Thursday, October 15, 2009

Welcome To Your Nightmare


I don't really plan on posting music here as there are so many blogs out there that do so already but I thought I can make an exception now and then. Like now. I used to run this small label called Jungle Noise in the 90s and released a bunch of 45s, Lps, 2 CDs and one pretty awesome 10". Some of those releases are still available, other are sold out for ages. Some of those that are sold out have become collectors items over the years, esp. in Japan, and I think they pay around 50 Euros for a copy. Maybe more, who knows. For example, I sold a Jailers 12" for 120 Euros to Japan and was told the first Peacocks 7" goes for 300(!). At least before the economic crisis. Anyways, I found just that 'expensive' Jungle Noise release, a comp-LP entitled 'Welcome To Your Nightmare' from 1990, available for download on two different blogs. Only 500 copies were pressed and as most songs are only available on that album(re-releases of some songs have all been without permission, tse - that's not nice boys!) I figured posting a link for download here would be some nice customer service.

Not all songs on the album are great, or even good, but that's what you have to deal with when just starting a label. You ask a band for contribution to a compilation and they send you some crap song. Or maybe the band just was crap and that song was still the best they could come up with. As far as I know you can find the Klingonz(Ireland/Scotland) song 'If U Knew' only on this album. They recorded it when they recorded their 2nd album, if I'm not mistaken, and I licensed the track from Fury Records. That was nice of Del(Richardson, owner of Fury) but some years later unfortunately some things wouldn't work out that well with Fury. The Swampys(Belgium) song 'El Ranchero' was the band's last release before their split and it is, like so many, only available here. Same goes for the Scum Rats(Germany) 'Scum Of The Night'. I took it from their first demo-tape, before they signed with Rumble Records and imo this version is much better than the debut-LP one. I was a big fan of Scottish band Radium Cats and so I was more than happy to include them on the LP with an exclusive song. Actually the boys didn't read the german contract they signed (I wonder why...) and so the song was also released on their 'Pink Hearse' 12" on Raucous Records, without my permission. Well, maybe I just lacked authority. Or a mean lawyer. Still I like the song and the band a lot. Those hairs, man. Those hairs... Another band I really like on the album are the Meatles from Finland. Great Neo-Rockabilly on the edge to PsychoBILLY. Just imagine what they could have sounded like if they'd had the money for a decent production! Than there are Axeman's Jazz from Switzerland. That's one of the crap songs I referred to earlier. Brainblasters were a bunch of young Psychobillies from Hannover, Germany. They had a Punk background and didn't like Rockabilly or even the Meteors (whaaat?) but def wrote, in modern terms, Old-Skool Psycho songs. These tracks and their LP on Tombstone Records don't do them justice imo. I have a bunch of demo-recordings by them that are really good and would make every fat, bold veteran Psychobilly's heart jump. The remaining two bands both are Spanish and you will be happy to know that it was Jungle Noise that introduced Spanish Psychobilly to the world! So there you have it! The Brioles are still going strong, they just played a Psychobilly festival in Hamburg and will be back in Germany in April 2010 to play the world's most famous Psychobilly event, the Satanic Stomp. Los Despiadados released an okay LP but much more interesting is, again, a demo I got where they play a spanish version of the Sting-Rays 'Dinosaur'.

So far about the music. Now the sleeve. One could say, it's as crappy as the music. Or worse. I think it's worse. But those were the days of DIY (which in this case means 'no money for decent artwork'). In the late 80s, early 90s people seemed to be obsessed with Freddy Krueger and I was no exception. So after I had come up with the totally awesome, totally PSYCHO title for the LP I thought a picture of Freddy Krueger on the front sleeve would be cool. That one together with the title would seem as if Freddy himself invites you to your nightmare which he, of course, would host. I had just heard about this photo-developing technique that somehow adds colour to a b/w-picture and as I liked the psychedelic-alike outcome it could have I wanted to go for that. And so I did. I asked my good friend Olli Sydow, who had been making logos and drawings for my zine Satanic Hillbilly for some years already, to come up with a custom made logo for the title and a drawing for the back. That, that n that added n this as well, there it was. Another awful Jungle Noise sleeve. And there was more to come!

Your worst nightmare starts here

Killing Time






To kill some time...more pictures. This time from 2009: Pierced Arrows in Helsinki, the Barnshakers at Ruuhijärvi Rockabilly Festival in Finland, Rebel Ted Rock at the Real Gone Teddyboy Weekender in Finland and finally Lou Cifer and the Hellions headlining the same weekender.

Friday, October 2, 2009

www.myspace.com/sophisticatedbop








I always liked taking pictures at gigs. It started around 1985 and I still do so today Some of those pictures can be seen at



Much more pictures will be added there and maybe also here in the weeks and months to come, from 2009 shows and from pre-digital times, from Rockabilly to Garage, from Teddyboy Rock'n'Roll to Punk, from Psychobilly to Wannabilly.