Shockabilly
Earth vs. Shockabilly

LA RECENSIONE

The electric rake, the asymmetric plunger, the harmonica dog head, are just a few of the instruments invented by Eugene "Archimedes" Chadbourne, a muy eclectic musician, and a rather wise madman, one who with ogre teeth crushes musical delicacies only to spit them back out transformed in shape, color, smell, and texture.

Think of a blender/cornucopia and a lumpy jazz country rock'n'roll broth served on chipped plates with noise garnishes and generous sprinkles of that amusing aromatic herb known as avant-garde ridens.

I recall with a smile my first time, a very "let's do it weird" version of "I talk to the wind," an ancient Crimson ballad and a small piece of my heart. Something that if I had heard it in the night of the times, I would have said, "How the heck do you dare, boor?" while a few months ago, in front of the horrid discovery, I enjoyed it as a wise man, like a hedgehog.

The project uncle Billy under shock was born one day when Eugene was grappling with one of his absurd sound machines, a complicated assembly of guitar, kalimba, bunches of keys, and broken strings.

In the middle of the audience, there is a guy named Kramer Something, and he is an aspiring egghead if not, let's say it quietly, a little Eno in the making.

Well, our Kramer is so fascinated by that crazy sonic tangle that, on the spot, he schemes the plan to join forces with that "son of a b***h."

The cornucopia blender fills up then with classics to be torn apart. The first improbable artifact is "The dawn of Shockabilly," an EP with insane and daft covers of Count Five, Johnny Burnette, Yardbirds, Beatles, Tammy Wynette.

Imagine garage aberrations turned noise turned Cramps turned whatever and a voice like Donald Duck on acid. Everything chipped with various absurdities and paradoxical virtuosity. Three parts Belushi and one part Zorn/Zappa.

With "Earth vs Shockabilly" the affair flips and the Zorn/Zappa faction decidedly takes the scene. It starts with drills and metalwork and a few Jazz notes, then beautiful noise taunts, the usual duck's voice, explosive guitar riffs. Quite a marvellous thing besides a nearly unrecognizable cover of Day Tripper. The same treatment is then reserved for the Stones, the Doors, Hendrix, Johnny Cash...

Here's Johnny Cash, "Tennessee flat box," becomes a drunken ballad, interspersed with pseudo-jazz escapes and delightful freeform punctuations.

Regarding the Doors and Hendrix, here two of my songs of life are mistreated, "People are strange" and "Are you experienced." Well, it's always nice to use the window instead of the door.

In short, the rock and folk aesthetic borrowed to vent dissonances, avant-something itches, lucid screwed-up sessions, and various horrors. A pleasantly disorienting sensation where intelligence is not a double-edged sword.

With the excitement that, protected by a sort of messed-up Unesco subsection, never fails. And the record, a remarkable anti-Potemkin, is truly a madly cool thing.

Ah, excellent, very excellent also the material penned by the two...

Au revoir...