More Revenge of the Quick Ripple Bursts - Featuring Peter Case, Paul Collins, Dirty Filthy Mugs, and Lou Siffer and the Howling Demons

Peter Case - The Case Files


From The Breakaways to The Nerves to The Plimsouls to his solo career, Peter Case has always weaved a web of quality, roots based rock. The Case Files collects demos, out-takes, one live shot & other rarities from the 1985-2010 span of Case's solo career. Compiled by Peter himself, this long-overdue collection combines rockin’ full band electric tracks with a selection of dynamic acoustic performances, and also features collaborations with many of Peter's friends, such as Stan Ridgway, Eddie Muñoz, T-Bone Burnett, Ron Franklin and Tony Marsico, among others. As a collection of out-takes and rarities, expectations might be for a haphazard listen, but it's not.  Peter's muse is so cohesive, the songs all hang together to paint a picture of a true American troubadour. "(Give Me) One More Mile" is rousing, sparse back porch acoustic blues, with Peter's voice in amazing form.  This was an out-take?  Damn!  "Let's Turn Things Around" ups the funky quotient with it's rooster calls and washtub bass.  "Anything (Closing Credits)" sounds like a lost Plimsouls classic.  And it goes on from there.  Well, worth having.

Buy here: The Case Files


Paul Collins - King of Power Pop

While we're on the subject of The Nerves, we got a natural transition to discuss the latest power pop gem from the real "king of power pop" Paul Collins.  And with his pedigree in The Breakaways, The Nerves and the amazing Beat, no one can dispute his claim to the title.  King of Power Pop gives the Paul Collins fan just what they're clamoring for; sweet melodies, big, crunchy chords, sing-along-in-your-sleep choruses, and huge, huge I.V. infusions of power pop.  "C'mon Let's Go!" is two minutes of timeless pop perfection.  A perfect 16-karat melody and chorus propels this song from the early sixties to the modern day.  Paul's voice is in perfect form, roughening up nicely as time passes by.  "Do You Wanna Love Me," adds some rockabilly harmonica and beat to the mix, chugging out over another mean two-minutes of pop splendor.  Personally, I really dig, killer cuts like "Doing it for the Ladies" and the rockin' "Don't Blame Your Troubles on Me," which attacks with the ferocity of a vintage Beat song.  Power pop perfection.

Buy here: King of Power Pop

Jesus Krysler - Shades of Soul

Power pop?  Yep, another perfect transition, this time to the darker, glammier, psychedelic-black-light-poster-in-the-garage pop stylings of Jesus Krysler.  Holy crap!  Where'd this disc come from?  Plopping this baby into the player and my ears were caressed, loved and fondled by the absolutely stunning "Walking in the Sun.", a fuzzed out, power pop, psychedelic treasure of the highest order.  Big heavy riffs layered in more fuzz than the carpet of a cat ladies hold-in shack.  Sweet and sugary, yet rough and garage-y vocals carry us to the big chorus with the urgency of a man rushing to the Emergency Room once he hits the 5th hour of a Viagra erection.  Like The Seeds shagging The Beat in the backseat of Baby Woodrose's '63 convertible Caddy.  Love it.  Simply love it.  The touch of female harmony vocals was genius to texture the song.  "Another Ride," roughs things up as it drags me along the pavement on the back of its scratchy riff and propulsive bass.  "The Roadie," adds a bit more sensitivity to the proceedings than I expected with it's sweet acoustic guitars telling the tale of woe on the road, while "All Alone," is as sweet as a Setting Son gem.  If these names wet your mucous membranes, check Jesus Krysler out, and prepare for the onslaught of mighty pop-punk mania that is "Cut My Brain."


Dirty Filthy Mugs - Up in the Downs

From acoustic blues to power pop to psych garage to . . . punk.  See's there's a natural madness to this grouping.  And after the mightier stylings of Jesus Krysler, my blood is getting ready to reach boil and to get there, I need me some punk.  But not just any punk.  As any reader of the Ripple knows, Pope and I have been jonsing on some pure chopping Oi! punk recently and to that end Dirty Filthy Mugs fits the bill perfectly.  More muscular than a fleet of cars coming from Detroit, DFM plug it out gravel-mouthed, methed-up, mean and nasty.  This is Oi! punk pouned out with a middle finger shoved knuckle-deep up your ass.  "Blocked and Smashed," is furious enough to cause the weak-hearted to cower in fear.  In reality, it's a faultlessly crafted fury of punk with enough nod to pop roots to keep the fists pumping and the nobs singing.  "Bodkin Downs" (from whence the album title derives) is a genius attack on a lock-up session at the mental hospital Bodkin Downs which the singer screams "made me insane."  Brilliant tongue-in-check, brass-knuckle to authority's head two-fisted punk with a killer gang chorus.  "You Want it All," never breaks long enough for the lead singer to draw a single breath over it's 1:16 attack span.  Brilliant.  Buy it.

Buy here: Up In The Downs


Lou Siffer and the Howling Demons - The Devil's Ride

Ok, we've done it.  We've gone punk.  Now there's no going back, especially not when Lou Siffer and the Howling Demons are in the garage, spewing exhaust, brimstone and demon breath.  Fuck this is the shit!  I'd already reviewed the single "The Mosher," but for those of you who haven't heard it yet, what're you waiting for?  This is 2:32 of V8 nitro-fueled muscle car garage punk that could blow the windows out of any non-reinforced spaces.  Coming from Sweden, Lou Siffer and his demons are just the latest musical threat to set sights on the free world with the intention of laying waste to all small nations in their path.  Think Ripple favorites Space Probe Taurus but with 4 wheels instead of two, and on those four wheels we got 455 hp, four-on-the-floor and an overhead blower that can suck the life out of pop pretenders.  "Love Song," is the second track.  Yeah, right.  "Love Song"?  More like "you left me, so get the fuck off the road" song.  Power, gritty, nasty, dirty chops just terrorize this masterpiece.  Add to this a vocal delivery that sounds to me like Elvis Presley after he ate Johnny Rotten with his peanut butter sandwiches and we got the fucking-kick-ass album of the year.  Bring me more Lou Siffer.  Bring me more Howling Demons.  Plow me down on the punk asphalt of life, baby.  I'm begging for more.

Buy here: The Devil's Ride

--Racer

Peter Case


Paul Collins


Dirty Filthy Mugs



Lou Siffer and the Howling Demons

The Single Life – 7” of Fun featuring Lou Siffer and the Howling Demons, Space Probe Taurus, White Wires, and the Pack of Gurus

Lou Siffer and the Howling Demons – The Mosher  b/w Bitch De Luxe

I mean really.  What do you need in this world besides fast cars and heavy rock and roll?  Ok, there’s beer, sure.  Some Knob Creek Whiskey, ok.  Toss in some cold pizza and 99% of the world’s male population just reached mental orgasm.  Lou Siffer and his howling band of demons ain’t gonna supply the beer, whiskey, or pizza, and you’d be damn foolish to be caught standing anywhere near one of their cars.  But the crew will supply the rock and roll, heavy, loud, fast, coated in diesel, amped up on bennies, Red Bull, and nitrous.  This is high octane, V8 powered, four-on-the-floor rampage rock perfectly suited for late night drag races and gang fights. 

Forget that this music comes from Sweden, this is a Detroit-fueled, mega-tons of muscle car, head-on collision to the face of brutal punk-infested garage stomp.  Exhaust blows out of the bands nostrils like some devil-spawned hot rod revving at the green line.  Hide your daughters, your girlfriends, your neighbors . . . crap, hide your whole town.  When Lou Siffer and the Howling Demons come to town nothing but carnage and skid marks will remain.  And beautiful carnage at that.

Space Probe Taurus – Insect City b/w Mescaline/Dirt Cult ‘72

Keeping the Swedish hell-stomp fired up and spewing, oil-stained venom, we got this delicious platter from long-time Ripple favorites Space Probe Taurus.  Released in 2000, I dropped a dime to snag this baby off ebay and couldn’t wait to let the needle drop onto three distorted blasts of fuzzed out, grease-stained, acid biker rock frenzies.   Musically, SPT are Siamese twins separated at birth by some demented doctor with our friends Lou Siffer and the Howling Demons. But whereas Lou Siffer gravitated towards Detroit muscle, Space Probe Taurus jumped onto a fuzzed out, hellbound Harley and joined the ranks of some smoke-billowing biker gang from the river Styx.

Each song squeals and winces in the pain caused by it’s own massively fuzzed out assault.  Ola’s vocals and guitars never sounded better while the band chips in with brass knuckle bass and lead chain drums.  Acidfied guitar punk madness at its best.  See if you can’t find this one, it’s just wickedly bad!

Mean Jeans/White Wires – RU Mental b/w Please Write

Speaking of punk rock (we were, weren’t we?), next up is this frenetic 2-song split dalliance of hyper guitar, and staccato drum driven agit-rock from Mean Jeans and White Wires.  This is raw and ragged rawk, just waiting for you to come by and sink your teeth into.   And I mean that in the best possible way.  Energetic, refreshing, vibrant, and deliciously raw.

We got two songs here that show off different aspects of the bands, with Mean Jeans' “RU Mental” sniffing glue over a Ramones-frenzy, and “Please Write” revealing a softer, more sensitive side to White Wires' Midwest-flavored garage wailing.  Toss a funnel-full of quirk rock a la the Replacements, some angular arrangement surprises, and a pocketful of infectious hooks and this kinetic burst might just grab ya. 

Pack of Gurus – Bolero b/w Mystery Date

Every music lover has at least one.  Your holy grail.  That one record that you just can’t find, but damn, you need to have it.  Toss over the nation’s bedsheets, dig through the cyber-garage sales, lose yourself in spiderwebbed nooks and crannies, you’ll look every where to find a copy.  In some cases, it may take years of looking just to find another human being who even knows what band you’re talking about.

That’s the way I was with this 7” 45 by Upland, California’s Pack of Gurus.  Way back in the day as a disc jockey at KSPC FM in LA, I played the crap outta this definitively tasty mash-up of garage, new wave, and surf organ spy rock.  I couldn’t get enough of it’s seemingly random, oddball collection of influences somehow mashed together into two highly addictive agit-songs.  But after leaving the station, damned if I’d ever be able to find it again.  Years of searching passed, then decades.  The internet was no help.  The only online store I ever found Pack of Gurus listed must’ve gone out of business years ago because they failed to respond to any of my 2247 emails.  At $35, I considered it a bargain.  But alas, no luck.

Then ebay came to the rescue and for a mere $9.99 I nearly salivated myself to death as I opened up the package and beheld my very-own, moderately worse-for-wear copy of Pack of Gurus.  25 years in the searching!

So after all that build up, how did it sound?  Was it nearly as good as my fading memory had built it up to be?   Was it really the lost classic, holy grail of post-punk, LA rock that'd I'd imagined?

No. It wasn’t.  It was better.

"Bolereo", with its unforgettable spy-film, organ riff, was like a droplet of wine from heaven.  Totally synth/organ driven with a percolating bass line and those oh-so-angstful vocals and perfect harmonies, Bolero is a gold-plated nugget of D.I.Y. LA-spawned new wave pop.  Totally engrossing to my ears.  And the flip side “Mystery Date,” rang even truer than I remembered with it’s menacing bass, near Bauhaus-like feedback guitar intro morphining into a driving, distorto-guitar riff and singable melody.  Excellent period stuff.

Of course, after decades of searching, I’ve now found three other copies popping up here and there on ebay.  I think I’ll buy them all. Give me a back up copy for after the flood. And a back up for that back up.

Worth checking out if you’re so inclined. 

--Racer