The Gravedigger V – All Black And Hairy{FULL ALBUM}1984 THE GRAVEDIGGER V – All Black and Hairy (Voxx)
During the Halloween party of 1962, the Billboard charts see the rise of Monster Mash, a tragicomic trash song written by Bobby Pickett and Leonard Capizzi. It's performed by Bobby Pickett himself, accompanied by a band of gravediggers called Cryptkicker V.
It's them that Ted Friedman and Leighton Koizumi, two teenagers from San Diego, think of when they need to rename their band to avoid being confused with the Scottish band of the same name. By the end of 1983, Shamen become the Gravedigger V.
Five loafers who don't like studying or learning any trade.
And who can't even play, despite being destined to become, within a few months, the most influential garage band in the city.
Five wayward kids who can’t even enter the venues where they are supposed to play, given their young age. And who are usually kicked out in a bad way after destroying part of the equipment.
The Gravedigger are five long-haired guys who play a stinky set of obscure second-hand tracks scavenged from the American beat garbage of '66, when their parents weren't even married yet.
A gang of bored teenagers who match elegant mod outfits with improbable hairstyles like the Missing Links and Cuban-heeled boots.
It's obvious that Greg Shaw succumbs to their charm and offers them an audition.
At first, it’s just about recording a track for the new volume of Battle of the Garages, but after hearing Leighton's raucous scream during their It’s Spooky, he decides to suggest recording an entire album.
That record is All Black and Hairy, like the old piece by Screaming Lord Sutch that opens it, recorded in just two days at Silvery Moon Studios by Greg Shaw himself in July 1984. The boys are squatters, funded by Greg for a few sandwiches and some beer, helped by Paula Pierce and Ron Rimsite to have access to a decent toilet and a shower in the apartment they share, forced to sleep in the car along with the volumes of Pebbles and Highs in the Mid-Sixties that Greg gives them.
But nonetheless, or perhaps precisely because of this, All Black and Hairy is a record that sounds furious and scruffy: eight covers and five originals written by Ted Friedman (John Hanrattie and Leighton Koizumi only bother to add a few swear words, NdLYS). An album that embodies all the raw hormonal rage, the lazy immorality, and the exuberant lewdness of adolescence showcased in tracks like Tomorrow Is Yesterday, She Got, Stoneage Stomp, or the covers of Hate, No Good Woman, or Don’t Tread on Me that capture the aroma.
It's just a matter of a moment, like youth: on October 31, 1984 (still Halloween, just like at the beginning of the whole story, NdLYS), when the album is finally released, the Gravedigger Five no longer exist.
