An accordion plays, they're stepping in time

[venta]

It's Friday! It's about three o'clock! It's time to Boogie At Your Desk!

Friday afternoons need a little something. I think they need a Top Tune. Something to make you shuffle in your seat and, if possible, Boogie At Your Desk.

I'm not claiming that any track provided to enable At-Desk Boogying is one of the world's best or most profound pieces of music. It will, however, be a tune which makes me smile, and which has at some stage made me surreptitiously Boogie At My Desk.

Desks are not compulsory, of course. Feel free to boogie through your office, in your bedroom, round your lab, across your classroom, on the train - wherever you find yourself on a Friday afternoon.

If you like the track, go out and buy the album it belongs to - I'll try and recommend a suitable CD to purchase for any BAYD track.

The link to the mp3 will expire at some point in the future.

Today you are invited to Boogie At Your Desk to:

The Koffin Kats - Locket of Sin [link to mp3 download expired, YouTube link may still be active]

While I was Whitby in the autumn, ceb and damerell kept talking about "psychobilly". I concluded it was probably a name they'd made up, until Mysterious Anthony confirmed that it was a thing-comma-existent.

It seems there's a Wikipedia page about it and everything[*].

Anyway, on the principle that reading about genres is vaguely pointless, I asked for some band recommendations (preferably current). CEB said The Brains, and secondarily, The Koffin Kats.

I trotted off to do some downloading, which included Our Way & The Highway by the Koffin Kats, which I have been very much enjoying.

I'm not sure if I know what psychobilly is yet, though. And I fear CEB is going to tell me I've chosen a track which rather fails as an exemplar :)

If you do eMusic, then you can get Our Way & The Highway (and a bunch of other albums) from them (as I did).

[*] Trivia fans may wish to know that Wikipedia, he say: The term "psychobilly" was first used in the lyrics to the country song "One Piece at a Time", written by Wayne Kemp for Johnny Cash, which was a Top 10 hit in the United States in 1976.
Yay, I'm a big fan of One Piece at a Time, as well.

Comments

[zotz]

The place I used to hang around in the mid to late Eighties had Psychobillies coming along, and they got their records played. I don't remember this one in particular, but it's not atypical. I think King Kurt got played more often.

[venta.livejournal.com]

What a great title :)

[zotz]

Well, yes.

Some King Kurt (warning: may contain scenes of half-naked young men rockin' out)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hmm... pants and shaving foam. It's an interesting fashion aesthetic.

I believe yer modern Psychobillies insist that there must be an upright bass involved to qualify.

[zotz]

Again, yes, but there's a lot of stuff (especially from back in the Eighties) that doesn't quite fit by that criterion.

Honourable mention to this lot, for example.

[venta.livejournal.com]

My fashion aesthetic evaluation circuits have now blown.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Very fine film. Well worth a watch.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think The Meteors are a good example of psychobilly. It's basically speeded up horror-themed rock and roll.

[venta.livejournal.com]

It seems I do actually quite like a lot of these bands, I just didn't know the relevant word...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Psychobilly to me means The Cramps and The Meteors – I knew a bunch of people that were very into it back in the 80s. Good to hear the torch is still being carried!

[augeas.livejournal.com]

"Okay you turkey-necks, gather 'round, I'm gonna teach you how to do the crusher..."

You'd never heard The Meteors or King Kurt?!

See the "Blood on the Cats" (there were at least three) and the "Stomping at Club Foot" comps:





Goth cross-over, as Bone Orchard, The Very Things and ASF made it onto Blood on the Cats. Watch out for Screaming Lord Sutch.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Of course I've heard them. I'd just never heard the term "psychobilly"!

[ceb.livejournal.com]

That's not a bad example, though at the slow end of the tempo spectrum.

damerell's recommendation is not to listen to psychobilly if you want to get any work done ;-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Phew!

I had thought the high bpm was a pre-requisite :)