Got A Tattooed Pecker And A Batmobile

It was lunchtime, I was the only person in the shop and I was browsing the 12″ section and there it was. I gasped audibly and clutched it tight to me, to protect it against being taken from me by an invisible assailant. As I bought it the shopkeeper told me that he’d had it there for years and years; I like to think it was just waiting for a worthy owner, one sufficiently impure of heart and purpose.

So that’s how I nabbed myself a copy of Four Horsemen self-titled EP in perfect nick, it looks like the sucker who owned it before me only played it about once.

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The first two tracks here are the real kickers for me, ‘Welfare Boogie’ and ‘Shelly’. Both are real proper shit-kicking proletarian rock n’ roll, both credited to their man mountain drummer Dimwit*.

‘Welfare Boogie’ comes on like old-time Status Quo impersonating AC/DC, there’s real bite in those guitars wielded by Dave Lizmi and Haggis** and Frank C. Starr’s manly screech is spot-on. ‘Shelly’ is my favourite and cops a few shades from the Stones’ palette^, there’s just something irresistibly easy and well-paced about this one and the band sound tight as hell.

Flip the sucker over and we get ‘Highschool Rock n’ Roller’, which really does sound like a track by Angus and the boys from one of their original Aussie releases. I mean no slight by this at all by the way and anyone who is willing to solo like they mean it this badly and commit to rhyming ‘highschool rock n’ roller’ with ‘teeny-bop to and fro-er’ is incapable of doing any wrong.

There’s a definite punker quality to ‘Hard Lovin’ Man’ and it is fun listening to the Four Horsemen pushing their boogie up into fifth gear for this one, Starr may be singing about his hard lovin’ but it sure doesn’t seem to last very long here! It contains the immortal verse:

I got heart of stone
And a hand of steel
Got a tattooed pecker
And a Batmobile

What more could a man want? nothing, that’s what^^.

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So The Four Horsemen EP hit the streets and then things started to go very wrong and very right for the band, but hey nobody said it was easy and that’s a whole ‘nother tale.

For now just bask in four cuts of good old gnarly hard rock just like grandma used to bake.

1104 Down.

*A.k.a Ken Montgomery, former drummer with D.O.A, now sadly deceased.

**A.k.a Kid Chaos from Zodiac Mindwarp & The Love Reaction and, um, Haggis from The Cult. Bringer of West Welsh magic to the rock and roll scene.

^along with the tune from ‘Carol’ already copped by the Stones from Chuck Berry.

^^I know it says this because I copped the lyrics from no less a source than Mike Ladano here in his super-deluxe review of The Four Horsemen.