Reviews

See feature on Daisy.		Hello Demonbeachers! In case you haven't met me here before, I'm Daisy and I normally write for The Rock N Roll Truckstop Magazine in Pittsburgh, PA...but today, I am Daisy - columnist for Demonbeach, cool? When Rob asked me to write a piece for his mag, he said "...whatever you'd like to contribute, whether it's band reviews or just rambling." So last night after I received the email saying such, I was at work, bored out of my gourd because I work at a bar where it is considered shocking to have a whole 10 people in there at once, at 8 o' clock last night there was 1 person in there drinking with my boss and 1 person puking in the bathroom - perfect time to think of an idea.
So I sat down for the evening to collect 5 bucks an hour to sit on my ass and drink beer. The two customers left gave me 7 dollars for the jukebox. Normally I would be quite happy about this, however, seeing as we haven't gotten in the cds that I ordered yet (to keep me & my hipster doofus friends happy), the task of picking songs to play, can be kind of tedious. So I am going through page after page making compromising choices. You can play "Ballroom Blitz", but thats all you get by Sweet. There's a Cheap Trick cd, but if I played the whole thing, someone will bitch. You get the picture. I grab this other guy's beer and I'm rockin' out, playing air guitar on Led Zepplin's "Rock N' Roll", trying to think of some kind of interesting story for this thing, but I keep going back to things I gotta get done for my own zine. After I got home and changed into my pajamas it hit me like a bolt of lightning while I was thinking about the cds that needed reviews and how much I hate doing that. Here it is, I wanna tell you about some bands that I really like, but I hate to review because they just blur too many genre lines. God, I hope this makes sense.

Ace and The Ragers You know they do that whole upright bass thing which tricks you. I remember the first time I saw them. It was at the legendary Pittsburgh rock club, The Next Decade, two & a half years ago. Back then they leaned a lot more towards the rockabilly/jump blues side of things. I bought their cd ("Light This Sucker Up!") and I guess in essence then and now, kinda, they are kinda just Bill Haley style rock n' roll. Can I stop there? No, because on their newest CD, "...Steal Your Girlfriend", they kinda dip into a whole lotta other things. Like there's a 60's pop-ish tune on there, some more bluesy kinda stuff, songs that can be concidered ska. The best way to say it is to say that if for whatever reason; The Queers, The Specials, The Cynics and The Brian Setzer Orchestra wanted to all play together, this is like the one band that could pull the whole thing together. The only other way I've heard them described, that made any sense to me was "what frat boys would listen to if they were cool"...as if that would ever happen.

Eight Ball Grifter If Ben Weasel (of Screeching Weasel) started a psychobilly band with members of The Dropkick Murphys, I would imagine that it would come out sounding much like their newest cd "What People Throw on the Floor". The truly unbelievable part of this band is that it doesn't fuckin matter what they feel like playing, they are just really good at it all. Like when they do a poppy punk song - perfect. When they do a rockabilly song - perfect. Psychobilly, Pub Rock & flat out Rock N Roll - perfect, perfect, perfect. Target Audiences? Everyone.

The Crumbs Their first album can be summed up neatly by saying it's pretty much like that it's in the whole Saints/Dead Boys vein of Punk. However then you get to their second one, "Low and Behold" and it's probably safe to say that it's a more blues-based version of the description above. Haven't heard the new one yet. I can only imagine. But if you like this band, you'll like....

The Shakedowns They are definitely a blues-based punk band, except the album itself kind of goes more in a direction of 60's garage rock direction. But wait there's more! They do a Punk-a-billy kind of thing to. I don't get these guys. I am gonna take a firm stance on this though, they have got to be one of the best live bands America has to offer right now. If these guys are in your town. Don't miss 'em!

This list could go on all day, that's just a little sampling. What do you want from me? I told you at the beginning of the article, that I hate reviewing these bands and I did four in a row. I'm wiped out. Honestly though, I highly recommend all of them, their recordings and live shows. Although nothing is more painful to me than review writing, I did listen to all 4 of these cds today for inspiration (it's only 10:30 AM), and I think I'm good to go for the day.

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