alestorm! Admittedly, they're funny rather than spooky, but they have tales of bloodthirsty pirates, a skeleton on the cover, they cuss worse than the demon in the Exorcist, and they can generally be quite horrible when they want to. They'll have to do!

Until about a couple of months ago I hadn't heard of Alestorm. Which isn't strange, seeing as metal is its own world only occasionally intersecting with the main body of rock music. I happened to see them live in the Lokerse Feesten festival in Belgium. I was there mostly to catch those 80's dinosaurs, Europe and -mainly- Scorpions, as well as Monster Magnet (who eventually cancelled). As luck would have it, Alestorm started playing just as I entered the festival grounds, and they were not only the best band of the night, they were the most fun I've had in a concert for a very long time! Afterwards I went to the merchandise stand, which didn't have any CD's but did sell some pretty cool piratically-themed T-shirts. So I had to order their CD's online, starting with their latest "No Grave But The Sea". I remembered some titles from the concert, most strikingly "Fucked With An Anchor", You don't easily forget thousands of people chanting in unison "Fuck you! You're a fucking wanker/We're gonna punch you right in the balls/Fuck you! with a fucking anchor/You're all cunts so fuck you all". Like most of Alestorm's songs, this is a heavy metal sea shanty, albeit with a big rude football chant-style chorus. While there is some stylistic variety, one can generally describe their music as The-Pogues-meet-Iron-Maiden. With songs about pirates and booze. Some of the faster songs (e.g. "Pegleg Potion") could also be mistaken for Dropkick Murphys or a similar Celtic Punk band. Onstage  they recreate the music with the help of a keytar and synths, but on the record one can discern brass, fiddle, tin whistle, and accordions - or good imitations thereof. Besides the Fuck Song, another highlight is "Alestorm", which combines an aggressive metal style with occasional death metal vocals and a ridiculously catchy chorus. "Mexico" is the "poppiest" song here. Adding some country, 80's video-game noises and quasi-ska rhythm to the mix, it's uncharacteristically light for the band but seriously catchy. "Bar Ünd Imbiss" sports a drunken chorus and the guitar solos one learns to expect from a metal album but are in short supply here, while opener "No Grave But The Sea" is closer to power metal. Ditto for mini-epics "To The End Of The World" and "Treasure Island" which find time for a more complex prog-ish structure. For those who doubted that Alestorm is the maddest bunch of buffoons in metal, they have included a bonus CD with alternate versions of all the songs for the album's Deluxe edition. No, they're not unplugged versions, or instrumentals, or demos, or live, not even dance mixes (though that would have been a bit mad, too). No, it consists of the whole album with barks instead of vocals. It's called No Grave But The Sea for Dogs. You can listen to a sample here, but I warn you: you can never un-hear it. And the scary part is... it sounds too natural, as if this is the way it was meant to be. Could this sick joke turn out to be the next big thing? First every new album comes with a dogs version, then they dispense with the human voices altogether?

Alestorm at The Lokerse Feesten 2019

**** for No Grave But The Sea, Mexico, Alestorm, Fucked With An Anchor

*** for Bar Ünd Imbiss, Pegleg Potion, Treasure Island

** for To The End Of The World, Man The Pumps, Rage Of The Pentahook

Deadbolt "Haight Street Hippie Massacre/Best of Deadbolt" 2003*** (compilation, recorded 1993-2002)

When I realised Friday The 13th was coming once more, I went straight to my CD racks to choose a relevant album for my blog. You see I have developed this tradition of posting horror albums every Friday the 13th. Neglecting to present one would be like The Simpsons not airing a Treehouse Of Horror episode on Halloween - unthinkable. Thankfully, I didn't have to search for long. The obvious choice presented itself by the time I reached D: Deadbolt, the self-proclaimed "scariest band in the world".

"Haight Street Hippie Massacre" is a Best-Of - which, seeing as all this band's songs sound the same, just means it includes more tracks than the average Deadbolt CD. They've dubbed their style "voodoobilly", but if that's not enough for you imagine a mutant strain of psychobilly with surf guitars and lots of country twang - especially in the half-spoken/half-sung vocals. I imagine that's about how Johhny Cash should sound now i.e. after he's been dead for a dozen or so years. The lyrics are basically recounting supernatural horror tales, or stories of crime and decadence from the gutter, always violent and misanthropic e.g. on the (previously unreleased) opener "Go Tell Alice" they fantasize the Haight hippie massacre of the title set to the tune of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit": "One bullet makes you slower/the next one makes you dead/and a bottle of patchouli/is crushed upon your head/Go tell Alice/that I'm not through yet...". It's not just hippies though, they have a bad word for everyone. On the live "You Don't Want to Know Me" they insult a member of the audience for looking like a grunge rocker. Reputedly live gigs often degenerate into good-natured(?) exchange of abuses between them and their audience, punk-rock style. As I said before, their songs sound more or less the same (you'll find more variation on a Ramones LP) but if I had to choose my favourites those would be the exotica flavored/themed "Tiki Man" and "Zulu Death Mask", rockabilly "Who the Hell Is Mrs. Valdez?" and hillarious hard-boiled country "Truck Driving S.O.B.". Sample lyric: "Two antique dealers in a SUV proceeded to cut me off/I followed them downtown to one of them artists' lofts/One of the guys came to the door, he said "Hi you must be Mitch"/I said "no" I punched him in the teeth and said "I'm a truck driving son of a bitch"/Aw yeah..truck driving son of a bitch/Chain smokin', baby chokin' truck driving son of a bitch". Among other goodies for the dedicated fan who already has all of Deadbolt's albums (I imagine there must be at least a dozen of them fans) this CD includes previously unreleased live and studio tracks, the craziest Burt Bacharah tribute ever "Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head" and a couple of songs ("Hang Em' High", "Stanger's Theme") from their alter egos The Strangers 1800 who perform exclusively music from old Western movies. As for them being the scariest band on the world, I don't know. I recently saw Ozzy Osbourne live (I think he was live, I mean he did move and sort-of sang, but he looked like a corpse). I saw the Meteors pick a fight with a poor fan in the audience - and that wasn't the scary part. The scary part was P. Paul Fenech taking off his shirt and unleashing his tattooed beer belly to the world. I saw Sky Saxon shortly before he died and he looked like a psychedelic skeleton with a cowboy hat - I'll bet the grass growing on this guy's grave is ten times more hallucinogenic than your most potent weed. On the other hand, an interviewer proclaimed Deadbolt to be "just about the nicest people you could ever hope to meet" - but then he proceeded to write about them carrying guns around, and of their guns going off in all kinds of directions. I guess I'll have to reserve judgement for after I've seen Deadbolt live...

**** for Tiki Man, Who the Hell Is Mrs Valdez?, Zulu Death Mask, Truck Driving S.O.B.

*** for Go Tell Alice, Cockeye, Shrunken Head, Down in the Lab, Swamp Witch, Last Time I Saw Cole, Watongo, Voodoo Truckers, Hang Em' High, Stanger's Theme, Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head

** for You Don't Want to Know Me [Live],  Edie, Hit Gone Wrong, I Saw the King, Pour the Bourbon [Live], Listen to the Message

Bauhaus "Press the Eject and Give Me the Tape" 1982****

Friday the 13th once again, folks. I've decided to make a tradition out of it and present a relevant album every time. On previous occasions I did The Cramps and Fuzztones, whose camp Halloween-ish antics fit the description. But if you want to see something really scary, take a look at Peter Murphy's skeletal frame in the clip below: He's no harmless Halloween trick-or-treater, he looks like a deranged malnourished psychopath. Which reminds me of my first contact with Bauhaus: On my first year in the University, another student lent me some of his LP's as an introduction to post punk/new wave. Those included, if I remember correctly, The Sound's "From the Lion's Mouth", Nick Cave's "Kicking Against the Pricks", "Enter The Sisters" by The Sisters Of Mercy and Bauhaus' "Press the Eject and Give Me the Tape". Great choices, all. He told me that Bauhaus were his first rock concert and that he felt both exhilarated and scared shitless, a 15-year old alone among intimidating older punks and goths, watching this frightfully intense band. I laughed at his description, but listening to this live album again (for the first time after 20 years) I get it: These may not all be as good as the studio versions, but you can't beat them for passion and intensity. The band's sound is punkier and more aggressive than in the studio while Murphy goes for the maximum theatrical effect, leering and screaming rather than trying to sing correctly. I can only imagine what it'd be like to witness these performances in person. The tracklist is strong, compiling their best songs at the time (they had only released 2 album until then, so there wasn't much to choose from) with a few rarities like "Rose Garden Funeral Of Sores". It goes "Virgin mary was tired/So tired/Tired of listening to gossip/Gossip and complaints/They came from next door...From all sorts of/Untidy whores". It's a John Cale cover, but nobody utters "untidy whores" better than Peter Murphy. It's the album's second song, after the punky opener "In the Flat Field" with its rolling drums and screaming guitar. "Dancing" sports an amazing bassline and howling saxophone that conjures images of a disco taken over by werewolves - at least to those of us who are familiar with werewolf movies. "The Man With X-Ray Eyes" is slow and very theatrical. I'm sure it was great live, but on record it doesn't translate as well. "Bela Lugosi's Dead" is the song that best defines Bauhaus (and Goth): The spooky effects, menacing bass, otherworldly vocals and those lyrics... It goes on for 10 minutes without ever losing its ferocity.  "The Spy In The Cab" and the slower "Hollow Hills" also stress the horror element but stand up less well. Then it's back to the werewolf disco with the bass-driven "Kick In The Eye" and "In Fear Of Fear". "Stigmata Martyr" is another passionate performance of a quintessential Bauhaus song with dramatic vocals and buzzsaw guitars. The original album ended with a relentlessly paced "Dark Entries" followed by a few words to the sound engineer: "press the eject and give me the tape". The CD version continues with 5 extra live tracks from the same period. The recording is a bit sub-par, but versions of the underrated "Terror Couple Kill Colonel" and "Of Lillies And Remains" are welcome. "Double Dare", "In The Flat Field" and "Hair Of The Dog" are rather messy and so is a version of the Velvets' "Waiting For The Man" with Nico on guest vocals. Messy or not, a duet like that deserves to be heard. Well, time to sign off and get ready to watch a classic horror movies marathon with my girl. I leave you with a few verses from Bela Lugosi: 

The bats have left the bell tower

The victims have been bled

Red velvet lines the black box

Bela Lugosi's dead (Undead undead undead)

The virginal brides file past his tomb

Strewn with time's dead flowers

Bereft in deathly bloom

Alone in a darkened room

The count

Bela Lugosi's dead

Undead undead undead

***** for Bela Lugosi Is Dead, Kick In The Eye 

**** for In The Flat Field, Rose Garden Funeral Of Sores, Dancing,  In Fear Of Fear, Stigmata Martyr, Dark Entries, Terror Couple Kill Colonel   

*** for The Spy In The Cab, Hollow Hills, In The Flat Field (2nd version), Of Lillies And Remains, Waiting For The Man

** for The Man With X-Ray Eyes,  Double Dare, Hair Of The Dog 

The Cramps "Off The Bone" 1983(comp)*****

Something must be wrong - how can it be Friday the 13th, again? Is that how 2015 will play out? It all seems to have started when Tsipras won the election in Greece - Is he the Antichrist? Some people seem to think so and try to kill his government while it's still young. Have those fools learned nothing from watching The Omen trilogy? 

On last month's Friday the 13th I presented The Fuzztones' "Salt for Zombies". This time I chose another band that perfectly exemplifies the spirit of that day - just look at that cover! The Cramps were a real band of misfits from Midtown, America (actually Akron, Ohio) who in 1975 came to New York to join the nascent punk scene with Patti Smith, Ramones, Blondie etc. Their small town origin was one of the reasons they did not fit in with this crowd, either. Plus, the Cramps were not weird/artistic. They were weird, period. They harbored an unhealthy fascination with 50's rockabilly, horror movies and kinky sex. The core of the group was real-life couple Lux Interior and Poison Ivy. Ivy is the group's guitarist, silent and menacing and oh-so-sexy in her 60's stripper outfits, prancing up and down the stage dispensing deadly rockabilly/surf licks from her vintage guitar. Lux is the most extreme performer I have ever seen. I will never forget the Cramps concert at the Rodon Club, in 1991. He came dressed in a red latex suit and high heels and proceeded to jump and down the stage, pants lowered down to his knees, unhuman guttural sounds emerging from the microphone which he had somehow shoved inside his throat, climbing on the huge speaker, swinging Tarzan-like from the curtain and performing a somersault, landing perfectly on his high heels. In the end, he kept beating the stage's wooden parquet with the microphone stand until he broke it and ripped out the flooring, plank by plank. I have had the vinyl version of "Off The Bone" since my teens and it remains one of my favorite records, ever. It's a European compilation bringing together their debut "Gravest Hits" EP and cuts from their first 2 LP's "Songs the Lord Taught Us" and "Psychedelic Jungle", covering the 1979-1983 period. Apart from Ivy, two more guitarists are featured: Brian Gregory and his replacement Kid Congo Powers. Kid Congo is a Mexican-American who was also in Gun Club and Nick Cave's Bad Seeds, thus 3 of the best bands ever! Gregory's disappearance from the music scene saw him shrouded in mystery. Wild rumors of satanism and necrophilia abound - almost certainly false. What we do know for sure is that he played a zombie in Day of the Dead, ran a pornographic bookstore and died (possibly of AIDS) at the age of 49. The music style of the album is psychobilly. More than that, The Cramps are actually the inventors of this musical style, with elements of Rockabilly, Punk, Surf, Garage Rock, Blues and Psychedelia played in a trashy, lo-fi manner, with explicitly sexual and horror-themed lyrics. The album opens with their all-time favorite composition "Human Fly", inspired from the classic horror movie "The Fly". Ivy plays a killer surf riff and Lux sings "Buzzz buzzz buzzz". This is a song to define the entire genre! Next up is a 50's cover, Jack Scott's "The Way I Walk" with Lux doing his psycho Elvis impersonation. Here you can see the Cramps play it at the very start of their career (for the residents of a Mental Asylum in '78) and compare with this clip of one of their very last performances (open air festival in 2006). They sure still had it! Plus, does Ivy basically look the same after 30 years? Is this the result of daily consumption of embalming fluid? Or of some occult voodoo practice? "Domino" is a Roy Orbison rockabilly classic given the psycho treatment, followed by a crazy fucked-up cover of the Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird" (already a pretty wigged-out number to begin with). Ricky Nelson's ballad "Lonesome Town" is the last song from their debut EP (Recorded in 1977 by Big Star legend Alex Chilton). "Garbage Man" and "Drug Train" are great psychobilly originals and Peggy Lee's "Fever" a peculiarly mainstream cover, while Charlie Feathers' "I Can't Hardly Stand It" and Ronnie Cook's "Goo Goo Muck" find their ideal performers in The Cramps. The latter's lyrics refer, according to the urban dictionary, either to blood sucking or eating pussy: "when the sun goes down and the moon comes up/ i turn into a teenage goo goo muck/ i cruise through the city and i roam the street/ looking for something that is nice to eat". More wild covers of obscure garage (The Nova's "The Crusher") and rockabilly (Hasil Adkins' "She Said, "Mel Robbins' "Save It", Warren Smith's "Uranium Rock") follow. "New Kind of Kick" is a paean to the continuous search for new highs - drugs or sex? probably both! sample lyric "Like baby needs mom/Like suzie needs dick/This baby needs some new kind of kick". The CD closes with a track from their live album "Smell Of Female". It's called "(You Got) Good Taste". Another reference to cunnilingus? Now where did I possibly get that idea?

***** for Human Fly, The Way I Walk, Goo Goo Muck 

**** for Domino, Surfin' Bird, Garbage Man, Fever, Drug Train, Love Me, I Can't Hardly Stand It, The Crusher, Save It, New Kind of Kick, Good Taste

*** for Lonesome Town, She Said, Uranium Rock

The Fuzztones "Salt for Zombies" 2003*****

Tonight's Friday the 13th as well as the weekend of the carnival (at least in Greece). So, the Fuzztones, true Halloween freaks that they are, fit right in with the night's theme. "Salt for Zombies" (Why salt? Anyone got any idea?) came 13 whole years after the previous one, "Monster A-Go-Go", a Halloween record of strictly horror-themed garage rock. Not that they've been away, but Rudi Protrudi kept changing his home base and went through a zillion different band line-ups, before deciding to return to the recording studio. Deb O' Nair, organist of the original band, makes her appearance here, next to the ghoulish Batlord on guitar and the Hammond/Kusten rhythm section. I must admit that my initial reaction at the time (being a huge Fuzztones fan) was one of mild disappointment: This album sees them making a slight shift towards psychedelic hard rock rather than their usual Sonics/Count V garage. Listening to it again now, I can't make a single complaint. So what if it took them 13 years to progress musically from 1966 to 1967-68? Their choice of covers is, as always, inspired and their own interpretation often surpasses the originals (dare I suggest their cover of "Strychnine" is superior even to the Sonics' primal original? No I dare not, lest the garage gods strike me down. I'll leave it to your judgement). Opener "My Brother The Man" is one of those perfect covers with its "Bolero" organ solo and fervid delivery. "Get Naked" is another outlet for Rudi's overactive libido and features the late great Sky Saxon in the role of the mad hippy prophet, chanting "Nude...let's all be nude...let's get out on the streets of love". Snippets from what seem to be 50's horror/si-fi movies intercept the flow of the album, introducing the groovy "Face of Time" and then the ominous heavy psych (think Monster Magnet) "Be Forewarned". "Johnson In A Headlock" features cheesy organ, lusty vocals, a funky middle section and ridiculously catchy backing vocals. It has since rightly gained a place in the pantheon of garage classics. "This Sinister Urge" is a horror-psych ballad and "Black Lightning Light" another 60's cover, sounding like The Doors jamming with Jimi Hendrix (Only better: I've heard a bootleg of Jim Morrison jamming with Hendrix and it was goddamn awful! Jim was completely wasted...). "Idol Chatter" and "A Wristwatch Band" are rather more atmospheric psychedelia and "Hallucination Generation" is a pro-drugs original featuring The Electric Prunes' James Lowe. "Group grope" by 60's hippie revolutionaries The Fugs seems to fit well with Protrudi's beliefs "You ask me about my philosophy, baby, yeah/Dope, peace, magic gods in the tree trunks/and a group grope baby/Backseat boogie for high school kids/Students fuck the teacher and the daughter fuck the preacher". "Don't Blow Your Mind" is a cover of a monster garage single by a pre-Alice Cooper band called The Spiders and "What Ever Happened To Baby Jesus?" is an overlong psychedelic horror song with lots of feedback, which they used to end their concerts with at the time: "Beware!Beware!Baby Jesus is coming your way..." - now that's scary! Not to mention blasphemous; I can't help but picture Baby Jesus like Chucky the evil doll from "Child's Play". Now, what could be more appropriate for Friday the 13th? I'll give it 5* 'cause I wouldn't want to risk Baby Jesus' anger by downgrading His favorite band. Plus, did I mention I'm a huge Fuzztones fan? Last seen in Berlin in 2011, The Fuzztones make surprise appearances from time to time, led as always by the last guru of garage grunge, Rudi Protrudi. Don't miss them, or you will be sadly missed...

***** for My Brother The Man, Johnson In A Headlock

**** for Get Naked, Face Of Time, Be Forewarned, This Sinister Urge, Black Lightning Light, Hallucination Generation

*** for Idol Chatter, A Wristwatch Band, Group Grope, Don't Blow Your Mind

** for What Ever Happened To Baby Jesus?