The Gumbo Ya-Ya's - Superstitious Kisses (2014)

This is good news everybody. More South African garage rock fronted by Heino Retief. In case you're not as an avid of a follower of Retief's work as I am, I can happily recap. There was a little thing called the Revelators that only post-defunctly (I know I made that word up) sent SRM an album to share that was undoubtedly one of the most rocking albums I've heard through the inbox. Then there's the Future Primitives that equalled the garage rock intensity and made ripples all the way over the world with a split with the amazing French group Dusty Mush. Not resting on any laurels in Capetown, it seems there is a new group with a freshly released full-length I get to add to the pedigree. I should add that this new outfit has the same drummer, one Warren Fisher, as the Future Primitives and if he keeps this up he'll have me following whatever does as well.

Superstitious Kisses by the Gumbo Ya-Ya's doesn't leave the lo-fi garage rock realm that the Future Primitives and the Revelators occupied as well, which I still consider good news, never enough good good garage rock. The most noticeable difference is the guitar playing, which makes sense as that is the only musician that is changed out from the last Future Primitives record, with this album featuring a dude called Giovanni Votano. This playing suits what feels like an even more rockabilly, swaggering variation of garage from this nucleus of South African rockers. It's less fuzzed, not totally unfuzzed mind you, but ranges from subtle to showy, displaying some remarkable skill. The vocals are more forward, but still awesomely rather unintelligible until you listen several times. And of course the drumming and bass beat along just so sweetly it is makes for the whole damned album rather endearing. I can listen to albums like Superstitious Kisses for hours on end and I already have.

To be had here:
The Gumbo Ya-Ya's - Superstitious Kisses

Blaire Alise & The Bombshells - FOR MY DARLIN' (2014)

So as anyone that has ever paid the fuck attention to this blog or the podcast knows, I live in Detroit and I am not entirely jazzed about it. At least I am far more skeptical of it than most other people I know in this city, and I don't subscribe to the idea that the city is on some sort of trajectory for a rebound. In fact, I think I've been proven correct in my pessimism on the metropolis's prospects with all this bullshit on the bankruptcy that seems utterly nonsensical to me, but I guess necessity isn't always reasonable. However, I am not gloating that I was right to be doubtful about Detroit, I mean the odds were on this if you were to place bet at these shitty casinos we've now got here. Moreover, I fucking live here, it would only benefit me to see the city revive more. I get to grin and bear the ugly aspects of this city whether I am hopeful or not.

I say all this as a preface to the fact that Detroit is truly a mixed bag. In some ways good things come from bad things and vice versa, certainly not in a healthy balance but like a horribly out of whack scale might measure allotments of delightful features into the cityscape. For example, the place is cheap overall: low rent, drinks are reasonable, food prices aren't too high unless you want something from the new high-end grocers or restaurants that are popping up (even then nothing compared to the coasts), and gasoline is cheaper than places like Chicago or New England in my experience. This means what is poverty according to the government can still be livable for young adults without offspring like myself; not comfortable or luxurious but not nearly homeless either. No plane tickets to France in budget, but a steak to cook at home and a pack of decent smokes are achievable. Of course you gotta lie about not living to your car insurer or your premiums will double or triple automatically and I never learned how paranoid I could be until I got mugged, or how angry I could be until after the second time. But then again, the police can't be fucking bothered to stop you from having a beer in a park most of the time, nobody is gonna stop you from having chickens despite it technically being illegal, and riding a bike through this city can be remarkably fun because of how there's only one rule: don't let anything get too close.

Yet in all these pros and cons I've saved what might be the only trump card I really think the Detroit has, it's fucking amazing music. Getting into the Detroit garage rock bands of the 90s and early aughts are what initially hooked me on going back everyday to the Port Huron public library to check out CDs by the dozen. The Hentchmen, the Dirtbombs, Outrageous Cherry, the Come Ons, and naturally those wonderful early albums by the White Stripes and the legendary Gories. Now, I wasn't in a position monetarily, transit or otherwise to really see any of these bands until I was... 24, I think. But there was a dreamy, young and more naive version of me that listened to these groups rabidly, and was astounded to find very few people listened to these bands, at least until the White Stripes blew the fuck up like an atom bomb. It was like, for a hot minute the world looked at Detroit and recognized that we were doing something cool again, like some kind of a renewed Motown imagined for just a flash of instant. Then the world noticed everything else going on basically everywhere and we slipped back to where we were at before: a few really popular acts and a pyramid of other acts of less notoriety beneath. 

Yet, this is not a sad ending to Detroit's illustrious musical past. What sort of shit would that be? This city, if nothing fucking else, knows how to make some damned righteous rock and roll (and hip hop, techno and so on). I'd put this above the automobiles and the fact that we used to make Stroh's. And perhaps it is a nostalgia-based favoritism, but I think one of the new prime examples of this is Blaire Alise & The Bombshells. Nostalgic insomuch that her singing reminds me so damned much of Detroit acts I remember so fondly like the Fondas, the Detroit Cobras and the Come Ons with a healthy dose of Motown girl group and 50s rockabilly feel thrown in. She's playing to her crowd, that much is for sure, and I am eating it right up. And just to make me feel a bit older than perhaps I should, she's just a kid, as far as I know she's not even able to buy herself a beer yet. Basically, at this point the fans of Detroit garage rock should be on board, and those of you unfamiliar with this shit have a lot of homework to get done...

To be had here:

Blaire Alise & The Bombshells - FOR MY DARLIN'

Menschliche Energie - Billy EP (2014)

While I normally throw a group of EPs together into a longer post, for whatever reason I want to say a bit more about Menschliche Energie. Perhaps it'll be clearer to both you and I by the time I finish this write-up. Now I'd never heard of Menschliche Energie before I discovered Billy EP after rolling around on bandcamp pages for a few hours. That's not terribly unusual for any of us at Spacerockmountain to do, but I've always felt a strange need to assume the role of a champion for the music I find in this method. Sure I talk up and will recommend the shit out of submitted material, even follow the band myself and make sure I am not missing out on new releases, but I always envision myself as a loud fanboy in this scenario. I am cool with all this, in fact I enjoy the fantasy, or slight reality, that I'm your buddy giving you a heads up on some cool tunes. It changes, however so subtly, when I pull out of the infinite depths of the internet a particular EP, whether or not these fellas are actively seeking promotion or not, and tell you, "This is some real tight shit."

It is that infiniteness that is the issue. It isn't just infinite to me, but to everyone using the internet, and I am just making more infinity every time I feel the need to write something up and publish it here. Truth is I want you guys to be like "yeah, that's cool" but most of the time I am just staring at a void full of endless more music to hear, books to read and movies to watch that can make one feel uncultured despite a lifetime of consuming memes and media.

Yet in a desperate hope that this does fall down some endless void, I'm telling you that I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Menschliche Energie's Billy EP. It is unsurprising at how well-crafted their songs are once I knocked around their bandcamp page. They've got releases from as far back as 2003. These guys are veterans at what they do. And what they do is snyth-heavy post-punk rock. It's absurdly able to blend a James Dean, leather jacket rocker style with the ultra-Mod and flamboyant 80s music that succeeded that notion. The songs are brief and don't jerk themselves off in anyway for having been a longstanding band from Nürtingen, Germany, but rather show a seasoned musicianship that knows excellently how to cut off the excess fat, leaving just enough to make it tasteful but not chewy.

To be had here (NYP):
Menschliche Energie - Billy EP

Suzi Trash - So Totally Dissonant (2012)

In 1994, Green Day opened the flood gates of what, for years, would be a rebirth for the punk genre (via MTV) with a resulting commodification of the culture. Soon the hallways of my high school were showing symptoms of this: peers were absorbing the trends of wallet chains, Manic Panic-dyed hair, and mall-bought "punk" clothing. Sitting atop my high horse, I became incensed. Just two years prior, I was seeing my first Ramones show, where my naive attempts at starting a mosh pit ended as the beer muscles of an angry old punk tossed me aside like a crumpled tissue. Now cheerleaders were wearing Offspring patches on their backpacks? Fuck them! They weren't getting thrown around by drunks... well, maybe they were... but probably not.

The only way I could cope was to change the channel... and so I swore off punk rock. Nearly 20 years later, though, I'm absolutely smitten with punk bands that I really should have paid more attention to. The Buzzcocks, The Peechees, The Wipers, and more recently, Jay Reatard, have all proven to me that punk rock wasn't, and still isn't, about all that "Dookie" from the 1990's. (...)

Here's a great release from a Missouri-by-way-of-Arkansas punk band, Suzi Trash. This is fun, beer swilling music that isn't afraid to throw some accordion, organ, and trumpet into the mix. Elements of the South are threaded throughout their sound, more than once displaying blues and rockabilly influences. They're not a Christian punk band, though some songs include religious imagery, if only to display the point of view of a conflicted man growing up in the small Christian cities of Arkansas. The first few minutes of "Fresh Cloud of Black Magic" is played out like a church hymnal before the walls collapse and it turns into a shredding punk tune. The song "Arkansas" asks the question "Glory glory, hallelujah, Tell me tell me what's that to ya?" while the rest of the song is a good-bye and fuck you letter to the state. The record is actually very personal with lyrics describing a hungover and depressed existence while conflicts between love, family, faith and guilt all play their role. But still, the music that results from that negativity is a lot of fun.

I hope Suzi Trash have found a better home in Missouri, because they are making seriously raucous cowpunk ala The Gun Club that stretches to include shades of both The Cramps and The Moistboyz ...even early Sub Pop grunge-punk band, Swallow. But at their core, Suzi Trash is a band doing what they can to have good times in the face of stifling boredom.

I used to be a punk rock heathen, but Suzi Trash have a believer in me.

Could easily be released on Goner, In The Red, or Burger Records. If you like punk, or garage, or whatever... give these guys a listen.

Suzi Trash - So Totally Dissonant

Les Sexareenos - 14 Frenzied Shakers (2001)

It was only a matter of time until I got to throwing up Les Sexareenos. This was Mark Sultan's band after the Spaceshits but before his solo albums under the moniker BBQ and rejoining his former bandmate in the King Khan & BBQ Show. As one might suspect, Les Sexareenos does sound like a chain in the evolution of that sound. Toward a more rockabilly, bluesy garage rock that became stronger in later projects and the heavily punk style of the Spaceshits. This is the second of two albums, but the one I'm more familiar with. It is naturally enough loud and distorted, to such a degree that the lyrics are muddled and drums like droning beats throughout. Mark Sultan, even when incomprehensible, is one of my favorite singers. My bread and butter sort of rock and roll.

To be had here:
Les Sexareenos - 14 Frenzied Shakers [192 kbps]

The Ding-Dongs - The Ding-Dongs (2010)

I am almost embarrassed that I just found out about this band several days ago. The Ding-Dongs, besides sharing a name with the track I enjoyed from Thee Knights of Trashe by the Milkshakes, is a collaborative effort of Montreal's Bloodshot Bill and Mark Sultan. Perhaps this is sounding familiar to regular readers, as Bloodshot Bill paired with Sultan's most frequent bandmate, King Khan, to make Tandoori Knights. It's like they're pairing off in a round robin fashion for our pleasure. The Ding-Dongs are exactly what you'd imagine coming from a project with a garage rock wizard and a rockabilly genie, very soulful and exciting music with boisterous singing about any manner of thing like female police officers and jiggling the handle in the washroom. I'm a fan for sure, and hope you're because their are other albums and collaborations from these Montreal musicians I'm hankering to share.

To be had here:
The Ding-Dongs - The Ding-Dongs [320 kbps]

Bloodshot Bill - Trash Addict (2003) & Rockabilly Trash (2004)

Bloodshot Bill is a Canadian musician that specializes in greasy and gritty rockabilly. As mentioned in an earlier post, he is half of the new group Tandoori Knights with King Khan. Additionally, he was on the Our Boy Roy tribute compilation. Therefore, I'm likely overdue in sharing something from his main body of work. Trash Addict and Rockabilly Trash are two of his full-lengths but not the only ones, just what I've got on hand for the time being. As you might have pieced together from the titles of the albums, trashiness is integral to his interpretation of rockabilly music very much like Jon Spencer with his band Heavy Trash. This sleazy yet sleek style is expressed in both the wildly sung lyrics and prominent guitar work. Almost makes you want to put some DW-40 in your hair and roll some cigarettes up in your sleeve. Bloodshot Bill is certainly considerably more pure to the rockabilly sound that the garage rock I've posted before, again another similarity to Heavy Trash. Quite worthwhile if you're a fan of lo-fi rock and roll in most any form.

To be had here:




Trash Addict [192 kbps]










Rockabilly Trash [320 kbps]

Tandoori Knights - Curry Up It's the Tandoori Knights (2010)

It took me a minute to track this album down but luckily Teenage Lobotomy had it up on their best of 2010. Tandoori Knights is the latest of King Khan's musical venture, this time teaming up with another Canadian rockabilly musician, Bloodshot Bill. Working together each of them maintain their stripped down sound and theatrical style. Notably more absurd than The King Khan and BBQ Show or Bloodshot's solo work, but a pretty unique idea. For those unfamiliar with King Khan's biography, he is a Canadian of South Asian descent and has spent a good deal of time in Germany. The cultural crossing might have encouraged him in conceiving an Indian themed garage rock/rockabilly band. The played up accent that is employed at times jives remarkably well with the rockabilly delivery. Highly pleasurable if not taken seriously, but what is for reals is how well these guys know how to compose simple garage rock tunes. In the absence of a new King Khan and BBQ Show album, this is pretty fine.

To be had here:
Tandoori Knights - Curry Up It's the Tandoori Knights [224 VBR kbps]

Our Boy Roy LP

It is a rare occurrence that I put a compilation of any sort on Spacerockmountain. Nonetheless, sticking with precedent without a good reason would be a foolish move. Our Boy Roy is undoubtedly a good reason to break tradition, as it is a collection of many of my favorite garage rock bands to pay tribute to a musician that surely most all of us must have fond recollections of listening to, Roy Orbison. In complete honesty I found out about this compilation when I was looking around for more Ty Segall, who does appear with an utterly astounding cover of "Pretty Woman." I got really jazzed when I saw that other favorites like Charlie & the Moonhearts, Jacuzzi Boys, and Demon's Claws. Personally, I found this an amazingly refreshing album as it reaffirmed my believe in covers (along with Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.'s cover of "God Only Knows" on their EP). Working at a Starbuck's is a basically a trial by sound as you're forced to hear the worst covers of good songs ever recorded. Beyond just my hangups though, this is a really really great collection of covers of songs from a too-often unappreciated musician.

To be had here:
Our Boy Roy LP [256 VBR kbps]

Heavy Trash

Caught my buddy John listening to these guys the other day and it reminded me how much I do enjoy Heavy Trash. This is one of the many outlets that Jon Spencer has made for his music across the years, but teamed up with Billy Vetra-Ray, who used to play with Madder Rose. In case you've never heard of Jon Spencer, it is the same Jon Spencer from the Blue Explosion and Pussy Galore before that. He's been making varieties of garage rock, punk, blues rock, rockabilly and noise for years. Heavy Trash is a definitely punk, but leans towards the blues/rockabilly end of Spencer's catalog. Even brushes up on some country sounds at times. However, what is like the majority of his work there is an element of sleaziness to some of the lyrics and an acute sweetness to others. Overall, highly enjoyable due to his energizing nature and talented guitar playing it isn't to be missed if you like any of the garage rock or punk I've posted in the past.

To be had here:




Heavy Trash (2005) [160 kbps]











Going Way Out With Heavy Trash (2007) [256 kbps]











Midnight Soul Serenade (2009) [256 kbps]