The Kaisers - Liquorice Twitch/That's My Girl 7" (Spinout) Everything The Kaisers do just blows me away. I love The Beatles as much as the next guy, but it's their early 60's stuff that I keep going to. The Kaisers capture that Cavern Club sound perfectly. I would kill to see these guys live - I hear they bring their own P.A. system on tour and refuse to use any other. Anyway, this 7" contains two cool cuts that will instantly get you hooked. (Continental #5)
Elliot Kendall - Le Hot Show (Shattered Music)
"Get past the misleading cover art, where powerjive genius
Elliot Kendall looms like some goofy black-clad vampire above the
San Fran skyline."
Here's a lesson to all of you out there - design your cover art
so it has something to do with the music! I almost didn't review
this solely because of the cover art. Luckily I decided to give
it a spin and began to read the liner notes which mentioned
Del-Fi. The music coming out of the speakers was a cool mix of
swing, rockabilly, and lounge sounds. If I had to make a
comparison it would be to latter day Brian Setzer or The Royal
Crown Revue. It is a little overproduced for me, but it is still
a ton of fun to listen to. There are a few bonus tracks at the
end of the CD that are terrible and should have been left off the
disc. They don't really fit in with the regular tracks and sound
like really bad 80's power ballads. Just program the first 10
tracks into your CD player and get ready to boogie. (Continental
#4)
The Kent 3 - Stories of the New West (Super Electro)
"Each song is a little story, a peek into a not-quite-right
life."
The Kent 3 play rock n' roll like just about every Bellingham
band, except they are based in Seattle. Their sound is quirky
alterna-punk with lots of tempo changes. This really ain't my
bag, but people I've talked to say they put on a great live show.
There are bits and pieces of some of the tunes that I liked, but
then they would go off on some tangent which completely ruined
the song for me. I admire 'em for doing something different, but
this just didn't do much for me. (Continental #4)
King of Hawaii - King of Hawaii (Self-released)
"The twelve tracks featured on this disc contain a blend of
percussive Latin American rhythms and ghost-like twangy guitar
sounds of the American Southwest blended through modest amounts
of clean reverb."
Well, the press release just about says it all, but I wouldn't be
doing my job if I didn't write a few words about this great new
Seattle band. I saw these guys live about six months before
receiving their CD and was mightily impressed by their sound -
vintage gear, great original tunes, and a fine choice of cover
material. I dig 'em even more now - this CD is amazing, mixing
trad surf sounds with spaghetti western and even a bit of country
twang at times. Eleven of the twelve tunes are originals, the
lone cover being an incredible version of Sleep Walk. For
more info on these cats look to their interview found elsewhere
in this issue. (Continental #4)
The Krontjong Devils - Presenting The Oetsound 7" (Oetstar) I get very little surf and garage music from Europe, so it was really cool to get this 7" from The Krontjong Devils. They have the wall dripping reverb sound down, as shown on the four tracks contained in this EP. You can't miss with three guitars - The Astronauts, Satan's Pilgrims, and the 'Devils all have (or had) three guitars in their line-up. There are four cuts on this EP - Arab, Track 61, Live Like A King and Exotic. (Continental #5)
Click here to go back to music reviews.