Friday September 3 - bands in order of appearance:
Six Gun Republic
The Memphis Morticians
The Rabies
Speed Crazy
Deadbolt
Ausgang
Cult Of The Psychic Fetus

In a pot-holed side street somewhere in downtown Manhattan, people with weird hairstyles are gathering. Not that there’s anything particularly astonishing about the hairstyles in this context: this is, after all, New York City, where sporting a hairstyle with attitude is almost the law. Nor, for an exactly similar reason, is there anything astonishing about the condition of the road surface, come to that. But this crowd is here with a purpose. It’s getting on for opening time at the Knitting Factory, and that means the Drop Dead festival is about to kick off.

What is the Drop Dead festival? An event dedicated to all that is horrorshow in post-punk music, that’s what. The official programme of events - a mini-fanzine assembled in time-honoured cut ‘n’ paste style - makes a point of casting the genre-net as widely as possible. Psychobilly, deathrock, gothabilly and batcave are all namechecked on the cover, alongside a bunch of other genres that I’ve never heard of - and which I can’t help suspecting were made up on the spot. Monster surf, anyone?  Funeral jive? Devilish garage? Gothic boogie? Curiously, the umbrella term under which all this stuff shelters - the expression ‘post-punk’ itself - is not mentioned. Ah, what the hell. In matters such as these, Billy Joel is my guru. It’s all rock ‘n’ roll to me.

The Knitting Factory is not the Enormodome. But, as a two-stage, three-level venue it’s substantially larger than the venue for Drop Dead 2003, which took place in CBGB - a legendary club with all the right punkish credentials, but definitely somewhat on the small side. This year’s festival has also been expanded in time as well as space. It’s now a three-day extravaganza, rather than 2003’s one-day event. That means, of course, that there are many more bands lined up to play this year than last. Over 40 of ‘em, if you’re counting, and while the bill seems a little vague at times - several bands which were announced in advance mysteriously fail to show, while several other bands which were not announced do play - you certainly can’t quibble with the quantity. On close inspection, a good chunk of that impressive 40-plus band line-up comprises psychobilly outfits from NYC and beyond, and these, of course, attract their own audience. It’s the influx of the psychobilly crowd that has made this year’s move into a larger venue possible, and while the marriage between the deathrockers and the psychobillies may be a bit of a shotgun wedding in some respects, at least it’s a better match than, say, the EBM scene would be.
 

"...proof that individuality and a no-shit contemporary attitude can co-exist with a musical style in which roots and rules are sometimes treated with too much reverence."

We’re in. The festival starts without ceremony. A band suddenly appears on the main stage. They announce themselves as Six Gun Republic, which momentarily confuses me since they aren’t listed on the official bill. It seems they’re one of the added-at-the-last-minute acts. It’s early, and there isn’t a particularly huge crowd in the venue yet, but this doesn’t seem to dampen the band’s enthusiasm. They’re an amiable rockabilly outfit, clattering through some fairly straightforward rockin’ tunes, and if they adhere a little too closely to the rules of their genre to display much individuality, as a soundtrack to the early-evening rituals of meeting friends and getting the beers in, they’ll do.

They’re followed by...another rockabilly outfit. A collection of gentlemen in black suits arrives on stage. These are the Memphis Morticians, who in spite of their name come from right here in New York. By now, the venue is filling up, although it’s noticeable that the overall crowd splits into  two distinct audiences: the deathrockers and the ‘billy fans, without much crossover between them. At any rate, most of the deathrock-ish punters take one look at the Memphis Morticians and head downstairs to the second stage where horror-punks Kastle Grey Skull are about to start up, leaving the Morticians to play to what I suspect is essentially their regular crowd of home-town fans. The band cook up another regular-flavoured rockabilly stew, albeit a little heavier on the spooky seasoning; there’s a load of reverb on the vocals for that down in the morgue at midnight feel, and even a sudden microphone breakdown doesn’t stop the band’s flow. The bass, I note, is metal. Not metal in the Judas Priest manner (although that would be...interesting): it’s a conventional double bass in all respects except it’s made of metal, not wood. It seems to produce the usual plunk-plunk-plunk sound, however, which is a slight let down. I’d hoped that the band would use their unusual instrumentation to do something off-message with that ol’ rockabilly racket, but like so many bands in this musical area they stick closely to the blueprint. So, we’ll file ‘em under fun, but no surprises. Nice suits, mind.
 

"Yes, this is more like it: the spirit of Drop Dead boiled up and distilled into a slug of sonic firewater." 

Much as I’m partial to the odd bit of rockabilly, I’m ready for something else now. Fortunately, I get it. Third act on stage is The Rabies, a band about whom I know nothing - but there’s something about that name which hints that here’s an outfit that isn’t going to play a set of AOR power ballads. And so it proves. The Rabies are a bunch of lo-fi, low-life glam-punks, fronted by a stomping, snarling mistress-of-strop who, I discover to my delight, calls herself Lexi Lawsuit. Now, I ask you: how can you fail to like a band with a singer called Lexi Lawsuit? She grimaces and frets and hollers through a set of fuzzed-out ramalama punk songs, fixing the audience with a baleful stare throughout, while pacing the stage in her don’t-mess-with-me boots. A guitarist hidden in a blank white mask (he’s probably a bank manager in real life) slashes out the essential ragged but assertive riffs, while over on the opposite side of the stage a riot grrl in red PVC thunks out a low-slung rumble from a low-slung bass. Every number is a gleeful blare of noise, but in amongst The Rabies’ ramshackle rattle lurk real songs, and arrangements which have more detail in them than the band’s full-on punka blast might lead you to believe at first.  Note, if you will, those nifty little horror movie soundtrack keyboard lines, which inject a bit of cartoon spookiness at strategic intervals - a neat touch, and not something yer average bunch of horror-punks would necessarily think of. Yes, this is more like it: the spirit of Drop Dead boiled up and distilled into a slug of sonic firewater. It’s official.  Round here, we like The Rabies. Memo to those nice people at Pagan Love Songs and Pity For Monsters: check this lot out. It’s early days - The Rabies seem to be a relatively new band who haven’t gigged much beyond their home area of NYC yet - but if you’re wondering which US band will be the next to give the European scene a good blasting, I think I might just have found them.

Now we’re four bands in. Who’s next? I see yet another double bass being hauled on stage. Hmmm. Looks like we’re in the rockabilly zone again. That means Drop Dead is currently running at a rate of 75% rockabilly, which I’d say is perhaps a little too high for comfort. If we get just another collection of cheery quiff-merchants merrily trotting out all the regular sounds, I’m going to the bar. Fortunately, my misgivings are unfounded, because the band which appears before us is Speed Crazy. They may sport the regular three-piece ‘billy line-up, but they do something decidedly different with it. From the kick-off of the very first song, it’s clear that Speed Crazy certainly don’t believe in treating that hoary ol’ 50s aesthetic with any surplus respect. They conjure up a mad blast of noise that’s as fast and loud as a dragster, a great rush of a Ramones-ish rampage that seems utterly incongruous coming from a three-piece band. I find myself looking around for the extra guitarist, convinced that just one guitar can’t create *that* massive, overdriven sound. Nope, what you see is what you get. Three people, three instruments, and a big, big, sound. Speed Crazy’s secret weapon is their stand-up bass player, who spends much of the set whupping and pummelling and hauling her bass about the stage like she’s breaking in a bronco. She jumps on it, picks it up like it was a guitar, and even plays it behind her head. It’s as if she’s learned how to play a double bass by watching Jimi Hendrix videos. In all of this craziness, her pounding rhythm never stops, and she even takes time out to provide an occasional lead vocal. Good stuff, and surprising stuff, too: proof that individuality and a no-shit contemporary attitude can co-exist with a musical style in which roots and rules are sometimes treated with too much reverence.

A trio of good ol’ boys mill about on stage, setting stuff up, strapping on guitars. This is Deadbolt. It’s as if ZZ Top’s roadies decided to form a band. They look like they’ve just barrelled in from the local bikers’ clubhouse. I bet if I glanced outside I’d see their chopped hogs, in ratbike black, lined up in the street. Their sound matches their look - a dirty ol’ blues grind, guitars riffing like a V8 ticking over. But there’s more to Deadbolt than you might at first discern; they’re more than just an oily bunch of rockers in leather and shades. They play it all very straight, never letting on by so much as the twitch of an eyebrow that there’s anything remotely humourous about their show, and yet at intervals throughout the set they inject little vignettes of silliness, odd flashes of knowingly parodic tomfoolery. The guitarist, maintaining an utterly deadpan expression all the while, produces a can of hairspray and touches up his quiff. He casts a critical eye over his band-mates’ hairstyles, and kindly offers them a swift bit of hair-maintenance too. At times, the band simply stop playing to allow a burst of a pre-recorded 50s crooner to erupt like a ghost in the wires, whereupon the drummer stands up, grabs a light, and sings into it like a manic Elvis impersonator. Then, after a few bars of this, the band simply swing back into their low-rider blues as if nothing unusual has happened. It’s all a bone-dry parody that also works if you take it at face value - and, looking around at the audience, I’m not at all sure how many people get the joke, and how many are just rockin’ along for the ride. Not that it really matters. Deadbolt, masters of poker-faced rock ‘n’ roll pastiche that they are, work both ways.
 

" It’s like a tribal war dance breaking out before our very ears and eyes, and I don’t mean in any contrived Adam Ant novelty-gimmick kind of way. "

I suspect that there are only two people in the entire Knitting Factory tonight who recall Ausgang from their previous life as contenders on the mid-eighties UK post-punk scene. One is DJ Cavey Nick; the other is Uncle Nemesis. I’m sure neither of us expected to see Ausgang again - certainly not in New York, 17 years after the band split up. It just goes to show - old bands never die, they just pop up again in unexpected places. Filling in those missing 17 years is not an easy task: only Max, Ausgang’s vocalist, seems to have kept up any involvement in music. Mick Mercer’s Gothic Rock book of 1991 relates Max’s post-Ausgang excursions into funk-metal, and his Hex Files book of 1996 briefly namechecks Seventh Wave, a Levellers-style crusty-hippy band which featured Max on vocals and acoustic guitar. I remember Seventh Wave very well, partly because of their rip-roaring cover of The Mob’s ‘Witch Hunt’, but also from a few gigs they played with Inkubus Sukkubus in the mid-90s. A side effect of the rise of the Inkies was that any band which seemed at least vaguely sympathetic to the Pagan cause was more or less co-opted into the UK goth scene at that time, and Seventh Wave were one of these. I often wondered if Max found it ironic that he’d come back into goth by another entrance, several years after he’d left it. It must be said that you’d never know, to look at him in those days, that he’d ever been a spiky young post-punker. I remember him bouncing cheerily around the stage at the Marquee in his blue denim dungarees, looking like a new age traveller version of Uncle Jesse from the Dukes of Hazzard.

Fast forward to 2004, and Ausgang are back. They look better than any 80s vintage band has any right to look, sporting as they do a stripped-down, contemporary, rock ‘n’ roll gangster image. The mohawks and big hair of the 80s are gone - and so, I’m relieved to note, have the blue denim dungarees.  This is a band that’s clearly more about the here and now than any retro schtick. But before we proceed, let me clank the caution bell. I don’t want to piss on anyone’s party here, but the way in which the US deathrock scene seems to have instantly hailed the reformed Ausgang as conquering heroes before they’d actually conquered anything strikes me as a little odd.  Awarding the band top star status before the 2004 version has even proved itself to be any good is surely just a little previous. Maybe it’s because I was there that I’m not quite so starry-eyed about 80s stuff as those who weren’t. I sometimes feel the way the US scene fetishises the British post-punk era rather misses the point. It wasn’t all good, you know. Some of it, in fact, was rather crap. And call me a cynical old bastard if you will, but no band is going to get any back-slaps from me just because they have a bit of old-skool history behind them. All of which means that as Ausgang launch into their set to roars of approval from the crowd, I’m standing there, arms folded, wearing my most implacable ‘OK, then - impress me!’ expression.

And bugger me but they do. Ausgang tear into a set of songs that sound as crisp and fresh as new laundry. It’s all in the rhythm: a huge great pounding rumble of bass and drums, like the cavalry coming over the hill.  The guitar stabs and thrusts, and, over the top of everything there’s that crazy vocal, half way between a yelp and a yell. It’s like a tribal war dance breaking out before our very ears and eyes, and I don’t mean in any contrived Adam Ant novelty-gimmick kind of way. Nope, Ausgang slam into their mad rhythmic tarantella like they’re psyching themselves up for a head hunting expedition, pushing and pulsing as if intent on inducing other states of consciousness. The band’s visual identity is weirdly at odds with the thump and pound of the music, in that aside from vocalist Max himself, an energetic master of ceremonies throughout, nobody moves much on stage.  There’s certainly no gratuitous leaping around, as you might expect from the insistent urge of the music. Instead, the assembled musicians remain as impassive as an army band, generating a stirring sound while contriving to remain unstirred themselves. There’s an ‘experimental’ moment of bowed guitar - not, perhaps, an idea that can be taken too seriously in these post-Spinal Tap times - but for the most part it’s a good old bash through Ausgang’s greatest hits, and that’s just what this audience requires. Yes, I think this is a comeback - if indeed it *is* a comeback, not just a temporary regrouping for a few gigs - that’s going to work. Consider my cynicism well and truly trampled underfoot.

Ausgang’s exhibition-standard thrash through their big beats would surely be a fine way to top off the first day of Drop Dead. But they’re not the headliners. That honour goes to Cult Of The Psychic Fetus. I’ve heard a lot about this band: they’ve been represented as an impressively gung-ho bunch of psycho-rockers, but I’ve never seen them in the flesh nor heard a note of their music. All I know is the reputation. So, I station myself at the front and await blast off. Here they come - a collection of purposeful rock blokes toting guitars, and, on vocals, a man who looks like he’s taking time off from his job as the butler at Castle Dracula. The band eases into a downtempo spooky croon of a song - aha, I think to myself, they’re lulling us into a false sense of security; any minute they’ll hit the gas and really start rockin’. But the second song is also a downtempo spooky croon, the vocals an indecipherable mumble in the mix. I’m confused.  Where’s the bunch of madcap rockers I’d been led to believe I’d encounter?  The set continues, and it seems every song is a kind of lounge lizard-ish rock ‘n’ roll ballad, the vocals smoothly oozing out like spilled treacle while the guitarists stand back in the semi-darkness of the underlit stage, strumming their instruments with all the indifference of the rehearsal room. It’s...just a bit underwhelming, I’m afraid. There doesn’t seem to be any real energy on stage - just a detatched, indifferent desire to trundle through the set with as little effort as possible. If you’ve never seen Dave Vanian’s Phantom Chords I suppose you might reckon Cult Of The Psychic Fetus to be fairly good, but they really don’t catch fire for me. It’s a bit of a Zombina And The Skeletones experience, in a way: a band which seems to have a big publicity effort behind it - or, at least, plenty of fans and friends who push the line that here’s a band that really rocks - and then you see ‘em for yourself, and realise that, in fact, they don’t.  Nope, sorry, Cult Of The Psychic Fetus can’t hold my attention. It’s now the early hours of the morning, and there’s a whole other day of bands to catch in a few hours, as the second day of Drop Dead commences. Time to get some sleep, I think. I leave while the band are still on stage. Maybe they cut loose and caught fire at the end of their set: maybe they injected some speed and passion as soon as I was out of the door, and brought down the house with a vintage performance of rock ‘n’ roll madness. But you know what? I doubt it.

Out into Leonard Street, then, and uptown through the eerily silent night to the hotel. New York may be the city that never sleeps, but the area around the Knitting Factory certainly seems to take a nap in the small hours. We’ll be back to do it all again tomorrow...