Shockabilly "Vietnam" recorded 1984 remastered 2008
Review by William York
Vietnam is strange, soupy, and pure Shockabilly from start to finish. The album is divided about half and half between somewhat straightforward songs -- including a bleak cover of Love 's "Signed DC," the earnest protest folk tune "Nicaragua" (with guest vocalist Ed Sanders of the Fugs ), and a characteristically disheveled take on the old country song "Georgia in a Jug" -- and what could more accurately be described as lo-fi psychedelic sound collages. There may be an actual song at the bottom of "Paris," but Eugene Chadbourne 's howling guitar and Kramer 's voice samples sit so far up in the mix that the foundation is hardly discernible. Their "cover" of the Beatles ' "Flying," with its Mr. Rogers samples and bird and airplane noises floating atop the original melody, is another (less noisy) example of this collage approach. In some cases, it is a wonder the music doesn't just totally collapse at the seams, but it never quite happens. Then again, Shockabilly 's ability to sit right on the edge of chaos and sound totally relaxed at the same time was one of the group's trademarks..
Nicaragua
After a well-intentioned rant against “Jonathan and his cruise missile launchpad”, ex-Fugs legend Ed Sanders spills his ‘anti-American’ venom with all the pet obsessions of the era: “CIA surrounds Nicaragua and Reagan says yes to the death squads of El Salvador”. It is amazing to hear Sanders’ doggerel on a record entitled “Vietnam”, with each verse accentuated by the frayed guitar. Sanders remains a living monument of underground manifestos. As much as I could never share the pro-Ortega naiveté of the mid-1980s, many years later I found myself chanting with Sanders “Impeach George Bush” in New York’s Knitting Factory when the Fugs returned with gusto at the beginning of the Iraqi War. Times they are a-changin’.
Shockabilly’s music survives.
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