i94bar1200x80

hound dawg records

  • blood and treasureThere’s no-one better qualified to decry “this counterfeit world” than Pat Todd as he does on the opening cut of the same name on his new album.

    Todd’s been The Real Deal for three decades, first with Los Angeles underground legends The Lazy Cowgirls and more recently with The Rankoutsiders. “Blood & Treasure” is long=player number-four and builds on a substantial body of work.

    People sometimes look down their noses at the term “bar band”. Why is a mystery. Isn’t a “bar band” the antithesis of a “stadium band”? Todd has assembled one of the world’s best bar bands in The Rankoutsiders and it would be a travesty to think of them playing Coachella.

  • mesmericWhen it comes to bands from the ‘80s wave of garage revivalists, The Morlocks don’t get a fair shake, even for cult artists.

    Put it down to their splintered history - there have been more line-ups than chords in a prog rock opera - or singer Leighton Koizumi’s disappearing act - years behind bars after a drug deal gone wrong will do that to your profile - but you never hear them mentioned in the same breath as, say, The Fuzztones or Lyres. 

    It’s been eight years since the all-covers “The Morlocks Play Chess”, a salute to the artists from the label of the same name, and Kolzumi has left the US West Coast to domicile himself in Germany.

    For “Bring On The Mesmeric Condition” he assembled a “new” crew of mostly old fuzz fiends: Rob Louwers on drums ( Fuzztones, Q-65, Link Wray) Oliver Pilsner on bass (Fuzztones, Cheeks, Montesas, Magnificent Brotherhood) and guitarists Bernadette (Sonny Vincent, Humpers) and Marcello Salis (Kolzumi’s ex-Gravedigger V bandmate) make for some line-up.