The Crybabys - "What Kind of Rock & Roll?" (CD, Castle/Sanctuary - 2003)

You know what, what's best in The Crybabys is not their bloodline (Honest John Plain of the Boys/Lurkers, Darrell Bath of Dogs D' Amour, U.K. Subs, Nikki Sudden among others, Robbie Rushton of Whizz Kids, Gunslingers and Leslie Riggs – Cheap & Nasty, The Godfathers), even though the credits from the past and future outfits, reel of a lot for the band's DNA. The Crybabys were a British institution on dirty, street and most importantly good time rock & roll not unlike or less important than those of the Stones, Faces, Mott and T-Rex trademarks and I'm not fucking joking! Too gifted to be press darlings (for some strange reason, Kerrang's readers voted them as the best band then...), too real to exist long, too ugly to become a girls room poster (that's a compliment, we're talking about rock n' roll here - don't fuckin' forget it!) and in general a fine example of the ‘too much too soon’ curse that's haunting the all prime movers. And for some strange reason my (utterly disturbed) brain have place them in the same position with The Georgia Satellites but this gang of drunk pirates (a tip to Johnny Depp, next time by-side of Keef try these nasty cockeyed motherfuckers...It's time to make a penny or two alright?!) were more colorful. Where the Satellites 'ave used the Malcolm Young boogie school riffology,the 'Babys tried instead Marc Bolan's. Something of a Dirty Strangers next morning personality crisis of a wild gang bang party with Slade the night before and you're getting close. Forget the bleach blonde anorexic fake wild ones of the era, they're not worth a shit in comparison!

PS: That's the MK I Crybabys complete (?) recordings. For more on this GREAT rock & roll mob look at the SOTD training school. BTW, even though I don't use the so-called 'social networks' shit, I noticed that the 'babys have an official page on Facebook, constantly updated with cool pics and information. So, if you have an account already, be sure to take a walk in there.  

-Pic taken from the Crybabys FB page-

The Infections - "Kill..." (CD, Rip Off - 1997)

A nineties punk rock classic, period! If I was punk enough I would have stay only to the previous statement, true to the genre's attitude but I'm a middle thirties prick now and it's a dumb thing to pretend something I'm not now. At least my former 'punkiness' kept the honesty part, right?
If someone in those days would have said me that it's better the Rip-Offs died, I would have probably abused him. The history proved however that it was a necessity I can do without. Cause today and after countless repetitions, no Rip-Offs, no Supercharger and no Zodiac Killers could come close to The Infections' strength and balls! They were completely ferocious, totally supercharged and outright edgy carrying those Benzedrine guitars and a full Heartbreakers/Dead Boys/'77 (in equal doses) approach on their savaged creations, I mean WOW! They possessed three 'singers' and on their sole single posed with these infamous bleeding shirts for the cover, just like the Heartbreakers had and did, so I was 99% sure even before proceed that it's going to be a blast! And I was always more of a Shane White guy than a Greg Lowery. With "Kill..." he proved the better way he was the one everyone should mention. He didn't let Lowery do his thing here and thanks to evil powers of rock & roll, it was a smart decision! I mean, of course I dig Lowery and I do know that the guys exchanged some poison many times in the past and I don't care to get a side, cause I'm only interested to talk about music but Shane is nearest to what I have in me mind as 'punk rock'. Let's not forget that Shane right after created the mighty but criminally overlooked Loose Lips, OK?! Anyway, "Kill..." has a sliiiightly better sound than the Rip-Offs recordings (I'm sure I read somewhere that they recorded on 8-track when the Rips used only 6 tracks - two channels over in punk rock makes a difference I suppose), in a way more....hmmm 'fat', especially on (what else?) the guitars, which they spit up AMAZING amounts of distortion, tube buzz and energy; making me still wonder how this utterly 'in the red' shit captured so perfectly!?A to the max wailin' punk boulder for the generations to come.

The Chimiks - "Modern Storm" (LP, Frantic City - 2012) OUT NOW!!!

You know summer's not a good season for taking care things. At least for me cause I'm already late a month on this (sorry man!)... And I tell you my fault's became bigger when yesterday gave it the listen! Bart sent me another fuckin' dynamite, keeping up high the standards Frantic City Records habituated us for years now (The Wild Zeros, The Pneumonias, Atomic Suplex, The Skeptics, The Beavers, Heartbeeps, etc).
The press info says something for the Dwarves subsequent obvious influences, BUT these guys here for sure were good students in class for the '60s Punk' lessons and especially those chapters for 'Back From The Grave' volumes. The guitar shaves and slash throughout long play's existence by squinting the one eye on the Stooges tradition and the other on every single creepy garage riff came outta the States during the early sixties. I haven't heard Chimiks earlier stuff but I'm definitely sure with this piece of plastic they entered today's global punk rock major league! The fact that WTS's favorite engineer Mike Mariconda, put hands upon is another safeguard for "Modern Storm" 's wild and savage sound. I assuredly can tell that Tim Warren's gonna envy Frantic City for this! Now where the fuck did I placed those Dirtys and Los Ass-Draggers CDs, cause my appetite's open?!

Order the storm here!

Dave Kusworth - "Tambourine Girl (The Spanish Album)" (CD, Sunthunder - 2008)

Yay! Just came in from my vacations. Shitty thing right? My knees and my head deny any further moves except those they have used the last 10 days... Basically I'm not in any mood at all and my stupid mailbox on my job's PC is full of crap that I don't want to touch my hands upon. I'm sure you know what I mean. Anyway, I was about to post something else but Mr. Rambler's great Jacobites 'Old Scarlett' hit, in coalition with some Dave Kusworth 'requests' by Steve and two more other friends the previous days, turned my head to this 'rarities, out-takes and demos' compilation as the booklet says. Not sure if it's the best place for the newbies but it's waaaaaayyyy cool for all the Kusworth/Sudden/Jacobites fans. The sad thing's that even though the booklet has cool photographs has not extra information about the tracks, the bands or during which sessions were recorded but as I said, if you're already a fan you'll guess in a way which songs have the Bounty Hunters behind, which the Tenderhooks and which Dave and his all star friends personnel (my fave Darrel Bath appears among them).  Ballads never was my cup of tea, I'm sure I wrote it before somewhere in here, cause if there's something I can't stand in life is some pathetic dude mewling for a 'beautiful girl' who dumped him blah-blah-blah, BUT Dave Kusworth and Nikki Sudden had (and in case of Dave's thankfully still has) this rare Stones/Faces/Crazy Horse/Johnny Thunders heartbreak touch that even a cruel asshole like me can't resist!
I wanted to attend this post also with an unpublished interview I did with him some years back, but no @#$! sign in 2 Terabytes of back-up HDDs... That's a shame cause it was kinda sort but kinda cool as well.
Later!

You can buy it HERE along with other cool Sunthunder releases.

Photo taken from the Dave Kusworth Facebook Community

The Dogs D'Amour - "...Straight??!!" (CD,China - 1990)

I'm writing these lines the day before my second round of vacations. At fuckin' last! I'm feeling a wreck with almost done batteries and the feel of a neurasthenic. In one word, EXHAUSTED! And I don't know yet if the place we 're gonna stay has an internet connection. My wife's booked it so I suppose that is not going to have (for the obvious reasons)... OK my mobile has, but you can do much from it. Thinking of this, I thought to post something before my way to some cool beach with lots of bikinis (hopefully) taking a walk in front of my eyes (Am I sounding like a dirty old man or what?!) and some cold beer tankards!
On our subject now, I suppose many of you have this, right? It's not something rare or not well known. And some Dogs D'Amour fanatics rate it as the starting point for the years to come deep gutter dive. But who cares? That's the first Dogs thing I ever bought and I still like it as much as the (broad example of ) 'In The Dynamite Jet Saloon'. But I kinda agree too that it was their last dazzle of the sparkling era. You know what I like most on all these classic DDA albums? The contrasts! They looked and acted like some pirate incarnations that had nothing else to do in this boring age than to play rock & roll. It was their way of stealing women, drinking heavily and travelling around the world perhaps. And all this mix it up now with the beautiful lyrics of Tyla, damned poetry kinda, something of a Byron or a Rimbaud clothed in Chuck Berry riffs. But what I dig the most are the influences, cause a good 80% of these bands, had the Dolls as role models and not the more b(l)ooze British Invasion pattern. These UK brats knew where to look for inspiration, trust me. The Faces and their cheap wine and women feel emerged from every song with the Dogs D'Amour signature on. So, on the downright ironic titled 'Straight??!!' , Tyla and the gang is one step before the fall with all its good and bad reflections. What a beautiful disaster!

See ya in a two weeks (more or less) mates. Keep the rocks rollin'!