Tag: surf

Clock Radio Turf Out The Maniacs

The first full album by Wiltshire’s finest purveyors of psychedelic indie shenanigans, Clock Radio, was knocked out to an unsuspecting world last week. It’s called Turfin’ Out The Maniacs, which perhaps should be fact-checked as it sounds to me like they’re letting them all in, as they arrive on yellow submarines and check into Frank Zappa’s 200 five-rhombus rated motels…..

Self-described as “easily triggered, dishonest, cryptic yet flirty deluded jangle rockers,” Clock Radio have produced a string of catchy slacker pop wonders here, as they continuously reach inside the box, like they’re four elfish Rowan Atkinsons all cast as Paul Atreides. But one thing is for certain, Chris Genner, Oliver Daltrey, Gary Martin and Fraser Wilson will entertain you.

Turfin’ Out The Maniacs sound like the results of the Coral offering The Divine Comedy a hashpipe in a moulded teenage boy’s bedroom; that’s a compliment by the way.

The opening tune Blood on Chrome certainly reeks of that breezy retrospection of Merseyside garage bands or sixties surf-rock, with an added preliminary Quo guitar riffs. Stoned at the Dojo, which follows emphasises the mock lounge style of The Divine Comedy. It’s vaudeville throughout, all Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band’s twirling circus, and an accordion welcomes in the next song, yet the tempo is upbeat indie rock. Handsome Weeping Man might leave you questioning if it’s necessary to connote the narrative, but it will leave you amused.

Clock Radio knows precisely what buttons to press to evoke a mood, and press them with free will. To say it’s a tad bonkers, it’s only a tad, and Mountains Beyond the Sun kindles a gentle side, drifting surf-rock, sunny side of the street vibe.

There’s ten three minute heroes on this impressive debut album, recorded, mixed and mastered by Dominic Bailey-Clay at Nine Volt Leap Studios, with Fender Rhodes piano, percussion by Dominic and a triangle by Shoshi B. If we’re content with getting halfway through and assuming they’ve calmed slightly, No Death takes us back onto the weird and wonderfully expressed if questionable muses of the opening.

Turfin’ Out The Maniacs is a comfy yet nippy prank, like being stung in the bottom but launching away from it to splash into a chocolate lake. Not so unlike Noël Coward playing a Bond villain, with Bowie as Bond; something you couldn’t imagine happening, but being Marie-Georges Méliès directed it and it’s on FilmFour at 3am, you might as well grab a bag of cheesy puffs and thirty grams of Amber Leaf, stay up watch it in your pants. “Cactus is cooler, I’m no Ferris Bueller, I do as I’m told,” is just one line I’m cherry picking to illustrate my point, you’ll be amused and rocked in plentiful equal measure.

It has an acoustic ending called Complex 5 which will leave you incarcerated in the meandering yet meticulous peculiarly pulp portrayals of Clock Radio, as if you melted into a bubble sofa. It is available now on the streaming platforms, or buy the digital album from Bandcamp.

Hooch on Streaming

Once a cover band, east Wiltshire’s rootsy four-piece Hooch have moved to writing and recording original material. Their discography goes onto music streaming sites today (Sunday 3rd July,) and if you like your country-rock breezy and uplifting, with a subtle touch of psychedelia and surf, then it’s worthy of your attention…..

The instrumental Eagle Ray is particularly awash with this aforementioned surf-rock style, while all tracks have this sunny-side-of-the-street, retrospective feel about them. Slowburn, for instance, is good time mid-era-Beatles in nature and Voodoo Hair is outright groovy.

Well even if you don’t do the streaming platforms you can get a listen direct from their website.Ten tunes on offer here, enough for an album, guys? An album of ten jumpy, anthemic ballads like Sweet Maria would see us fine, this one in particular is a beguiling peach I could imagine fans chanting back at them after only a few listens.

Live is a bigger part to Hooch, I’m certain you’ll make a beeline for a gig upon hearing these well crafted tunes, they’re at the Seven Stars in Bottlesford Saturday July 16th, tickets are a purple one, I believe this includes a barbecue thrown into the bargin, and a summer mini-fest at the Horseshoe Inn, Mildenhall July 23rd.

Expect “unusual” covers choices, they say, but I’d argue the cited Depeche Mode, Space and The Coral are apt, this upbeat melodic blend from Martyn Appleford, Nesh Thompson, Simon Dryland and Matt Ryan reflects this, with a dash more roots than perhaps, new wave mod, but with a move to electrification enhacing their acoustic roots, they weave perfect pop simplicity into their lyrics, and that’s where it is to pinning an imitatble, memorable style.

If the name derives from the late 19th century abbreviation of Hoochinoo, a North American tribe in Alaska renowned for brewing booze, this is certainly fun time drinking music, but the sound is far more matured than its commonly associated brand of alcopop. Ha, whatever happened to that, do they still sell it? It certainly took the brunt of the blame for underage drinking in the nineties, as if they invented the concept and no kid ever tried alcohol before their ingenious bottle of wobbly lemonade came onto the market!

Sickly sweet though, wasn’t it? Precursor to the Bacardi Breezer and Smirnoff Ice, but try the tune Aluna for size, and you’ll see, though there’s elements of the Kinks at their most comical, or subtle Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band at times, it’s a choice for grownups, with no immature persuasion; I love it, and hope they’re encouraged to perform their own tunes live, rather than an all-covers set; the difference between buying spirits and mixing it to your own taste or letting mainstream brewers decide on your sugar levels!

Captain Rico’s Forgotten Memory of The Beaches

As much as I enjoyed Django Unchained, I’ve not seen the other Tarantino spaghetti western pastiche yet, but I think I should cap it until such a time ol’ QT hires Captain Rico and the Ghost Band to score it.

Echoes of a gothic Ennio Morricone in his darkest hour shudder through this epic instrumental album, transporting you to an alternate reality where The Shadows came after Hawkwind.

A realm where rock history is suffering the same fate as Benjamin Button, created as Britpop, slowly working its way back to rock n roll, and we’re about halfway; USA in the mid-sixties, hardcore surfing with the Beach Boys. Indeed, the sound of ‘The Forgotten Memory of The Beaches,’ which was unleashed last Friday on Spider Music, is inspired by the classic surf-rock sound, pioneered by the likes of The Shadows, The Beach Boys, and The Ventures, yet it’s heavier, man, like vintage psychedelia heavier.

For this, I have to say, amidst sonic blasts, flares of garage fuzz and dark post-punk drumming undertones, there’s nothing really definable as in-your-face heavy metal here, more Chuck Berry’s Gibson ES-355 taken for a journey by Dave Murray, and for this it’s completely unique; a warlock’s cauldron in which he adds a tablespoonful of Duane Eddy and a pinch of The Cramps.

This incredible sound of sixties Southern California has been recaptured and reshaped by a trio based in the South of France, guitarist Damien Ricaud, Yves Manceau on percussion, and bassist Ludovic Timoteo, and it’s a breathless race. Given the psychedelic swirls of space rock at the beginning, you assume you’re in for a mellow trip, assume as Pink Floyd, there will be peaks and troughs, but through a magnitude of twelve relentless three-to-four-minute tracks, it rarely comes up for air.

Neither does it poke a standalone track at you, given it’s completely instrumental, without the hint of sampled spoken word, it flows right through as one masterpiece of mind-blowing nuanced mayhem, causing you wonder what the heck to listen to, or even do next. But for me, makes it tricky to nail a few direct words about it, to pick it apart, reason enough to love it.

On our local circuit, guitar heroes Innes Sibun jamming with Ruzz Evans might come somewhere close to capturing something similar. Should they choose to, because despite these sixties’ surfer influences cited in its press release, The Rivieras, for example, would’ve reacted like the crowd at the Under the Sea Dance scene in Back to the Future, when Marty blasts Johnny B Goode, or in reality, the impact Hendrix had on music. Captain Rico and the Ghost Band really are, this exciting.