Band: bettie & the star chiefs
Release: lounge a billy surf party
Formats: 12" vinyl,CD,mp3,cassette.
Label:flying box car (this label is still around?)
Rating: 95 out of 100 (seriously!)
Track listing:
1. Jayne mansfield
2. always wanting what you shouldn't have.
3. phantom of krankor
4. Outta tears and outta liquor.
5. Little ol' me.
6. Moonlight on my dash board
7. He ran all the way to hell
8. Magic fingers.
9. Zombies from Chernobyl beach.
10. Three martini lunch
11. Dont call me baby.
12. Dexedrine
13. song 13 from planet 69.
Review:
Bettie and the star chiefs are a little band from fort laudable,Florida that never really went anywhere.they played a handful of shows,mainly opening for atomic war bride. they also played some festival in the UK.dint worry if you didn't catch it.from the footage,it looked lackluster at best.amateur at worst.
fast forward a couple months to today and there is a whole new sound to be had from this band. "Lounge a billy surf party" delivers exactly what the name implies.if dean martin,gene Vincent,and dick dale had a four way with Peggy lee,that was hosted on the set of "plan 9 from outer space"; bettie and the star chiefs would be the result.it sounds pretty bizarre to use that phrase to describe anything.but in this case: it fits like a glove.
"Lounge-a-billy........" if anything ,stakes claim to very unique sound that is instantly recognizable and highly infectious.the songs jump from extreme to extreme without stopping to touch middle ground.one song will be a frenetic surf instrumental,and the next will be a sultry lounge croon fest. Vocalist,bettie antonov is possibly one of the industry's best kept secrets.equally at home singing about love gone wrong,(outta tears,and outta liquor.) Sci fi doo wop bands,( song 13 from planet 69.), or tender longing (little 'ol me.)...and she delivers with enough raw sexuality to make Jessica rabbit seem like mother Teresa. The rest of the band is indefatigable and never misses a beat.
Highly reccomended.there certainly isn't anything else like the star chiefs.
sounds like:
Interview
Southfloridapsychos.com
bettie antonov
Elvis winchester
SPF:hi and welcome to my mom's basement.sorry,covering the south Florida rock scene just doesn't pay like it used to.
Elvis:*giving the host a once over* i think its pretty rad.
SPF: yeah.i guess.
Bettie:* not so subtlety elbows Elvis.* yeah
.....it does have a weird mix of 70's porno set,and way too much time playing dungeons and dragons.
SPF:yeah...so anyways.i really dig the album! What made you ditch your original sound?
Bettie: well,Erich Hess,who also produced it,pointed out that we were just ripping off the meteors and that was his schtick. Sooo i decided to make things a lot more jazzy.you know,the sorta thing you'd hear in a smokey little venue,a place where hip cats would go to drown their sorrows with cheap booze and good tunes.
SPF: and the surf bits?
Elvis: surf music is cool! Who can listen to "pipeline",misirlou","walk dont run" or any other surf standard and say " that shit sucks."?
SPF: what about turning off your original fans?
Elvis: we had fans?!
Bettie: i think most people who were into us before,should still find something to like.psychobilly and surf share a lot of common ground. Our lounge bits still have psychobilly cores. They are just played a lot slower.
SPF: what is your favorite song on the album,and why?
Bettie:" moonlight on my dashboard". Its about the ways love,lust and cars intertwine. I met some guy in a car,fell in love with him in the car,fucked him in the car,then got pissed at him and drove away in the same car.during all those events,i always noticed the way the moon would reflect off the dash.i dunno,it sounds stupid when saying it,like I'm trying to be all artsy and shit.
SPF:and you,Elvis?
Elvis: " phantom of krankor". It is a blast to play,man.it is extremely fast and i dig all the theramin in it.
SPF: what is the song about?
Elvis: this Japanese sci fi movie called "prince of space" prince of space saves the planet from an inept tyrant known as phantom,of krankor....though I'm pretty sure nobody would have been scared of krankor in the first place.so the planet would have remained uncoquored,even without prince of space's intervention.
Bettie: Dexedrine was fun.
Elvis:*laughs* the song and the pills.
Bettie:yeah *laughs as well.* for a while we were popping dexys like they were tic tacs. I think we all went a complete week without sleep,so the song really fits the surrealness the world takes on under such sleep deprivation.
SPF: "Jayne mansfield" is probably my favorite song off the album,how did it come about?
Elvis:its your typical girl meets car,meets rear end of a truck story.
Bettie: Elvis,that's terrible! The song started life as a pretty cooke cutter psychobilly song about the wreck.but when we played it all loungy it seemed really,really sad.i mean of course its a sad story and all..but the song we wrote became a lot less fun.so i wrote a new last half of the song about how nothing lasts forever,even Jayne's house no longer stands.it was bulldozed by some money grubbing land developer.*shakes head.*
SPF:i notice " he ran all the way to hell." Made it on the album. That is one of your first songs,right?
Elvis: THE first song.
Bettie: yeah,it is the hand reaching out from the grave of our intial style.the hand still had pretty nail polish on,so on the album it went.
SPF: well, good luck and thanks for stopping by.
Elvis: thanks for having me...er,us.
Bettie:yes.thanks for having US!
Ooc: bleh.shoulda stuck with my usual way of doing album release dealies.
Pps: spell check also changed sfp to spf
Edited by user 15 September 2011 13:20:08(UTC)
| Reason: fixed youtube link for man or astoman
