| Issue
#54 Oct.
'03
When last we left The
Swaggerts
they were saddled up to the bar with Rockabilly smash mouth
Rock-n-Roll, pouring the
misery through women and alcohol and having a blast doing so…
After their 2002
debut “The
Whole Story” (our April 2003
Feature), Bill Collins (guitars, vocals),
Nervus Chet Purvis (bass, vocals) and Kerry Miller (drums, vocals) are
back with Keepers
of the Quaich (The Quaich being a Scottish drinking cup
[quite large]). Once you
see the cover photo of The Swaggerts
living it up around the bar of their
local tavern (in this case the infamous
“Rudy’s” on Elm St. in the heart of
New Haven, CT - a
solid hard drinking bar
that at any given time can have as many Yalies as all the other
cast-off patrons –
Rudy’s Rocks!) and have opened the packaging and slipped the
CD into the player,
you’ve been dragged into the car for another Balls Out, Hell
bent for leather,
rip-roaring binge, backwoods drinking hole, want love, find love, get
love, lose love life
that necessitates a bottle of Bourbon and the Honky Tonkin’
Blues guitar, bass, and
drums blast that’ll have you feeling more than alright until
the morning when you
have to get up and do it all again.
The
Swaggerts take Keepers of the Quaich
and force feed you the entire history of the marriage of C&W,
R&B, and R&R
that took place in the early and mid-50’s far from the
mainstream (referred to as
Rockabilly, it blossomed and eventually mutated into straight ahead
Rock-n-Roll, but
it’s core survived, and still lives to this day in may cities
and forms all across
America, especially in the south, which makes The
Swaggerts a bit of a
pioneer in the Northeast – yet, no less viable because the NE
does have a creditable
appreciation for the southern influence found in this genre), so be
prepared…
“Shake”
explodes with pulsing guitar notes and a thundering drumbeat, and by
the time the bass
kicks in to guide ‘em, we know there’s no turning
back. Bill Collins offers up a
vocal turn that is equal parts Hound Dog Presley and The Killer
himself, Jerry Lee Lewis,
especially when Bill hits the line “For goodness
sake – Won’t nothing
break,” where the only thing missing is the
pounding of the ivories. In place of
the keyboard, it’s the high-strung guitar with the solid bass
and drum pound
underneath that drives this tale of lust to unfold into a sweat
dripping frenzy – And The Swaggerts,
once
again, have us going 100 mph to the next gin joint of
babes and binges…
“Cost
So Much” resurrects the
solid bass drive found in early Blues/Rockabilly classics. No matter
how much you say
you’ve heard this before, we can say you ain’t
heard it this bad, this intense,
in so many years that we can’t think of an adequate
comparison. When Bill name checks
his guitar and joins Nervus Chet’s bass in a dual lead, and
Kerry keeps the drum
pedal to the floor, we’re running roadblocks and pushing
through to the barstools
flying through every dollar in our pocket and not worrying about how
we’re going to
feel come the morning light.
While some bands
try too hard not to be pigeon-holed or stereotyped,
and as a result do themselves un-repairable damage in the process, The
Swaggerts
make no bones about who they are and what they do. They are the Keepers
of the
Quaich, and that Quaich is not only filled to the brim
with the finest Thrice
Burned Scotch (aged in a sheep stomach), but also with the finest
Thrice Generation Rock
(aged in southern C&W/R&B bars). This CD covers all the
subjects near and dear to The
Swaggerts’ hearts – women and the
men who want/try/need to love them
(“Innocence Lost,”
“Push Comes To
Shove,” “Real
Good Liar,” “Dead
Wood”), alcohol (“Cost
So Much,”
“Salvation,”
“Streams of Whiskey”),
and of course women And
alcohol (“Drink Her Out of My Mind,”
along with the
afore mentioned “Salvation”).
The Swaggerts
also show that their brand of Punk attitude R-n-R does lend itself to
other subjects with
a couple of Goth centered, Halloween party stompers (“Queen
of
Hallowe’en,” and
“Hoe-Down in Hell”
– the later being a non-stop rumble of Deliverance tuned,
guitar as the banjo,
proportions), a celebration of extreme bowling (“Kingpin”),
surf (the instrumental “25”),
and an ode to one of the
most heartbreaking embarrassing moments in every man/boy’s
life (“Walk
of Shame” tells a tale inspired by
all the junior-high school dances
where the girls would stand on one side of the gym, and the boys would
stand on the other,
how when you finally got the nerve to walk across the floor and ask
that one girl you were
sweet on if she’d like to dance – her response was
a “Drop Dead creep”
look, so you had to walk all the way back across the floor alone,
rejected, and with
everybody looking [or so it feels] at you).
Finally,
I’d like to point out a song mentioned briefly before; The
Swaggerts cover Shane MacGowan/ The Pogues “Streams
of Whiskey,”
bringing another element/culture into the arms of American born roots
rockabilly, raising
the question: Do standard/standard style Irish drinking songs owe a
debt to early American
blues drenched rapture, or did certain strains of musical influence
migrate to these
shores along with the immigrates who settled here? Either way, The
Swaggerts
nail this song with such gusto and conviction that we bounce, jump,
dance, and sing along
as we hoist our Quaiches high and give thanks for the salvation that The
Swaggerts
have brought our way once again.
One
thing is for sure: when you head out for a night on the town with The
Swaggerts,
it doesn’t matter where you wake up, or who you wake up with,
you’ll know the
journey has been one of the wildest ones you’ve ever taken,
and if you feel like
doing it again there’s no need to worry. The
Swaggerts will be
waiting with a platter of musical energy and a large goblet of
libations - after all, they are the Keepers
of
the Quaich.
Keepers
Of The Quaich by The Swaggerts
is available now for: $9.98 +s/h*
(Order now
and receive a Swaggerts poster FREE!)
 View
Shopping Cart / Checkout
Accepting Credit Cards and PayPal
*Shipping
&
Handling charges:
USA - $3.00
for the first 2 CDs
ordered,
Add $1.50 per each CD after.
Canada - $5.00 for the
first
CD ordered,
Add $2.00 per each CD after.
Everywhere else -$7.00
for the
first CD ordered,
Add $3.00 per each CD after.
|
