I got a vampyre motorcycle
Devil's blood for gasoline
Prettiest thing I've ever seen
I'm gonna ride it straight to hell
Some basic maths for y’all. Baaad People^* + Electricity + Theremin + Repetition – Anything To Lose = Low-Rent Garage Punk Psych Fury Whiteout.
The 1537 Equation Of Righteousness (EOR) may need some tweaking and twerking, jolting and jerking but it is basically a genius work of Nobel Prizeworthiness. But not a fraction as much as track 6 on Table Scraps More Time For Strangers. Trust me, I’m virtually a Nobel laureate.
‘Motorcycle (Straight To Hell)’ basically gives me everything I could ever possibly want from music in 3:42*. It is perfection. It is every utterly cool, blank-eyed neurotic motorik fuck shuffle you could lust after, with added theremin abuse. The bit where guitarist Scott Abbott stamps on his pedal and drives the song on home with his Fender Mustang just thrills me, all the while Poppy Twist drives home that diplodocus girl-group beat. Mmmm, tasty.
Where are my manners? sorry, I got carried away. Okay Table Scraps were/are a duo from Birmingham** who were a trio when last spotted. Scott does singing and guitaring, Poppy does drumming and singing. More Time For Strangers was their debut LP from 2015 and was recorded in 11 hours in a 11′ x 10′ rehearsal space at a cost of £8/hr. That’s all you need if you have the drive.
LP opener ‘Electricity’ comes Stoogeing into view in a delightfully primitive manner fuzz pedalling furiously to great effect. This tune is basically why Jesus invented guitars and Satan invented feedback, its great and it rocks in an unhealthy manner. ‘Foot Of Our Stairs’ incorporates a very Iomnic chord change part way through its 1:43 but the midnight murderer’s slink of ‘Bad Feeling’ is more my bag.
Elsewhere we get lo-fi churning punk that owes a debt to ‘Symptom Of The Universe’ care of ‘Sinking Ship’. Twist’s vocals are every bit as disassociated and blank as OO’s and the guitar absolutely kicks. ‘Space Invader’ boasts a brilliantly apposite guitar solo and ‘Vampyre’s Bite’ is every pale skinny black-clad rocker’s evil come hither^.
I really like ‘Bug’ too and its dismissive lyrics ‘You’re just an insect, a dirty little bug/I’m gonna stomp you, sweep you under the rug‘. Teamed with a good tune and a great bit of whooshing it all clocks in at a perfect 1:35.
More Time For Strangers is a rattling good listen all immediacy, thrash, low lives, cheap highs and flickering neon lights. This is not music to play on a sunny afternoon but it sounded perfect tonight with the rain battering on my window, possibly keeping the vampyres away.
I love dark gutter music that revs me up and surfs the fringes of psych punk garage rock. Table Scraps are exactly the sort of group I’d invent if they hadn’t saved me the trouble.
Baaad People + Electricity + Theremin + Repetition – Anything To Lose = More Time For Strangers. Buy this LP.
1248 Down.
^*good bad, not evil.
*except a talkie bit in the middle.
**the proper one, not Alabama.
^I would also like to extend many 1537 bonus points to Table Scraps for spelling vampyre correctly, in my view^^.
^^Monster Magnet when they covered ‘Motorcycle (Straight To Hell)’, excellently in my view, spelled it incorrectly with an ‘i’ and changed the first line of the song slightly.
A like for your phrase ‘blank-eyed neurotic motorik fuck shuffle’ – love it.
A very belated thank you Matt.
That was me, with the previous comment.
Have you talked to your therapist about your boy-girl duo obsession? I reckon you ‘removed’ the third band member.
Actually, I rather enjoyed this. Kind of reductionist Hawkwind meets Wooden Shjips. Or something.
Oh, by the way, I’ve nominated you for the Nobel prize for music writing for this: “This tune is basically why Jesus invented guitars and Satan invented feedback.”
That’s very kind Bruce and yes boy-girl duos are an enduring obsession aren’t they? Well spotted.
Reductionism is a noble aim i think, otherwise … Rick Wakeman!
And thank you the Nobel prize for music writing can sit next to my one for equations!
OMG how good is this! A Midlands scuzzchild of The Raveonettes and the first BRMC album hopped up on too many sherbert lemons! Reading your new posts just before I’m supposed to be calling it a night is a BAD idea as I need to find out more now. Are they this trashtastic live, do you know?
Ha, you’re welcome! TS are just great, I’ve not seen them live or heard their other stuff yet. This is such a great scuzzy treat, some ace tunes smuggled in amongst all the fuzz. The Raveonettes are a good call, but they have a more expensive sound.
Yup, I may set myself up as an aficionado of the Midlands rehearsal space scene. I bloody love female drummers, they’re always special.
Sorry Tim!
It got worse. Last night instead of turning in I ended up on the Camp of Bands purchasing this in a circular format small enough for my Discman…
Yay! My work here is done. Satan laughing spreads his wings …