Uh, I’m a little worried… We have a group of 13 Cats in the blue corner of the ring. This project is a so-called supergroup, which means that all of its members have been in other bands before and are not new to their field. Oh yes, the 13 Cats are all veterans. At the microphone is Tim “Polecat” Vorman, who first recorded a record with the band The Polecats at the age of 15. The bassist and guitarist came from Levi Dexter’s powerful and very famous band The Rockats – these are Smutty Smith and Danny B. Harvey, respectively, and the latter also managed to act as a keyboardist. And on the drums is none other than Slim Jim Phantom from Brian Setzer‘s legendary Stray Cats trio. It will definitely be extremely difficult for me to compete with such a team, but I will try anyway.
Nevertheless, I will start in my own style with flattering caramel-sweet praise. The track Poison Candy is the most organic, melodic and the most correct example of using a classic acid synthesizer in rockabilly music. The synth perfectly emphasizes all other instruments, does not interrupt the guitar and harmoniously changes places with it, sometimes fading into the background, and, in general, Poison Candy is definitely the best song on the album and one of the best in principle. And anyway, I chose this album for consideration only because of this track in the hope that as many people as possible will find out about it, listen to it and love it.
I’ll even say this: objectively speaking, it’s extremely difficult to find fault with the music in this album. Despite their definitely not the most classic work, all the participants of 13 Cats proved that the teams they were in became famous not without their direct participation. However, I will still mention the track Sex Hex, which has an extremely strange sound in the chorus. I have no idea what kind of instrument makes this sound, but I didn’t like it at all. And I also didn’t like the mention of the Lamborghini brand. I think it’s wrong to mention such brands in rockabilly tracks, except, of course, in certain contexts. For example, the contexts of burning supercars to the ground… Ahem, sorry, I got distracted.
But, in general, yes, the text. After all, a song is not only music, but also a text. First, the subject matter. I’m not a prude, I listen to rap and dirty blues. I love Lucille Bogan tracks, damn it. But, nevertheless, there is some very invisible facet beyond which the track becomes simple… nasty. Sometimes it’s enough to put one word in the wrong place, and that’s it, complete disgust. Lucille also has a Shave ‘Em Dry song, and I can’t stand it.
Secondly, the level… delusions of the text. There are plenty of great tracks in jazz and rock and roll that don’t carry any semantic load, but it’s one thing to replace words with some absolutely zero-value wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bom-bom, and another thing is when you still use words with what- nothing, but still a value. And here, too, there is a trait: if you overdo it, then at some point the text turns into just an incoherent set of lines at best, and words at worst. And I just can’t listen to tracks like that.
So, all the compositions of the 13 Tracks album, if not the entire genre of cycobilly as a whole, always and constantly risk crossing one of these lines and going into the zone of no return. If you don’t pay attention to the text, then you can stop reading, if you haven’t stopped yet, and go listen to the album – you’ll probably really like it. Well, if you do, then we’re in the same boat, and to be honest, it was sometimes very difficult for me to figure out if I liked a particular track or not.
Again, let’s just mention the definitely good tracks. This is the already mentioned Poison Candy, as well as 13 Cats, Leather Straight Jacket, Teddy Boy Kung Fu Weapon and Snap, Crackle And Hiss. The lyrics of these tracks have a specific plot line, which they adhere to from beginning to end. Yes, there’s a bit of voodoo and tiki in them – that’s what it’s about- but it’s written neatly and very stylishly. In my opinion, the standard of such songs is Who Do You Love? from Bo Diddley, and here are the five tracks I mentioned – they’re very Diddley. Especially Teddy Boy Kung Fu Weapon – I love this track.
“I’m a nunchuka-chuka, gonna get your attention. My pinball balls gonna teach you a lesson. I’ll drag you down to hell, maybe take you up to haven, gonna get you with a teddy boy kung fu weapon!”
– according to him, this song is even cooler than Poison Candy.
Well, now let’s finally get to what I don’t like. Let’s start with the outright crap – it’s Hell Bop and Drag On. These two tracks are just an incoherent set of words, and in Hell Bop, Comrade Tim sings in such a way that you still have to try to hear this nonsense. And you try because you want to, and when you finally hear it, you’re terribly disappointed. Yes, they try to pull it out with style, but you can’t pull it out with style alone.
“Betty Page, devil girl, tumbling duce, lead sled, knuckle-duster, switchblade knife”
– seriously, it’s just a set of words. If I liked listening to sets of words, then I would listen to Oxymiron and other modern jerks. Okay, Drag On is a little bit better than outright nonsense, because it has two chorus lines, but still. The existence of these two, excuse me, songs makes me ask a question: why couldn’t we just record two instrumentals? The two instrumentals on the rockabilly album are the very thing. Especially when the whole band is all legends who can and can play great. If they had taken the microphone away from Tim and given him a guitar, no one would have been offended. Even more: I know people who really like Paulcat’s guitar, so why the hell didn’t he use it?..
Oh, well… Then we have the tracks Jungle Man, Robot Girl and Chanting For Cadillacs – almost everything is fine in them, except that the theme of the verses and the theme of the chorus are almost unrelated, and therefore it seems that the chorus came to us from another song altogether. I still don’t understand why the man from the jungle and the robo-girl are considered “victims of the modern world”, judging by the song they live normally… Well, fuck it, but both of these lyrics in the third verse are going nowhere, and I’m completely lost. There is definitely no plot thread in these compositions. Or there is, but some kind… Well, take for example Chanting For Cadillacs. In the first verse, we are told: “I need a new God, this one is no good,” and the whole verse bends this line. Okay, we’ve received the information. The chorus begins, and it kind of becomes clear that the new God is Cadillac. But the second verse begins and the first two lines read: “My God lives in my TV, he thinks everything for me”. okay… then the Cadillac is not here as a car, but as just a luxury item, and we need to understand that, like, the TV is aimed at making money and everything… Mmm, imaginary wealth? Is that so? Okay, so be it, but the third verse begins with the words “All hail to Shirley McLaine, she will take away your pain”! What the fuck does Shirley MacLaine have to do with it? If you didn’t mention her, and wherever else, how would she be here? Does this have anything to do with her belief in reincarnation? Is it because she’s a star? What is the reason for this? And how does this relate to the other verses?
In general, it is wrong to put real personalities in ambiguous contexts. It’s unsettling because you don’t understand exactly which aspect of this person is meant. This was especially unfortunate with the track Flesh For Andy Warhol. I didn’t understand him at all. Maybe I do not know any story from his life, but, to be honest, I would have taken this song much easier and simpler if Andy Warhol had been replaced with some kind… a more abstract personality. Just the phrase Flesh For Andy Warhol itself makes me perplexed.
And the tracks Monkey See, Monkey Do and Dark Side stand apart. In principle, they have an extremely clear line and even, oddly enough, have a very clear message, and music with an idea is always a plus.But here’s the execution… Why was it necessary to add this constant, absolutely unmelodic and unemotional chant of Monkey See, Monkey Do to the track of the same name? The Dark Side is better in this regard, but… somehow, excessively psychedelic vocals and completely classical instrumentals don’t add up. They would have brought that synthesizer that was on Poison Candy, or something…
And yes, the last two tracks. Yes, there are actually 15 of them. The fact is that there was originally an album called 13 Tracks. It was released just- guess where-in Japan. It was only a year later that the album was re-released in the UK, along with two bonus songs. In my opinion, this is the first case when Japan received less than the rest. In general, these last two tracks have a completely different sound and a completely different text. Please Give Me Something and Crazy Baby are two classic romantic rock and roll songs. Their melody is not so experimental, and the verses of these compositions do not have any cycobilly inserts. And this, I must say, creates a very pleasant ending to the album.
2. Leather Straight Jacket
3. Poison Candy
4. Jungle Man – Robot Girl
5. Teddy Boy Kung Fu Weapon
6. Drag On
7. Chanting For Cadillacs
8. Sex Hex
9. Flesh For Andy Warhol
10. Monkey See, Monkey Do
11. Dark Side
12. Hell Bop
13. Snap, Crackle And Hiss
14. Please Give Me Something
15. Crazy Baby
