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Fretz (the)

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Fretz psychobilly neo-rockabilly

Fretz psychobilly neo-rockabillyFretz (the) ‎– Don’t Fret

JPM Records ‎– FRET 1
Don’t Fret – Better Change Your Ways – Wishful Thinking – A Place In The Sun

An excellent though rather short mini lp by the Fretz, a neo-rockabilly band from Suffolk released around the mid 80’s. The Fretz were Jason Scopes on lead vocals and lead guitar, Mark Parker on double bass and Paul Smith on drums. The first three songs show the influence of Restless, Scopes guitar playing being clearly influenced by Mark Harman.
The last tune of the ep is more modern, closer to the style of Frenzy’s second album “Clockwork Toy”. All in all a very good ep. If you dig bands like Restless, the Nitros and the Cellmates this one is for you.

Fretz

Fred “Virgil” Turgis

The Krewmen

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The Krewmen – Ramblin’ / I’m Gonna Get It

the krewmen

Lost Moment LM024
The Krewmen were one of the best band to emerge from the british rockabilly scene of the mid-eighties along with Red Hot’n’Blue, The Riverside Trio and The Blue Rhythm Boys to name but a few. The band was formed by bassist Tony McMillan in 1982, first as a rockabilly combo. After a few changes, the Krewmen found its best line-up with : Tony McMillan on bass, Jimmy Faye on drums and a young Carl Sonny Leyland on guitar, harmonica, piano and vocals. Together they pushed the band toward a more bluesy sound. Ramblin’ is a great “delta-blues meets Chicago blues” stuff. The electricity is here but you still have a big country flavour. This tune shows what a great slide guitarist is Carl Leyland, too bad he doesn’t play it anymore. The b-side, “I’m gonna get it” is a Jazz Gillum song. Listening to this version shows that the Krewmen were more than a “cover band”. They play this song and make it their own. The song, the voice and the harp are clearly bluesy, but the way McMillan slaps his bass and the scorchy guitar look toward rockabilly. Let’s call it rockabilly blues.The band recorded an EP and this single with this line-up, both on lost moment. Then they disbanded and soon after Tony McMillan came back, this time on guitar, with a new version of the Krewmen. Carl Leyland and Judge Faye were no longer here and the sound of the day was “modern rockabilly” to soon evolve into psychobilly. Carl Leyland later moved to the USA and became the famous piano player we know and Fahy joined Get Smart . The “original” Krewmen were an amazing band and it’s really sad they didn’t last long enough to release a full length album but Lost Moment re-released this legendary recordings on a CD called “Klassic Tracks From 1985!” (LMCD054) and you can find some other Krewmen recordings on Carl Sonny Leyland’s album “I Like Boogie Woogie” (On The Hill OTHRCD 001). Look for them, they definititely worth it.
Fred “Virgil” Turgis

Early Krewmen with Carl Sonny Leyland
Early Krewmen with Carl Sonny Leyland
The Krewmen - Into the Tomb
The Krewmen – Into the Tomb

The Krewmen – Into the Tomb

Lost Moment Records ‎– LMLP 014 [1987]
Let Loose – Should I Stay or Go – Devil’s Daughter – Public Enemy Number One – Hava Nagila – Curse of the Pharaohs – Solid Gold Easy Action – Hostage – I’m Not Dead – Swamp Club Ball

Third and last release with the classic Psychobilly line-up of the Krewmen (Tony Mc Millan on guitar, Mark Cole on vocals, Dominic Parr on drums and Jason Thornton on double bass).
The sound hardens a bit compared to the Adventure and Sweet Dreams with a fast paced cover of the Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I Go (a song that was heavily covered by Psychobilly bands at one point). Other covers are T-Rex Solid Gold Action and a Dick Dale inspired version of the traditionnal Hava Naguila.
All in all it’s a solid album, though maybe a little less essential than the first two albums.

The Krewmen - Plague of the dead
The Krewmen – Plague of the dead

The Krewmen – Plague of the Dead

Lost Moment [1988] – Reissue Part Records – PART-CD 6114-001 [2014]
Plague of the Dead – I’m Not Your Stepping Stone – Scream of the Banshees – Jeanie Jeanie Jeanie – What’s Wrong – I Can’t Stop – Take a Little More – The Clock – Legend of the Piper – Do You Wanna Touch – Beat the Devil – My Generation

One can distinct three main periods in the history of the Krewmen. The first one was the Rockabilly-blues years that saw the release of two singles with Carl Sonny Leyland. Next they changed their style to psychobilly with Mark Cole on vocals and the recordings of three classic psychobilly albums (the Adventure of, Sweet Dreams and Into the Tomb). Cole eventually left in 1987 and Tony McMillan, then guitar player took over the vocal duties and came with a new line-up including Steve Piper on drums and a Mark Burke.
The sound changed with the line-up too, getting harder and including different elements than Psychobilly and Rockabilly like metal, punk rock, glam rock. “Plague Of The Dead” combines all those influences. The choice of the covers reveals this orientation and McMillan’s varied tastes. From Eddie Cochran’s Jeanie, Jeanie, Jeanie to Gary Glitter’s Do You Wanna Touch via The Who’s My Generation and Steppin’ Stone (Paul Revere, The Monkees but also covered by The Sex Pistols). Tony quotes classic rockers like Chuck Berry and Elvis for influence but he also adds Alice Cooper, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Jimmi Hendrix and Sex Pistols to the list.
It wasn’t easy to follow Cole and their first three albums, but McMillan succeeds to renew the band and “Plague Of The Dead” contains some very good moments like “Legend Of The Piper”, “Take A Little More” and the previously mentioned covers. It’s  also quite refreshing to see a band that doesn’t care about boundaries.
So once again it’s agood job from Part Record to reissue this album (with interesting booklet that contains press clips). Hopefully they’ll release the rest of the band’s discography in the near future. One can only regret the label didn’t include the non-album b-sides released at the same time as bonus.

The Krewmen - Power
The Krewmen – Power

The Krewmen – Power

Lost Moment LMLP 021 [1990]
Devils Lair – Miranda – Undead – The Rats – Anymore – Stone – Get Lost – 2 Souls – Knight Moves – Back To The Ball

Little by little, fans of the Krewmen saw them adding more and more hard core elements to their music and slowly drop the rockabilly idiom out of their sound. This musical position culminates with Power, which is plain hard-roce with heavy and distorted guitars, hard pounding drums with breaks, raspy voice and powerful slap bass. Some elements are even strictly heavy metal / hard rock with tatseless guitar like Knight Moves.
It’s still very well produced and play and features ecellent tunes like Back to the Ball a follow up to Swamp Club Ball from Into the Tomb, but far from the traditionnal psychobilly sound of the three albums released with Mark Cole.

Fred “Virgil” Turgis

Scared Stiff

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Scared Stiff – Dark Streets

Scared Stiff

Link Records Link LP104 [1989]
Johnny Cynic – The Untouchables –My Babe – She’s So Fine – Tear It Up – Dark Streets – Scared Stiff – Ghost Hunter – One More Bite – Elvis O’Leary

In late 1988 / early 1989 Chuck Flintstone contacted Dave Finnegan in order to release an album of Irish Psychobilly legends Shark Bait but the band had already split.

Finnegan hastily recruited some musicians (Ciaran Murphy on guitar, Johnnie Bonnie on drums and Willo O’Brian on bass as well as a couple of guest) to record this album containing songs from the Shark Bait catalog.

The album contains its share of very good songs, all originals being from the pen of Finnegan. From the psychobilly sound of Johnny Cynic and She’s so Fine (both with wild double bass) or Ghost Hunter to the title track that sounds like what could be described as Psycho-folk. Quite different – but very good – is One More Bite featuring an accordion or the Untouchables that starts with a jazzy mood before evolving into a furious neo-rockabilly.

Next to those very good songs, their covers are totally useless and are only here to release a lp rather than a mini album.

The album also suffers from a poor production (or the absence of production should I say) and a poor mastering .

Two songs (Ghost Hunter and One More Bite) were later reissued on Long Lost Psychobilly Vol. 1 (Treasures From The Vaults Of Link Records).

Shortly after the release of the album Scared stiff disbanded and Dave Finnegan appeared in the Alan Parker’s movie the Commitments before fronting his own Commitments band for a while.

Fred “Virgil” Turgis

Spectre

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Spectre – Spectre

Spectre

Killjoy Records Kill O28

Out Of Time – West – I’ve Been Fine – Spectre

Spectre is a psychobilly band from Los Angeles and this is their (brilliant) debut single.

Out Of Time is a fast psychobilly number with a mean guitar riff. Andy their guitar player really knows how to craft this little riffs that enter your head then dance in and with your brain for a while. West sounds like something like the Quakes meet Torment with a western twang. Really good!

Both I’ve Been Fine and Spectre are led by a powerful slap bass and sure will delight all fans of old school psychobilly.
Their strength (or their talent call it whatever you want) is of course in the way they deliver the songs but also in their songwriting. Their songs are traditionnal (I guess that if you grew up listening to psychobilly in the 80’s you won’t be disapointed) yet original.

Good debut, now I’m waiting for the lp!

As usual with Killjoy this is a limited edition of 500: 400 copies on black vinyl, 50 on clear/black vinyl (band edition) and 50 on grey vinyl (Killjoy Records edition).

Available here

Spectre on Facebook

Fred “Virgil” Turgis

Three Blue Teardrops

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Three Blue Teardrops – Ballin’ Jack/Morbid Teenage Love Song

Three Blue Teardrops

Swelltune Records SR45-004 [2018]

At last some new music by Three Blue Teardrops!

Dave Sisson, Randy Sabo and Rick Uppling are back with a brand new single recorded at Hi-Style studios.

Side A is a hot jiver that benefits of the addition of a saxophone and features a mean and superb solo.

B-side is even better. Imagine a sad rockabilly ballad with female backing vocals produced by Shadow Morton. I was almost expecting to hear car crash sound effects in the middle of the song.

Buy it at Swelltune records.

Fred “Virgil” Turgis

Three Blue Teardrops - Rustbelt Trio
Three Blue Teardrops – Rustbelt Trio

Three Blue Teardrops – Rustbelt Trio


A-OK – Shocked – Lincoln ’59 – Alone At Last – Headin’ For Disaster – American Way – Hard-Boiled – Little Lovely – Lord Send Me An Angel – Damage Control – The Dead Know Nothing – I still Dream Of You – I’m Still Standin’ Here
The fourth album relased by Three Blue Teardrops, more than 10 years after their debut release ‘One Part Fist” on the legendary British label Nervous Records. I’m a huge fan of Alan Wilson’s work as a musician (The Sharks) or as a producer (Frantic Flintstones, Gazmen, Colbert Hamilton…) but I was a little disappointed by his production on “One Part Fist”. I think he tried to give some kind of English psychobilly sound to a 100% American band which didn’t really fit them. The two following albums are now very hard to find but are more reflective of what their true sound is. So is “Rustbelt Trio” produced and released by the band. Here you have a real wild rocking and stomping modern rockabilly album made of 13 songs (all band’s originals, half written by guitarist Dave Sisson and the other half by upright bassist Rick Uppling). One of their best quality is to be able to mix genres, adding traditional vocals harmonies on heavy rockers, or enhance what could be a classic hot rod song (Lincoln 49) with a fine and swing drumbeat. Harmonies and superb brushed snare can also be found on “Alone At Last”, a teenagers’ song with a modern edge. The sound hardens a bit on “Headin’ For Disaster”, which talks about alcoholism and self destruct (Stayin’ out late at the beer joints, poppin’ pills and livin’ hard / Drivin’ too fast on the highway, slow at work and feelin’ tired / You’re lookin’ older everyday you spend gettin’ bent / But pretty soon this gift you got is going to be spent). “American Way” is a true heavy rockabilly or psychobilly (call it whatever you want) song which shouldn’t be out of place in The Quakes repertory. Nice! Changing the mood a bit, “Lord Send Me An Angel” is what you can expect with a title like that, a fine ballad with just the guitar and a very light snare, and once again traditional harmonies on the chorus. And right after this calm and peaceful moment they rush into the wild “Damage Control”. Another change of tempo comes with “The Dead Know Nothing” a western ballad with Mexican trumpets, gunshots and percussions ala Ennio Morricone. An Everly Brothers influence can be heard on “I Still Dream Of You”, and the album ends with “I’m Standin’ Here”, dedicated to Stiff Little Fingers’ Jake Burns, but the message is clear and can apply to Dave, Rick and Randy. It’s very good to see the band back in action, with a all-killer/no-filler album. With the new interest toward psychobilly in the USA, it would be more than justice to find them, who were among the first with The Quakes to play that music in America, achieving the same level of success The Reverend Horton Heat did.
Fred “Virgil” Turgis

The Scannerz

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The Scannerz started in late 1985/ early 1986. Sebastian Glenz aka Semmel (guitar) met Uwe Klein through his older brother. Uwe had started to play doublebass and was looking for a guitar player to form a neo-rockabilly / psychobilly band. They were very young (Glenz was 16!) and that was the first band for both of them. Klein and Glenz were soon joined by Murphy (singer/second guitar) and Pennmütz on drums (both from Bonn). Semmel quotes Restless, The Sharks as well as Gene Vincent and Johnny Burnette as influences while the others were more into the 80’s Psycho scene and a bit of Punk too.

Murphy stayed with the band for less than a year then left leading Semmel to take over the vocals duties and the band carried on as a trio. Then Pennmütz left and Gonzo took the drums. Finally Klaudia Menzel joined the band sharing the vocals with Semmel.

They eventually got a contract with the newly created Maybe Crazy records (later home of Mad Sin, Scallywags) but Gonzo left before the recording because he had to go to the army.The Lp was recorded with Johannes Bokskopf who Semmel knew from another musical project.The album is quite good and has aged rather well. It features 10 originals and one cover. It’s solid neo-rockabilly with a touch of psychobilly featuring an excellent lead guitar and a powerful slap bass with a sound very close to Restless (Vanish Without A trace/Girl Invisible era). The songs are well done, with a will to make melodic and original tunes. Klaudia’s voice is a real plus. She sings b-vox on a couple of tracks and lead on two, including the cover of The Ricochets’ Night Ship and the ska/new wave/psychobilly Change Myself. Sadly this is the sole release of the band (with the exception of one demo).

The band kept on with another drummer (Johannes Bokskopf wasn’t able to join the band full time, which maybe explains why you can’t see the face of the drummer on the cover of the album) called Gammel but the musical direction changed and Semmel left the band. The Scannerz continued a bit with a new guitar player (Michael) and Gonzo back on drums, playing more in a 60’s beat style but it didn’t last and by the end of the decade the band was no longer in activity.

scannerz
scannerz

Since then Sebastian has played with the Hot-Riffs, The Paralysers and today his “Mark Harman meets Cliff Gallup” guitar style can be heard in The Tin Cans.

Discography

1987 -S/T – Maybe Crazy LP 001 (black vinyl and 433 copies in clear vinyl)
Later reissued on cd in 2003 by Crazy Love Records – CLCD 64200

A big “Thank You!” to Semmel for the infos.

the Scannerz - s/t
the Scannerz – s/t

The Scannerz – s/t

Maybe Crazy / Crazy Love Records CLCD64200
I’m A Victim Of Your Love – Tell Me – Night Ship – He’s A Murderer – Crime – Fun On The Fretz – Stupid Informations – Want A New Life – Station Girl – You’ve Left Me – Change Myself

The Scannerz were a German quartet. They only had one release in 1987 on Maybe Crazy records. They played neo-rockabilly with a touch of psychobilly featuring an excellent lead guitar and a powerful slap bass with a sound very close to Restless (Vanish Without A trace/Girl Invisible era). The songs are well done, with a will to make melodic and original tunes but the real plus of the band comes from Klaudia. She sings b-vox on a couple of tracks and lead on two, including a superb cover of The Ricochets’ Night Ship and the ska/new wave/psychobilly Change Myself. If you dig 80’s neo-rockabilly/psychobilly this one is for you.

Fred “Virgil” Turgis

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