Southern Culture On The Skids – Southern Culture On The Skids
Lloyd Street Records [1985]
Bop Bop Bop/Primitive Guy/I Dig Tunnels/Psycho Surfing/Cocktail Song/Rockabilly Mud/Atom Age Trucker/Demon Death/Nothing Song
This is Southern Culture On The Skids’ debut album. The band started in 1983 when Rick Miller (guitar), whose father worked in a mobile-home factory, formed the band with original lead vocalist Stan Lewis, bassist Leslie Land, and drummer Chip Shelby. They released an EP, “Voodoo Beach Party”, which is now pretty rare (according to Miller, some copies sold for $100!!), soon followed in 1985 by their first full length simply called “Southern Culture On The Skids” and released on the Lloyd Street Records label.
This album is quite weird, and it’s hard to make the connection with the band that we now know as Southern Culture On The Skids. The main reasons are that Rick doesn’t sing, and the sound of the band and their inspirations come from just one source. Basically, you could resume this album as a cross between The Cramps, Tav Falco and a bit of Gun Club. It opens with a rockin’ instrumental (Bop Bop Bop) that is maybe the best track of the nine that compose this lp. The sound is more rockabilly (even if it’s a modern version of it) than the following albums. Lewis’s voice evokes Lux Interior but without the charisma and the power of the Cramps frontman. I can’t say this is a bad album. You find good ideas here and there, like the spooky “I Dig Tunnel”, in a vein similar to Eddie Noack’s Psycho, but to be honest, the main interest is the presence of Rick Miller and the fact that it is officially the first platter by Southern Culture On The Skids. Talking about a possible reissue on cd of this record, Miller answered to Butch Lazorchak, “If our popularity gets to the point where somebody can make some money off of them, I’m sure they’ll get reissued! At this point, I don’t have any reason to reissue them.”
This line-up lasted approximately until 1987 when Lewis left. The band continued, but soon after, Land also left the band. Mary Huff from The Phantoms, a Rockabilly band that opened for SCOTS, joined the combo. And the rest, as they say, is history…
