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12 dirty arsed recordings by 12 great bands 
Various ArtistsThe Spooky Records Bootlegs - Volume OneListen to weed files 3 times for FREE before choosing to buy it! ::more>> Originally only available at the Melbourne label’s shows, demand has dictated a wider distribution for this 12-tracker which includes Spooky acts (Spencer P Jones, The Drones) and mates (like Hugo Race & The True Spirit and King Daddy). Jones features on three songs – with Tex Perkins (as Minced Meat) and Panther Burns on ‘Backyard Blues’, with Billy Ficca (Television) and Brian Ritchie (The Violent Femmes) on ‘Up For It’ and with Mudhoney on ‘Lucky Bastard’. Three-quarters of the now-defunct Luxedo continue in the same vein with The Devastations (‘I’ve Walked This Road’), and Dan Kelly shows up with The Alpha Males on the very poppy ‘Check Out Cutie’. On a local note, Gentle Ben & His Sensitive Side score their first official release with their fine Spanish dilemma ‘I Don’t Think She Loves Me’. (Sonic Sally) Buzz Magazine, Melbourne Compilation of rare, live, and upcoming tracks from some of Australia's best independent bands. Acts like The Double Agents, Dallas Crane, The Devastations and Six Ft Hick are all included on this virtual Christmas gift from Spooky Records to Australian rock fans. Spencer P. Jones can even be heard on a rare collaboration with Seattle's Mudhoney. Seldom found in today's music scene, 'The Spooky Records Bootlegs - Volume One' is a collection of bands that play music because they love to play music. And bands that don't give a stuff about image, trends or dollar signs, more often than not, make the best music! **** Jeff Lease The Age 'EG', Melbourne Melbourne could rightly stake it's claim as on of the world's rock capitals on the strength of this compilation of a dozen tracks by 12 bands. A better story may be how the hell one little local label came to have such an amazing roster of artists. It shows a truly maniacal dedication to filthy, guitar-grinding rock. As good as every track on this disc is, highlights emerge: Minced Meat with Panther Burns is Tex Perkins lacerating his tonsils, with backing from Panther Burns and Spencer P. Jones, on Backyard Blues; Gentle Ben and His Sensitive Side is Six Ft Hick's Ben Corbett having some fun singing in bad Spanish on I don't think She Loves Me; The Drones are so good it's scary on The Miller's Daughter, six-and-a-half minutes of howling mayhem (this is the killer track). If you missed Luxedo, check out the Devastations on I've walked this road. The disc ends with a treat, Spencer P. Jones again, this time fronting Mudhoney, on a jam titled Lucky Bastard. Jeff Glorfeld Beat Magazine, Album of the Week - MelbourneCompilation records are a fairly dumb idea, and come to think of it music is also pretty unnecessary sometimes, but sometimes you get rewarded, you get to hear something spawning and individual, it makes you like the good God-given ground it scrambled out from. Melbourne label Spooky Records have done just that. They’ve released The Spooky Records Bootlegs - Volume One, a collection of 11 frightfully great bands and one quite average. Listeners to this record will lend themselves to a corrupted imagination, and a musical scope that’s thankfully two aeons away from the Top 40 chemical gas The Double Agents hit hard, and they sure hit with the most complete opening track for an album. Friends In Low Places swings in it’s strung-out fiendishness. The song has a dervish chained to the rhythm. Miss Kimmy handles the white-soul vocals like the misnomer it is, and frantically tries to kill us off during the chorus. Trusting instincts is a good thing. Some people like money, some play for money, some marry for money, and some play coz they have to signify something from their bodies. The Doubles Agents know what the hell they’re talking about. One of the best things about the album is the rarity of some of the tracks. Spencer P. Jones and Tex Perkins dropped off a track so howling and disturbing, it defines repeated listens. At first it sounds like Howlin’ Wolf, then some land-locked surf band like The Trashmen, then it just twists like Captain Beefheart performing an abortion on Satan. The blues canon surely deserves this song. Spencer also pops in for the other albums rarity, a track with bass by Brian Ritchie (Violent Femmes) and Billy Ficca (Television) on drums. The Drones continue their eerie predestiny of having never written a dodgy song. This time it’s a track that never made it onto their debut album Here Come The Lies. The song The Miller’s Daughter has the most seismic guitar sound, that slashes under, all over and across Gareth Liddiard’s vocal rasping. At times this invokes the literary vapour of French spiritual-aesthete, Louis-Ferdinand Celine. A highlight of the album is Dan Kelly and the Alpha Males track Check Out Cutie. The song sounds how disturbed Eddie Cochran might have been, if he hung out with shit-eating dwarves at the feet of Saint Peter. Briefly, you gotta give hard liquor hand-outs to King Daddy and The Devastations, for their ear-bogging songs, striking feeling and gutsy pith Spooky Records have done something quite strange, they’ve managed to assemble a collection of bands that resemble the current originators of Melbourne rock and roll. It’s rock and roll in all it’s pleasant different shadings, but mainly a shading with a fat-load of sputum lashed all over it. Enjoy the dark static and hope there’s a Volume Two. Shane Jesse Christmass Rip It Up - Adelaide With this grab bag of previews, rarities, outtakes and relics from under the house, the good people at Spooky Records have served up a home grown primer of where real rock‘n’roll is at in Australia. The disc opens in fine fashion with what’s proved to be one of my favourites, the rollin’, rumblin’, sexiness of The Double Agents’ aptly-titled Friends in Low Places from their forthcoming full-lengther. The collection has been sequenced particularly well to show off the variety contained herein; from the mock Latin flavoured I Don’t Think She Loves Me, with Gentle Ben & His Sensitive side sounding like Nick Cave circa Henry’s Dream to the rock‘n’roll fun of Dan Kelly & The Alpha Males’ Check Out Cutie… and with he range of artists reaching from Queensland’s SixFtHick to South Australia’s own King Daddy. In a CD full of highlights (most amazing since the recording is made up of the acts’ collective offcuts), the crème-de-la-crème includes Spencer P Jones With The Beeks on the raw-voiced Up for It, recorded in New York with Billy Ficca (Television) and Brian Ritchie (The Violent Femmes); Minced Meat With Panther Burns, and featuring Tex Perkins in classic Beasts Of Bourbon down-and-dirty vocal mode on Backyard Blues; the ball busting, blues drenched, live recording of Great White by Hugo Race & True Spirit and the beautifully melancholy languor of The Devastations’ Leonard Cohen-meets-Tindersticks I’ve Walked This Road. Spencer also features on the closing track joined by Beast bassist Brian Hooper and the Mudhoney rhythm section for Lucky Bastard, a track full of improvised lyrics, a cracking riff and attitude to burn… this track sums up the spirit of this collection perfectly. Easily amongst my top releases for the year. Michael Hier Bar i94 Sydney via Motor City New YorkWhat you have here is a sampler that not only showcases what might be current or upcoming on this notable little Melbourne label but also touches on stuff no-one has EVER heard. The folk at Spooky obviously know important people in low places because they've persuaded some of Melbourne's musical mafia to open their archives, just for them... Stories about Spencer P Jones playing some shows in the US with a pick-up band that included drummer extraordinarie Billy Ficca and Brian Ritchie of the Violent Femmes have been around for a while. Finally, here's the proof - Spencer P. Jones and the Beeks and "Up for It". It's a "Waiting for the Man" cop for sure but when it's played this well, who cares? Spontaneity's the key and there's more evidence of that when Spencer and Brian Henry Hooper join Mudhoney on "Lucky Bastard", another cut you're never likely to hear except on this disc. Brian rocks out on rhythm guitar here but it's Spence who dominates with devil-may-care improvised lyrics and strangulated six string skronk. Bracing. Minced Meat - aka Spencer and Tex Perkins - joined the Panther Burns engine room in the studio back in 1987. "Backyard Blues" is the result. You need to hear this, if only to remind you of the days when ol' Tex ruled the roost with the Beasts of Bourbon. Something smells funky here; must be the minced meat. Spencer's a central figure in the Spooky roster and most of these bands would go down well as his supports on a "festival on the road to hell" bill. This is, for the most part, smoky, sleazy blues. There's no better example than the warped gutter blues of the Drones yet, you're in for a treat. (We have and we have a review of their album coming, just as soon as we get around to it). "The Miller's Daughter" is an outtake that didn't make the final cut but it's pretty damn good. (mainly 'cause we couldn't fit anything more on the album - spooky) Psycho-Flamenco is a good tag for what's served up by Gentle Ben and His Sensitive Side (Ben Corbett of Six Ft Hick moonlighting). "I Don't Think She Loves Me" is in Spanish, for good measure. Haven't caught much of the Hick for ages but their sole cut here, "Innocence in Me", showcases an interesting brew of messy distortion. It's from a split-single with the Del Emmas. There's a live Hugo Race track and also a taste of the forthcoming album by the Double Agents that's fairly primal and breathlessly gushing at the same time. A unique mix. There are copies of this available from the Spooky Records web site as well as more enlightened music stores (although with a different cover). I wouldn't leave it too long though. This is one of the more interesting rides around. The Barman  4ZZZ - Brisbane, Australia Got the bootlegs today and FUCK ME!!!! Gentle Ben was right, this is the damn best bunch of tunes I have heard this year. Expect a flogging from us here at Zed!!! Alex Gilles - Program Director |
