This was the day that engulfed the world in TERROR!

Sod's law that it'd be a Monday, really. Wrought by none other than The Deadly Mantis, would you believe. Yes, that's right. The entire globe was entirely engulfed entirely in terror entirely by a single massive insect. Just the one. On it's jack. I haven't been this scared by something since the whole "terrifying nighttime shrubbery" of Blair Witch Project. Which, let's face it, was about as scary as, well, a privet in the dark. Yes, I watch a lot of rubbish films. It's something of a hobby of mine. If you're lucky, I might tell you about it one day. Remind me to mention "Population 436".

But back to the issue in hand, which is not giant menacing green insects, but rather the deepest recesses of my musical brain. Now there is somewhere you wouldn't want to be alone on a dark night.

Ring Norris McWhirter (note: you can't actually do this, he's dead)! Page Roy Castle (note: you can't do this either, he's also dead)! Text Kris Akabusi (sadly, this would be possible)! Nothing less than a record-breaking FOUR tiny masterpieces on show tonight! AWOOGA!

Ahem. We have an escalope of the billy, an entrecote of the trash, a medallion of the garage and a massive gumbo pot full of the Medway goodness. I think I need to invest in a Thesaurus. I hear they make good pets, even if they are extinct.



The Bad Dooleys - Shark Attack (1987; Kix 4 U)

1: 900 Miles; 2: Shark Attack; 3: Pyro Go
4: Circular Course; 5: The Crazy Night
6: Darkness; 7: The Black Phantom
8: Stomped Dance


THE Bad Dooleys album. Or mini album, at least. They went really rather rubbish after this midget classic (well, there might have been a little goodness sandwiched between the two, but this really was career peak), lurching from primetime continental psycho to sub-Stray Cats neo-rockabilly with all the crushing disappointment of opening a Kinder Egg only to find you've got a stupid pre-painted Terrapin instead of a funky toy. Or worse, a stupid tiny jigsaw. They even had the temerity to go and tarnish their own stupendous cover of "900 Miles", the blockbusting album opener, on the diluted and overpolished jaunt into Polecat territory.

But enough with the gripin', I hear you say (with my special internet-enabled ears. I loves me my Innovations catalogue). And quite right you are. The wrigglin', writhin, stompin', powerslammin' fun barely let's up for a second on this all-too-brief breathless straightahead steam through the upper echelons of eighties psycho. From the aforementioned opener (rhythms gouging you a third ear, a great big dirty guitar troubling your innards and drums beating your head flatter'n Mrs. Meatloaf after a lusty night o' love), you know you're onto a winner. And also nearing the end of a paragraph clearly sponsored by The World Apostrophe Appreciatin' Society. The eponymous second track briefly dips, lending weight to the already fierce desire to lift that stylus up and plonk it back down again right back at the start of the side. Something you want to do over and over. But stick with it, it's hardly a bad track (there's barely one on the whole album), and besides - if everything was an instant classic, how would you tell things apart?

"Pyro Go" gets you right back on the mainline to mental quiff central. It stomps, growls and chews its way into the centre of your brain, filled with wonderfull German phrasing and lyrics you can make neither head nor tail of. And you love it. Speaking of the enhancing power of the foreign phrasing, you're dumped straight into the next grunting moment of wonder.

MAY DADDEY WARS A WAREWULF! MY MUTHER WARS A YUNG GEHRL! SHE WARS EWNLY SIXTEHN YARS EWLD! THAR STOORY OOV LAIFE UND DERTH!

The last bit might be a bit wrong. Twenty years of being one my favourite songs on one of my favourite albums have shed no more light on just what the hell "Circular Course" is the stoory oov. It doesn't matter, no not a jot. Well, it does, but only because it makes it all so much darn better. Germans do psycho well. Mad Sin also had it goin' on for a bit (they sadly switched it off, decommissioned it, mothballed it and put it in the bin, trusting rather in their ability to sound like an average rocky metal band with inappropriate instruments). But let us return to the time when the mighty Teutons bestrode the world like scary big musician people. Let us cherish that which they left us, including Shark Attack (replete with baffling album artwork). Danke!



The Escalators - Moving Staircases (Big Beat; 1983)

1: The Day the Sun Burned Down
2: Sloane Rangers; 3: Video Club
4: Flanders Field; 5: Young Men
6: Cut Up; 7: Eskimo Rock
8: Slumberland (Vicky's Song)
9: Dog Eats Robot; 10: The Camden Crawl
11: Survivalists; 12: Starstruck
13: Monday

Ah, the fabled Escalators. The now-legendary Nigel Lewis' inbetweenie band. Rising from the ashe - hang on, I've already done that once. No, this was Nigel's "proper" band. Not entirely trash free, they don't really dine at the same table as the rest of the eighties trash set (including their own later incarnation, the Tall Boys). It's a fine album, don't get me wrong, but it seems remarkbly unsure of itself, sharing rather more with "regular" indie of the time and Nigel's rather excellent weirdo solo albumo of much later than with the bleak b-movie trash that Nigel did so well. A stab at stardom, perhaps, an attempt to do "grown-up" music. And thus perpetually slightly diminished as a result.

There are good ol' garage moments - the opening "The Day The Sun Burned Down" and "Cut Up" could quite happily be Tall Boys songs. But too often Nigel relinquishes vocals (I've asked this before - why? You've got someone who can make shouting "HAAAALP" like a scared lobotomised docker sound sexy, why let anyone else sing?), and "Sloane Rangers" and "Slumberland", whilst certainly pleasing, could have been just about anyone hanging around the NME charts at the time.

On balance, the "Dog Eats Robot" moments of deadpan Nigel drone win out over the "Slumberland" ubiquities, but not enough to lift this to the heights attained by Wednesday Addam's Boyfriend by the Tall Boys. Which is why I will always prefer the Tall Boys. I might even be in a minority. Perhaps the erstwhile rarity of Moving Staircases, and the brevity of the Escalators incarnation has invested them with a not quite warranted exotic lustre. I still love it, but not quite as much as I really want to. Must be a bit like having a ginger child.



The Volcanoes - Strangers in the Night b/w Murder USA (MCA; 1983)

A1: Strangers in the Night
A2: Murder U.S.A.


Sweet toasty moses, now you're talking. Oh why weren't The Volcanoes massively famous? Rammed full of tunes (not all of them their own, clearly), chockful of a cool garage vibe, overflowing with genuine psych promise, and infused with the joy of the billy, both psycho and rocka.

You don't get all of that on this little snippet, just most of it. The rest of it can be found on their excellent LP and appearances on compilations. Here, you get an utterly faithful, melodramatic cover of ol' mafia eyes, tuned down to sinister, chugging along to a trusty garage groove. Some top notch "do-do-do-ing", too. "Murder U.S.A." takes no prisoners, a high speed rip through enough high-quality tunefulness to have topped the charts in twelve countries, bopping hard enough to have won a nobel prize for fearsome bopping. Except the latter prize didn't exist, and the former event mysteriously didn't happen. Lord knows why. I blame the generally cementheaded record buying public. Honestly, if you don't take anything else from here, take this. You won't regret it. You couldn't regret it. Regret would be a ridiculous impossibility. You'd probably end up coming round my house and thanking me. I'd put the kettle on, break out the garibaldis (or possibly fig rolls), and we'd get on like a house on fire. Then I'd have you arrested for being a weirdo internet stalker. But regardless, GET IT. You know where it is. I'll return to the Volcanoes when I get round to the album. Did I mention you should get it? Whet your appetite. You'll be gagging for the album in no time flat.



Various Artists - Medway Powerhouse Vol. 1 (Hangman; 1987)

1: Thee Mighty Caesars - I Self Destroy
2: Thee Mighty Caesars - Black Elk Speaks
3: The Del-Monas - I Feel Like Giving In
4: The Prisoners - Happyness for Once
5: The Discords - Second to No One
6: The Milkshakes - Ida Honey
7: The Milkshakes - The One Eyed Git
8: Auntie Vegetable - The Train Kept a-Rollin'
9: Auntie Vegetable - Fire
10: James Taylor Quartet - Be My Girl
11: The Daggermen - Ivor
12: Pop Rivets - Kray Twins
13: Pop Rivets - To Start, To Hesitate, To Stop
14: The Gruffmen - Hard Lovin' Men


Okay, so the tracklisting dwarfs the album cover. Sorry about that. All the more reason for you to do some vinyl detectorating and part with some cash in the worthwhile pursuit of the joys etched into its mesmering grooves, innit? The most ronseal of albums. It's a powerhouse, and it's of Medway. They're all here - some of them more than once (definitely cheating there, Mr. Childish). You got the punky garage clatter of thee Caesars, the rockin' and rollin' and twangin' shambles of the 'Shakes (as nobody calls them), you've got the firstest and bestests ladies of the Medway (I'd choose the 'Monas over the 'Coatees (as nobody call either of them) any time you put a gun to my head and made me) - singing in French no less! - you got the no nonense guitar attack of The Discords, you've got the utterly peerless Prisoners misspelling their way to the nonsensical garage-psychey-pop witterings about fish in hair and sweetcorn in beards that the Small Faces could only dream of achieving. You've got everything indeed. Including the masterpiece that is "Ivor", by the lost and lamented and very much missed Daggermen. Find the whole of "A Quick One..." by the Who a bit of a mouthful? Too much to digest in one sitting? Then why not just take the closing segment and turn it into a clattering beast of a perfectly formed and preserved pop masterpiece? Why not, indeed? The Daggermen did, and for that the world is forever in their debt. Billy paid tribute to the Daggermen, covering this in the process as part of the Buffs. He couldn't get anywhere near. Only on Krave On! by the Kravin' "A"'s (uncoincidentally featuring a Daggerman) was such sheer, riotously joyous pop nous recaptured. Well, that and a load of other songs I love. But that's the closest and most pertinent example, believe you me.

If all that doesn't get the juices flowin', then you're probably already dead.