I thought it over The Zantees.
On July 4, 1976, Miriam Linna arrives in New York from Cleveland after a brief stay in London. She wanders through the clubs where the tiny bands she reads about in Bomp! play, until she stumbles upon the most beautiful couple she’s ever seen. Their names are Erick Lee Purkhiser and Kristy Marlana Wallace, and they are looking for someone to replace the drummer of their disastrous rockabilly band: Miriam will take Pam Balam's place behind the drums of the Cramps from September of that year until the next.
The encounter with the man who will become the love of her life happens around that time: she is a fanatic of rock ‘n’ roll magazines and records. So is he. She’s looking for a copy of You Must Be a Witch. He has it. He sells it to her or maybe, who knows, he gives it to her. But from that moment on, Miriam and Billy Miller become one in body and soul. They listen, play, sell, write, print a ton of stuff. They will found a phenomenal record store and mail order, set up the biggest competitor to Greg Shaw's Bomp! magazine, and start a bunch of ragtag bands, first among them the Zantees, a quintet that sounds like the Cramps trying to play like the Blasters. Can you imagine?
The Zantees are born in that last sliver of summer in ’77, as an impromptu band to open for a Fleshtones show. It’s Greg Shaw who brings them into his fold to record an album, having already entrusted Linna with the direction of Flamin’ Groovies Monthly. The result is released in 1980, when the band has honed their technical skills from the basic level to the level of “basic. But in time.” The Statile brothers are recruited on guitars, while the role of part-time bassist is filled by Rob Norris, the last guitarist of the Velvet Underground. On piano, also part-time, is Peter Holsapple from the dB’s.
The Zantees don’t wear silly rockabilly outfits, they don’t have pompadours or patent leather shoes. They are simply the spirit of the most authentic rock ‘n’ roll, that of the B-list rockers who never made it to television, and whose years in the service no one has ever documented a single day of. People like Jimmy Carroll or Bill Allen or Leon Payne. Whose songs end up here, in a tattered rockabilly that hasn’t been embalmed with pomade but continues to sizzle like the first guitar amplifiers and the panties of the teenage girls of the Fifties.
Thank Reverendo…
On July 4, 1976, Miriam Linna arrives in New York from Cleveland after a brief stay in London. She wanders through the clubs where the tiny bands she reads about in Bomp! play, until she stumbles upon the most beautiful couple she’s ever seen. Their names are Erick Lee Purkhiser and Kristy Marlana Wallace, and they are looking for someone to replace the drummer of their disastrous rockabilly band: Miriam will take Pam Balam's place behind the drums of the Cramps from September of that year until the next.
The encounter with the man who will become the love of her life happens around that time: she is a fanatic of rock ‘n’ roll magazines and records. So is he. She’s looking for a copy of You Must Be a Witch. He has it. He sells it to her or maybe, who knows, he gives it to her. But from that moment on, Miriam and Billy Miller become one in body and soul. They listen, play, sell, write, print a ton of stuff. They will found a phenomenal record store and mail order, set up the biggest competitor to Greg Shaw's Bomp! magazine, and start a bunch of ragtag bands, first among them the Zantees, a quintet that sounds like the Cramps trying to play like the Blasters. Can you imagine?
The Zantees are born in that last sliver of summer in ’77, as an impromptu band to open for a Fleshtones show. It’s Greg Shaw who brings them into his fold to record an album, having already entrusted Linna with the direction of Flamin’ Groovies Monthly. The result is released in 1980, when the band has honed their technical skills from the basic level to the level of “basic. But in time.” The Statile brothers are recruited on guitars, while the role of part-time bassist is filled by Rob Norris, the last guitarist of the Velvet Underground. On piano, also part-time, is Peter Holsapple from the dB’s.
The Zantees don’t wear silly rockabilly outfits, they don’t have pompadours or patent leather shoes. They are simply the spirit of the most authentic rock ‘n’ roll, that of the B-list rockers who never made it to television, and whose years in the service no one has ever documented a single day of. People like Jimmy Carroll or Bill Allen or Leon Payne. Whose songs end up here, in a tattered rockabilly that hasn’t been embalmed with pomade but continues to sizzle like the first guitar amplifiers and the panties of the teenage girls of the Fifties.
Thank Reverendo…
IlConte
1 feb 23
DeRank ™: 26,49
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