Bar mistress! Jack & Coke for Chicken Ranch Records’ Michael Dickenson, Creepout! meister at Beerland 2006. Good-humored mechanics ground any garage, vinyl, digital, six-cylinder, but a cherry cream 45 with Alan “This Gun for Hire” Ladd artwork bespeaks the local label’s pledge to Fifties grit. The Woggles’ Cover the Waterfront peels out like a ’57 Buick, the Athens, Ga.-hatched fourpiece’s instrumental stampede blackjacked at the “Tempo Tantrum” luau and riveted to a “Bullfrog.” Flipside finds “Los Angeles No Niseimaturi” a sharpened blade, while Boyce & Hart’s “Valleri” monkeys around. Stomp! Shout! Scream! further soundtracks Chicken Ranch’s pluck. Super Secret Records head of operations, Richard Lynn, acts out more hemoglobin lust with a pair of blood-red 7-inchers. Hot Rails‘ stiletto voodoo conjures similar noir, sticking punks “Psychotic Features” and “Shakes of Misery” fast and slow, the latter gristly with the local trio’s reptilian sneer and Walter Daniels’ sax. Sparkle Motion‘s debut bash jumps the fence of Rock & Roll High School, the ATX quartet bruising runaways all, shaving when the Donnas were still leading cheers and “Too Drunk to Lie” (aka “Try”). Minneapolis’ Big Action Records also revs up coed clamor, taking sides between Red River’s Ape-Shits and Denton’s the Gash. The locals throw a fit, “Fuck the Pigs” knee deep in Dicks, while the already defunct Marked Men spin-off torches the fuel depot on their black half of the vinyl. A Red Harvest for all.
Contact: www.chickenranchrecords.com; www.thewoggles.com; www.supersecretrecords.com; www.myspace.com/thehotrails; www.myspace.com/sparklemotionband; www.bigactionrecords.com; www.myspace.com/theapeshits; www.myspace.com/thegash
This article appears in November 24 • 2006.
