Shockabilly "Vietnam" recorded 1984 re mastered 2008
Shockabilly was a band which couldn’t be “genre-fied” and which included guitarist/vocalist Eugene Chadbourne, and Shimmy Disc founder Mark Kramer(known more commonly as simply Kramer) on vocals and bass, “cheap organ” and other instruments. Shimmy alum David Licht handled percussions. Licht played on many Shimmy projects during the 80’s and early 90s when the label folded due to the breakup of Kramer’s band Bongwater and the subsequent lawsuit over royalty disputes with former partner Ann Magnuson. Kramer and Chadbourne also split for for royalty dispute and creative differences. Kramer once called Chadbourne “the second best guitar player in rock history behind Jimi Hendrix…”
Born on the Bayou
Californian John Fogerty wrote some awful pseudo-southern songs in the early 1970s and Chadbourne dissected one of them here, producing a simulacrum far worthier than the “original”. It starts innocently with moronic story-telling (“when I was just a little boy”) turned into slapstick by the infantilized howl. The ambiguously mixed-down trio trawls on, upstaging the yowing-zowing, elvis-ing, rockn’n’rolling vocal effects. The archaic treatment ricochets against a freaking guitar and bludgeoned drums. Before the track eventually disintegrates, Kramer throws in some muddy, looped tapes.
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