The Creeps - Down At The Nightclub (1986) One of my all-time favorite albums… but what am I "explaining"... here’s the Reverend, in episodes.
Enjoy The Creeps was the record that took the World Cup of the garage revival away from the United States. It did so in 1986 and in two standard halves, without the need for extra time or penalty kicks.
One of the sacred texts of the New Testament of garage rock was crafted in Sweden, a land of great prophets and countless followers of the Nuggets sound throughout the Eighties. The Backdoor Men were born in 1984 from the natural evolution of Pow, a mod band that entertained the venues of Stockholm with their set of covers by the Small Faces and Spencer Davis Group. It was in one of these clubs that the very blonde Hans Ingemansson, the mind behind Pow, met Robert Jelinek, a Czechoslovak immigrant with a passion for the raw garage bands of the Sixties like Music Machine, Sonics, Count Five, and Standells. The band changes its skin, name, and sound. Renaming themselves Backdoor Men in honor of the historic and lascivious blues reimagined by the Shadows of Knight, they move towards a more exquisitely sixties-punk sound, winking at the grungey-folk of the Sixties.
However, it is the love for punk-infused blues from bands like Animals and Them, for the hi-speed soul of go-go parties, and for the jazz-rock of Brian Auger and his Trinity that drives them from the ground up. The Backdoor Men swiftly transform into the Creeps and within a few months, they produce this stunning debut dominated by the Farfisa keyboard, Robert's incredible black voice, and the blues harmonica inserts (the intro of The Creep is goosebumps-inducing, NdLYS) and maracas (which in Rattlesnake Shake turn into a chilling rattlesnake).
Down at the Night Club, opening the album, immediately clarifies the concept: it's an energetic beat dominated by a circular, groovy, dynamic organ riff. Robert's voice, black and full, completely inherits the legacy of Van Morrison just as Greg Prevost had done with Jagger, not long before. Closing, after two minutes of soul-punk fury, the piece expands with a syncopated instrumental jazz piano outro of great class. Perhaps the chicest thing a garage band has ever dared to do.
But the one who brings the record to the high society salons is a fool.
