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The Meteorz

Saturday, 2 June 2007

My webmaster Arjen gave me a DVD with some live psychobilly, recorded at the Klub Foot in the eighties. I knew it existed, but I never saw it. I am more into sound than into images. Although that is changing a bit since I can watch sites like YouTube on my computer.
I have seen many psychobilly bands in the eighties and nineties. Not much of these concerts I would love to see again. I don’t even really miss my psychobilly LP’s, that I gave away ten years ago, when I desperately needed more space on my shelves. But I had a fun hour watching the Klub Foot videos.
Of all the bands on this DVD I liked Batmobile and The Caravans most. I have seen both bands in Amsterdam and I remember that the Caravans were a solid live band, but I was not impressed with their repertoire. That is of course a problem with many bands. I have seen Batmobile at least a dozen times. They had some really good songs and as a live act they were always worth the money. Even when they played for a half empty hall, with half the audience too drunk too know where they were.
I was (and still am) into psychobilly for the music, but I also love the clothes and the hairdo’s that people wear in that scene. My curly hair didn’t allow my the hairdo I wanted, but I tried. And I had an impressive wardrobe in those days, thanks to my connections with people who ran second hand clothing stores. I owned ten original 50’5/60’s Hawaii-shirts, with the buttons covered with the same textile as the shirt, if you know what I mean. So far for this metro-sexual moment.
I have two LP’s called Stomping at the Klub Foot. With both Restless and The Guanabatz on the first volume, this is a legendary album. But nowadays I have become a so much more critical consumer; I don’t think I will ever listen to both sides of a Klub Foot LP on one and the same day ever again in my life.
But my love for psychobilly music has not died yet, and I am seriously considering releasing a compilation of unknown material. If you happen to have some recordings that you think are worth to be part of such compilation, you can find me here.
One of my best memories of psychobilly concerts is one by The Meteorz, at the Milky Way in 1982. In the audience was a guy with a tape recorder, who looked too much like Lux Interior not to notice the resemblance as beyond coincidental. I asked him if could have a copy of what he was recording and we exchanged addresses.
The next day I went to his place, which looked exactly as I imagined the interior of Lux Interior to be. I bought a handful of cassettes with live material; the guy made a small living out of bootlegging psychobilly bands. The quality of the recordings was so bad that I threw all the tapes away, except for the UK Meteorz tape, which I kept so that I could share it with you here, 27 years later.
Here is Scream of the mutants song from the hard to find Meteorz compilation LP, Curse of the mutants.

Comments:

Arjan

2007-06-28 13:23:06

Frits,

Sorry kan het niet nalaten om ook hier iets achter te laten, ik had dit zelf kunnen schrijven, alle favorieten komen voorbij, ik was wel in de gelukkige omstandigheden om toendertijd een enorme psycho kuif te creeeren, en… ik heb een aantal LP’s nog waaronder de genoemde Meteors compilatie (en een bult cassettes maar of daar nog geluid uit komt ?)Gedenk waardig concert ? velen maar een hoogtepunt: The Cramps in de Vereniging Nijmegen

frits

2007-06-29 14:06:21

Hallo Arjan,
Mijn mail-adres staat op de homepage. Mail even, dan spreken we wat af.