Tuesday, August 31, 2010

One Man - Big Beat


 Homer 'Creepy' Henderson

Music lovers in Finland are in for a treat. For a change I should say, as hardly any foreign acts make it here and if they do they often play just one or two gigs in the two biggest cities of the country, Tampere and Helsinki. But this time things are gonna be different: Homer Henderson, the 'Amazing One Man Band' from Texas is playing a bunch of gigs. If you don't know Henderson, and I won't blame you for it as I didn't know him either until some weeks ago, imagine a bass-less Rockabilly/Country/Blues band concisting of only one member. Or imagine the 50s/60s Hasil Adkins with a sense of rhythm. Or just go to his Myspace site and have a listen. Homer Henderson will perform at these fine clubs:

September 9th - Torvi, Lahti
September 10th - Gallows Bird, Espoo
September 11th - Graceland, Turku
September 13th - Yo Talo, Tampere
September 17th - Bar Soho, Porvoo 

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Psychobilly Records Ain't Selling This Year



Except for Mad Sin's latest 'Burn & Rise' which almost made it into the German Top 100 Album Charts and for one week was in Finland's Album Charts. But in general the sales have gone down. Alan Wilson from Western Star Records said "From my own label's experience, Rockabilly bands, even relatively unknown ones, outsell Psycho releases by about 10-1. It seems pretty stagnant on the Psychobilly front once again, and talking to other labels, most of them say the same." There can be various reasons for this. Less people on the scene, lack of quality of the new releases or, and I guess most labels will say this is the main reason, illegal downloading and file sharing. I'm not sure if I buy that. People have always shared music and not every fan spent his money on records. I knew many Psychos in the 80s who would spent their money on booze and not on music. They would always tape the latest LPs from their buddies. For me the reason not to buy Psychobilly records is the lack of quality and originality. And the lack of a vinyl release. But no matter why, the bad sales lead to some unwelcome developments. Anagram/Cherry Red Records was able to locate and buy all existing master tapes from the recordings for the legendary 'Stompin' At The Klub Foot' LP series. From those they released in 2008 the Batmobile 'The Clarendon Ballroom Blitz - Live At The Klub Foot 1986' CD and just recently the Sting-Rays 'Live At The KLub Foot 1984' CD. 


But if things, here sales, stay the way they are this will be the last release from the haydays pf Psychobilly and Trash and all other historical recordings, done when many bands were at their peak, style and sound-wise, will never be heard. Alan Wilson is the one working on the new Klub Foot albums, saving and mixing the old recordings and he said "I'm sitting on full live albums by The Tall Boys, Torment and several other great bands, all unmixed and mostly unheard, although as we all know a few odd tracks were released on the Klub Foot compilation albums. There's also a lot of bands in these tapes that don't quite have enough material for a full album, say 8 tracks or something - but I probably have enough of those to put together another 4 or 5 volumes of Klub Foot Compilations." The costs to save the old master-tapes, transfer the recordings and mix are quite high. Just too break even is hard with sales as low as they are these days, Wilson said. Due to this Anagram/Cherry Red has no plans to finance another Klub Foot project at the moment.
People always talk about the Klub Foot records as Psychobilly albums but there always were Garage and Rockabilly bands on the albums as well: Milkshakes, Prisoners, Styng-Rites(pre-Kaisers), Rapids, Rochee and the Sarnos etc. Maybe live albums by them would sell better?


Here is more insight in the work required to save the old recordings. Alan Wilson: 
The tapes are stored correctly in a safe, dry and stable environment. But they are slowly deteriorating and will continue to do so - such is the nature of analogue tape - especially the Ampex brand from the early 80's onwards. The content of the tapes will never be truly safe until they are converted to a stable format. Because they are on 2" tape, it's a bulky and costly proccess to do that. The tapes have to be baked slowly in a specialist oven to de-humidify them. They then have to be painstakingly lined up on the tape machine for Dolby etc and because the recordings were done on a mobile 24 track using 2 seperate 24 track machines (these reels last about 20 mins so 2 machines were used so as not to miss songs on the tape changeover). Trouble was both machines must have been alligned badly and poorly maintained and one seemed to have different Dolbly than the other. No Dobly settings are documented on the tape boxes, no test tones, nothing...... Making everything trial and error, but with the added pressure that these tapes will not stand being shuttled back and forth on a tape machine.


So, trying to now play them back, in their fragile state, getting a decent head alignment, and trying various Dolbly settings is a f*cking nightmare. Too many passes and the tapes would litterally fall apart. And...t hese tapes were second hand when these gigs were first recorded! I know this because there are edits in the tape which songs have then been recorded over! These joins are falling apart and because they are often mid-song it really is a nightmare to repair them.


The Batmobile album took me around 4 days just to line up the two reels so they sounded ok and get the tracks transferred to a stable format. The results are great but look at the cost! That's all time spent before I was even able to mix the album! So it's easy to spend several grand before you even have a sellable product. AND there's always the risk that once you have done all that, the end result may be shit, faulty or even not what it says on the box! - I've already had that happen. It's a huge gamble for a label to spend thousands and not know if they'll get a product.... and even if they do, they then can hardly sell any copies because the scene quite small and because of illegal downloads etc.


With no interest from Cherry Red at this very moment other labels could take advantage and release those classic gigs. Wilson says "My idea was this: If I could get a label to license/lease the recordings and pay an advance to do so, this would help pay for the 'recovery' costs of the audio sources. In simple terms... Cherry Red would still own the rights long-term, but the money raised from the short-term licensing would help pay for the recovery process. So, once the lease expired, Cherry Red had the material forever and got it converted on the license money. Great idea in theory. I contacted dozens of labels. I got just one reply and they hardly wanted to pay anything." Ain't it a shame?! So maybe it's time for privat investors. I don't know if there are any fans of 80s Psychobilly 'n'Garage who have tons of money lying around on their bank accounts but if so do something good with it and get in touch with Alan Wilson so that the world can enjoy the unheard recordings from the days when Psychobilly was still fresh and kicking! Message Alan Wilson

Source: Forum at www.psychobilly-online.de

Friday, August 27, 2010

Rockabilly Fund Raising



Thomas Yearsley, bassplayer of american Rockabilly/Roots/Rockin' Blues band THE PALADINS was hit by a train while trying to save his dog from being hit by it. Sadly he didn't succeed and was injured himself. He had to be flown to hospital but on the positive side it sounds as if his injuries have not been as bad as they easily could have been. Now his friends have started a fund raising to help him pay the costs for the helicopter, the hospital and to cover living expenses, as he won't be able to work for some month and like many americans has no insurance. If you want to help, go HERE.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Spin That 45 - Part 12: Hillbilly Boogiemen



I don't know if every Rockabilly fan makes this transformation in taste but you maybe have noticed that often people after being into straight 50s Rock for some years go back even further in time then 1954 and explore the roots of Rock'n'Roll and Rockabilly and start listening to Rhythm'n'Blues, Jive, Swing, Country, Hillbilly and Bluegrass. I bet as a 14 year old Teddyboy you could have easily chased me out of the house with this 45 I am presenting today but with my now adult and sophisticated musical taste I love it!
The Hillbilly Boogiemen are a Country/Rockabilly/Bluegrass outfit from Holland and they have a very successful pure Bluegrass version of themselves simply called the 'Blue Grass Boogiemen'. Most releases of the band are CDs but they made two vinyl 45s. A christmas one with the Ranch Girl and this, the 'The Bluegrass Side Of The Hillbilly Boogiemen' entitled one from 1996. Side A 'Hitparade Of Love' is a cover of famous Bluegrass singer Jimmy Martin, the flip 'Why Baby Why', a George Jones song from 1955. Both songs are great examples of the style they are in, Bluegrass and Country, played with drive and a great sound. I highly recommend these little ditties. The 45 is out on Pickin' Pumkin Records and can be purchased via the band's webpage: http://www.hillbillyboogiemen.com/

Friday, August 13, 2010

Just dropping by...

Wow...the summer has been even more busy then the spring. Well, now that the hottest summer in Finland since humans crawled out of their caves and walked upright is slowly coming to an end I hopefully will have time again to post my smart-ass posts.
So yes, I am still alive, so is the blog, and I hope I will still be on sunday. Tomorrow the Ricochets, old UK old-school(aka real) Psychobilly band, will play Finland and I plan to join the wreckin' pit. You know, the older they get the harder they fall...

Ricochets April 2010 - Speyer/Germany - Picture by Wildcat Björn