Four On 4 - Trash On The Tube

Hot on the heels of previous post, thought I'd offer another Sting-Rays related quickie. Remember seeing this at the time in 1984 on everyones favourite Friday tea time music show of the 80s' The Tube. There was a feature on current garage bands featuring Thee Milkshakes ,The Prisoners, The Sting-Rays and The Tall Boys and this ep was released by Big Beat to coincide with it . You can't go wrong with Thee Milkshakes with the mighty Billy Childish at anytime for me , but the real highlight for me on re-listening is The Prisoners with their psychedelic Hammond organ and trash guitar sound .A lot of the , er "madchester" sort of bands must have been taking lotsa notes . They passed me by at the time but gonna definitely investigate further . Here is the EP.

And here is the whole sequence , thought I'd never see this again . I bow down once again to the miracle of YouTube and the saints who have been digging up all their old VHS and maybe Betamax and Philips 2000 tapes so we can gawp and sometimes cringe at this stuff again .

Oh and look out for Tracy Enim bouncing around , who was Billy Childish's partner at the time leading to his name being featured in her artwork "The Tent"

The Stingrays - Dinosaurs

The debut album from The Stingrays released in 1983 , probably owes more to psychedelia and prime 60s' Nuggets type garage than the psychobilly scene that that they were often lumped in with.It still retains a frantic rockabilly beat on some tracks especially "Blue Girl" complete with great slap bass playing . "My Flash On You" and the sly " Joe Strummer's Wallet " are particular highlights on this very diverse album . The last track on the album "Ah What! " stands up really well, it sort of reminds me of Love and is probably my favourite on the album at this moment in time .

Psychobilly was mostly ignored or briefly mentioned with a snobby attitude by the music press of the time , so I am not holding out for any articles in any of the retro music mags anytime soon , am getting pissed off with repetitive Beatles , Stones , "how great the 60s' were " type articles and endless 50 best of whatever lists content of these mags at the moment. They must be taking us for fools . And I subscribe to one of them . And I have just renewed it and got a free CD wallet . Hold on ! Oh well, it's something to read on the bog .

Vinyl Dinosaurs here .