Psychobilly
History
The evolution of psychobilly as a genre is often described as having occurred in waves. The first wave occurred in Britain in the early 1980s, the second wave took place at the end of that decade and spread through the rest of Europe, and the third crested in the late 1990s with the genre finding international popularityOrigins
The Cramps weren't thinking of this weird subgenre when we coined the
term "psychobilly" in 1976 to describe what we were doing. To us all
the '50s rockabillies were psycho to begin with; it just came with the
turf as a given, like a crazed, sped-up hillbilly boogie version of
country.
We hadn't meant playing everything superloud at superheavy hardcore punk tempos with a whole style and look, which is what "psychobilly" came to mean later in the '80s. We also used the term "rockabilly voodoo" on our early flyers.
We hadn't meant playing everything superloud at superheavy hardcore punk tempos with a whole style and look, which is what "psychobilly" came to mean later in the '80s. We also used the term "rockabilly voodoo" on our early flyers.
The rock band The Cramps, who formed in Sacramento, California in 1972 and relocated to New York in 1975 where they became part of the city's thriving punk movement, appropriated the term from the Cash song and described their music as "psychobilly" and "rockabilly voodoo" on flyers advertising their concerts.[9] The Cramps have since rejected the idea of being a part of a psychobilly subculture, noting that "We weren't even describing the music when we put 'psychobilly' on our old fliers; we were just using carny terms to drum up business. It wasn't meant as a style of music."[9] Nevertheless, The Cramps, along with artists such as Screamin' Jay Hawkins, are considered important precursors to psychobilly.[6][9] The Cramps' music was heavily informed by the sound and attitude of 1950s American rockabilly, including Hasil Adkins, whose song "She Said" they covered on 1984's compilation album Bad Music for Bad People,[12][13] along with other songs from the Sun Records catalog. Their 1979 album Songs the Lord Taught Us is considered influential to the formation of the psychobilly genre.[10]
First wave in Britain
About.com calls The Meteors "the first true psychobilly band" and notes their blend of the "themes of horror, punk and rockabilly". They were the first band to use the term 'Psychobilly' as a description of their music.[4] Formed in South London in 1980, they are considered the first verifiable psychobilly band.[14] Their albums In Heaven (1981) and Wreckin' Crew (1983) are recognized as landmarks of the early years of the genre.[6][10] "Starting in the neo-rockabilly scene, the Meteors were quickly shunned for being too different. Excuses for exclusion from rockabilly concerts varied from the band having too extreme of a sound to their drummer having green hair."[15] The Meteors blended elements of punk rock, rockabilly, and horror film themes in their music. Another commentator argues that The Misfits' "American Nightmare" may have been the first psychobilly song.[16]The Meteors also articulated psychobilly's apolitical stance, a reaction to the right- and left-wing political attitudes which divided other British youth cultures.[6] Fans of The Meteors, known as "the Crazies", are often attributed with inventing the style of slam dancing known as "wrecking", which became synonymous with the psychobilly movement.[9] The short-lived Sharks, formed in Bristol in 1980, followed closely behind The Meteors with their influential album Phantom Rockers.[6][17] Demented Are Go are a Welsh psychobilly band that was formed around 1982 in Cardiff. They were one of the earliest in the initial wave of bands to mix punk rock with rockabilly, and as a result, are considered to be highly influential to the psychobilly scene. Another significant British band were the Guana Batz, formed in Feltham, Middlesex in 1983.[17] Their first album, 1985's Held Down to Vinyl at Last, has been described by Tiger Army frontman Nick 13 as "the most important release since the Meteors' first two albums."[6]
The Klub Foot nightclub, opened in 1982 at the Clarendon Hotel in Hammersmith, served as a center for Britain's emerging psychobilly movement and hosted many bands associated with the style. Johnny Bowler of the Guana Batz describes the club as "the focal point for the whole psychobilly scene. You'd get people from all over at those gigs. It built the scene." Representatives from record labels such as Nervous used the Klub Foot as a recruiting ground to sign up new bands.[6] A live compilation album entitled Stomping at the Klub Foot was released in 1984, documenting the club's scene and the bands who played there.[6][10] At the same time psychobilly bands were forming elsewhere in Europe, such as Batmobile who emerged in the Netherlands in 1983, released their debut album in 1985, and soon began headlining at psychobilly festivals and at the Klub Foot.
Second wave in Europe
The second wave of psychobilly is noted as having begun with the 1986 release of British band Demented Are Go's debut album In Sickness & In Health.[9] The genre soon spread throughout Europe, inspiring a number of new acts such as Mad Sin (formed in Germany in 1987) and the Nekromantix (formed in Denmark in 1989), who released the album Curse of the Coffin in 1991.[10] The Quakes formed in Buffalo, New York in 1986, but had such difficulty building a following in their hometown that they moved to London the following year, where they released the album Voice of America in 1990.[6][9][10][17] Another significant release of this era was the compilation album Rockabilly Psychosis and the Garage Disease, which acknowledged the genre's roots in rockabilly and garage rock.[10]However, one American act that emulated the style was The Reverend Horton Heat, formed in Dallas, Texas in 1985. Their 1990 single "Psychobilly Freakout" helped introduce American audiences to the genre.[citation needed] The band was heavily inspired by The Cramps, and original Cramps members Lux Interior and Poison Ivy have both identified The Reverend Horton Heat as the latter-day rockabilly/psychobilly band most closely resembling the style and tone of The Cramps.[19] Horton Heat noted that the lack of audience awareness of the band was in some ways a benefit: "Somehow, as a band, we continue[d] to fly just below the radar of the whole music business. Which means we g[o]t to concentrate on being [touring] musicians, not recording artists."[20]
Third wave internationally
Guana Batz members Pip Hancox and Johnny Bowler relocated there as well, moving to San Diego where they sometimes perform with Slim Jim Phantom of the Stray Cats under the name Guana Cats.[17] Another notable California psychobilly band formed in the 1990s was The Chop Tops. They have toured with bands like German psychobillies Mad Sin and the Nekromantix, and have opened for the Dead Kennedys, Suicidal Tendencies, Dick Dale, John Lee Hooker, and Chuck Berry.[21]
Battle of Ninjamanz formed in Japan in 1994 and Os Catalepticos formed in Brazil in 1996.[22] Australian act The Living End formed in 1994 and scored a hit with the double single "Second Solution"/"Prisoner of Society" in 1998. It peaked for several weeks at #4 on the Australian charts and became the country's highest selling single of the decade. The Living End generally describe their style as "punkabilly" rather than psychobilly because they do not share the genre's fascination with horror imagery, though they do blend punk rock and rockabilly at fast tempos, use a double bass and share much the same fanbase as psychobilly.
Canada
Psychobilly also spread to Canada.[23] The Gutter Demons were a band formed in 2002 in Montreal, Quebec, who became one of the most recognizable Canadian psychobilly bands.[24] The Brains[25] is a band from Montreal. The Creepshow is a band from Burlington, Ontario, Canada.[26] which formed in 2005; they write the majority of their songs about horror films. The Switchblade Valentines are a Canadian psychobilly band from Victoria.[27] Big John Bates is known as "one of Vancouver's most notorious musicians" (Globe & Mail - Toronto). The band re-branded in 2011 as "Americana Noir" (a rustic offshoot of the dark cabaret genre)[28] when the Gretsch-endorsed[29] Bates was joined by Montana's Brandy Bones on Hofner upright bass and cello.[30] BMusical style
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The Cramps combined rockabilly and punk rock with horror film lyrical imagery, laying the framework for psychobilly as this song demonstrates. From the album Songs the Lord Taught Us (1979).
This Meteors song inspired the psychobilly style of slam dancing known as "wrecking".[9] From the album Wreckin' Crew (1983).
"Psychobilly Freakout" by The Reverend Horton Heat illustrates the fast tempos and double bass playing common to psychobilly. From the album Smoke 'em if You Got 'em (1990).
This song by the Nekromantix demonstrates the genre's "slap" style of bass playing and horror lyrical imagery. From the album Curse of the Coffin (1991).
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Downey acknowledges that contemporary psychobilly's roots extend into 2 Tone ska, garage rock, hardcore punk, street punk and Oi!.[6][9][22] Hilary Okun, publicist for Epitaph and Hellcat Records, notes: "The music appeals to fans of punk, indie, metal, new wave, goth, rockabilly, surf, [and] country."[9] The influence of heavy metal on the psychobilly style resulted in the Nekromantix's 1994 album Brought Back to Life being nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of "Best Heavy Metal Album."[32]
Psychobilly guitarists often play rockabilly-style hollowbody archtop guitars with f-holes and a tremolo bar. Guitarists may play punk-style power chords one moment, and then shift into rockabilly-style fingerpicking and rockabilly guitar-style seventh chords. Notes are often bent, either by pulling the string down or by using the tremolo bar. Gretsch hollowbody guitars are a popular choice. Guitarists often use 1950s-style tube amplifiers such as by makers such as Fender and it is common to see stacks of two speaker cabinets. As with rockabilly guitarists, the overdrive tone usually comes from what is produced naturally by overdriving the tube amp, rather than by plugging into a distortion pedal.[citation needed]
An upright double bass is often used instead of the electric bass found in most rock bands. The use of the upright bass is influenced by 1950s rockabilly and rock and roll musicians, particularly in the use of walking bass lines and the use of slapping. The bass is often played in the slap style, in which the player snaps the string by pulling it until it hits the fingerboard, or hits the strings against the fingerboard, which adds a high-pitched percussive "clack" or "slap" sound to the low-pitched notes. Kim Nekroman and Geoff Kresge are two examples of psychobilly bassists who have developed a rapid, percussive slap bass technique. This live Nekromantix song showcases Kim's rapid percussive slapping. This live Tiger Army song shows Kresge's rapid slap bass technique.
Psychobilly bassists often use gut strings, to get the deep, low 1950s tone. Like rockabilly bassists, psychobilly bassists often use both a bridge pickup and a fingerboard pickup, with the latter being used to pick up slapping and percussive sounds. Psychobilly bassists often decorate their basses by painting them with retro pin-up style images or designs or by putting stickers on them.
The Cramps performed without a bass player in their early career, using two guitars instead. They did not add a bass guitar to their arrangement until 1986, and have used an electric bass since that time. Cramps guitarist/bassist Poison Ivy sees this as one of the distinctions that separate the band from the psychobilly movement: "I think psychobilly has evolved into a gamut of things... It seems to involve upright bass and playing songs extremely fast. That's certainly not what we do."[9]
Samantha Von Trash's history of psychobilly lists 13 essential albums for people new to psychobilly: The Cramps: Songs the Lord Taught Us; Reverend Horton Heat: Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em; The Misfits: Static Age; Social Distortion: Mommy's Little Monster; The Essential Johnny Cash ;Cult of the Psychic Fetus: Funeral Home Sessions; Cult of the Psychic Fetus: She Devil;Demented Are Go: Satan's Rejects; 7 Shot Screamers: Keep the Flame Alive ;Nekromantix: Curse of the Coffin;"Rockabilly Riot!" compilation; Thee Merry Widows' self-titled EP; Stray Cats: either Built For Speed or Rock This Town.
Lyrical style
Lyrically, psychobilly bands tend to favor topics and imagery drawn from horror, science fiction and exploitation films, violence, lurid sexuality, and other taboo topics, usually presented in a comedic or tongue-in-cheek fashion reminiscent of the camp aesthetic. Shawn McIntosh and Marc Leverette note that while rockabilly and punk scenes took their retro "nostalgia very seriously, striving for authenticity", in the psychobilly scene, the "aesthetics of kitsch, camp and cheese" are openly embraced.[35]Psychobilly bands drew on "all eras of horror, from Gothic novels and classic films to schlocky cold war flicks to psychological thrillers and splatter films."[35] Psychobilly songs make reference to slashers (The Meteor's Michael Myers) and serial killers (e.g.,The Frantic Flintstone's Jack the Ripper).[35] Most acts avoid "serious" subjects such as politics. Original psychobilly act The Meteors articulated a very apolitical stance to the scene, a reaction to the right- and left-wing political attitudes dividing British youth cultures of the late 1970s and early 1980s.[6] This attitude has carried through later generations of psychobilly. Nekromantix frontman Kim Nekroman describes: "We are all different people and have different political views. Psychobilly is all about having fun. Politics is not fun and therefore has nothing to do with psychobilly!"[9] Nate Katz explains the rationale for psychobilly's apolitical stance as follows:[15]
1980 was an important year for Britain. Recently elected Margaret Thatcher's policies led to a drastic decline in employment, especially among the blue collared and youth (Kim, 2005). A year later, there were five race riots within the London area... On a political level, London was incredibly tense. Fans of psychobilly (known as psychos) wanted none of this, or at the very least a break from the stress created by the political world. By establishing an unwritten rule that the music was to be apolitical, psychobilly music became a method of escape from the real world.Katz notes that at the "same time [in the 1980s], the revival of the B-movie, particularly the return of horror movies, occurred...[,] such as The Howling, The Shining, a remake of The Thing, Friday the 13th, and An American Werewolf in London (All 80s Movies). Psychos gravitated towards these movies due to their lack of seriousness, mindless gore, and enjoyed the throwback to the original B-movies of the 1950's."[15]
Fashion and subculture
Psychobilly musicians and fans, who are sometimes called "psychos" often dress in styles that borrow from 1950s rockabilly and rock and roll, as well as 1970s punk fashions. Long 'Old Mans' overcoats, army trousers, bleached jeans & Dr Martin Boots were all part of the early 'Psycho' uniform along with band logo T-shirts. Heavily painted & studded leather jackets were also worn. This was topped off by a 1950s style quiff or flat-top, often bleached with shaved back & sides. Psychobilly band members of both sexes often have prominent tattoos, often with a vintage theme.[6] Psychobilly "tattoos followed the same general notions as band designs, being highly influenced by the same movies. Common tattoos were images of the macabre nature such as bats, skulls, gravestones, as well as the occasional pin-up doll and band logo."[15] The goal of the psychobilly scene member is to "live fast, die young, and leave a (not so) beautiful corpse."[35]
Other aesthetic later influences include the scooterboy and skinhead subcultures, although not all performers or fans choose to dress in these styles.[6] Scooterboy fashion includes flight jackets, mechanic's jackets, and motorcycle jackets. "Skinheads brought in things such as Doc Martens and pilot jackets ... [and] Punks brought in clothes such as the leather jacket and tighter clothing[;] Beneath the jacket was often a band T-shirt or a tartan shirt taken from rockabillies"[15] Psychos often cut the arms off of their leather jackets, converting them into vests, and decorate the jackets with horror imagery or band logos.
Men often wear brothel creepers or Dr. Martens boots and shave their heads into high wedge-shaped pompadours or quiffs, military-style crops, or mohawks.[6] The Sharks song "Take a Razor to Your Head" articulated the early psychobilly scene's code of dress, which was a reaction to the earlier British Teddy Boy movement:[6] Teddy boys had long, strongly-moulded greased-up hair with a quiff at the front and the side combed back to form a duck's arse at the rear. The Shark's song said: "When your Mom says you look really nice / When you're dressed up like a Ted / It's time to follow this cat's advice / Take a razor to your head".[37] "Like most hairstyles of the 1980s, things were taken to the extreme. People [in the psychobilly scene] tried to get their hair as tall as possible and brought in streaks of strange colors."[15]
Lucky-13 "is an American hot rod clothing company proudly servicing pinup, rockabilly, psychobilly, rock n' roll, and punk rock guys and gals for over 15 years"[38] Inked Fashion calls itself "the rockabilly shop for petticoat, psychobilly and rockabilly clothing."[39] Paper Doll Productions sells what it calls the "...boldest psychobilly designs on the market today, fantastic for anyone who has a love of vintage style and classic horror. Inspired by rockabilly fashion, psychobilly has the same influences of 40's and 50's clothing but features a far greater modern flair, incorporating bold colours and horror themed designs to create an entirely unique genre of clothing."[40]
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