Despite the fact that I don’t really like garage rock, I liked the album Grease & Oil, and immediately after listening to it, I went through the discography of the album’s author, Lee Thornton, also known as Leadfoot Tea. It’s worth noting that his discography is small, and what attracted me most about it were the recordings on which Thornton teamed up with Darren Ward in the duo Thee Gravemen. The Monster Blues record is notable for the fact that I could not find it in digital format – and when else would I digitize recordings with that name, if not on October 31st?
If a rock’n’roll record opens with the predatory roar of a car engine, that’s a good sign. There are probably exceptions to this rule, but in my experience, the sound of a motor always portends only good music. This rule also works in this case: Shake It Up And Go is perhaps the perfect first track. It captures and fully introduces the listener to Lee Thornton’s minimalistic, incendiary style, and when it ends, you literally crave for more. That’s exactly how albums should be opened!
The second track, Trick Or Treat, is a song about girls. It still has the same energy, but the sound gets a little lower, and the name hints that rock and roll is about to end, and the very Monster Blues will begin.
Nevertheless, it happens very imperceptibly. The first notes of the Night Terrors track do not portend anything unusual. That’s the truth in the words of the song, there’s nothing left but despair, and everyone who has experienced pavor nocturnus firsthand fully understands Thornton’s feelings of helplessness and mental weakness. But you don’t have to listen to the text to understand what’s going on.: Gravediggers skillfully convey emotions through the language of music. The thing is that Night Terrors is a very long track by the standards of the genre, and by the third minute the sound becomes monotonous, literally oppressive, at the same time remaining addictive and attractive. And the words are literally hypnotizing.:
Night terrors, feel so weak, night terrors, I can’t sleep, night terrors, feel so weak, night terrors, I can’t sleep…
In a sense, it is the third track that opens the record: it is in it that comrades Ward and Thornton show all their skills, unsurpassably mixing rock and horror.
The Graveyard Express instrumental playing next is, I think, a kind of intermission. Yes, it has a very intense deep bass sound, but compared to Night Terrors, it listens very easily. Especially considering this… unusual sound in the foreground. To be honest, I just don’t know what exactly makes it. On the album cover, the only instruments listed are a drum and a guitar, so I’ll assume it’s a guitar. Anyway, I like it – it reminds me of the sound effects from old black-and-white movies.
The fifth track on the A-side, Breakdown Boogie, is also a horror in its own way. This song tells about the horror you feel when your car breaks down, and the nearest city is at least a hundred kilometers away. Nevertheless, this boogie sounds slightly higher than the previous tracks, closer to Shake It Up And Go, and the pitch is much less serious and not as overpowering as in Night Terrors.
The last song of the first side, Satan’s Twist, is performed in approximately the same manner. Despite the dark theme of the track, fully reflected in the title, the composition itself is a simple dance rock. Filled, however, with the same superbly dynamic minimalism named after Lee Thornton. Stomp-a your hooves and shake-a your tail!
The first track of the second side of the album, Vampire Love, returns to a more serious horror. This is not the second Night Terrors, but the lyrics here are darker than in Breakdown Boogie and Satan’s Twist, and the slow beat and lingering performance remind me of Fever performed by The Cramps. And, of course, the theme also unites the songs, since Fever was used as the soundtrack to the vampire horror film Near Dark ’87. It seems to me that Vampire Love is also quite suitable for the background of some bloody scene.
The next three songs bring us back to pure rock and roll – they’re just songs about girls, and they don’t even have any special name like Trek Or Treat. Silk Stockings is not particularly remarkable in my opinion – unless, of course, you count the same beautifully simple and incendiary duet of guitar and drums, the sound of which is polished to a shine in the hands of Thee Gravemen. I Won’t Let You In is a little more interesting: the theme of this track immediately recalls the immortal Keep A-Knockin’ (But You Can’t Come In), and the names rhyme well. And if it didn’t seem to me, then there is something similar in the melodies – perhaps that’s exactly how it was intended.
But I will devote a separate paragraph to the Buckles And Chains track.
“She’s got a mean motorcycle and a long black hair.
Wherever she go people stop and stare.
Got a black leather jacket and real tight pants –
ain’t a kind of girl lookin’ for romance.
I know that girl drives me insane!
The way she’s all dressed up in buckles and chains…”
Well, what can I do, I love this. Fantasy immediately draws a dream girl who can drive fast, listen to rockabilly and fix the engine. In the countries of the former USSR, you probably can’t find this in principle – we don’t have an automotive culture…
Anyway, Buckles And Chains is one of those songs that were so much on the Grease & Oil album. It should be added to the playlist for (I’m Just A) Hog For You and Big Black, Fast Back and listen, close your eyes and howl like the Big Bad Wolf howled in Red Hot Riding Hood. The only negative, small and insignificant, is that on the album from the duo Thee Gravemen, I expected a similar track with a bit of horror. And if that’s what you want, I suggest you check out the song My Girlfriend Is A Werewolf, which was released on the Gravediggers’ previous album. Fortunately, unlike this record, the previous record was released in digital format, and therefore it is easy to find.
Thee Gravemen – My Girlfriend Is A Werewolf
Meanwhile, the vinyl needle rolled over the track Dark Clouds Above. The song itself isn’t scary – it’s more like it’s just dark, but here’s the arrangement… If in the case of Graveyard Express it was still possible to assume that something like this could be played on the guitar, then here, even without being a musician, I boldly declare: It’s not a guitar. And not the drums. What exactly was used by Thee Gravemen is likely to remain a mystery, but it turned out very effectively. Dark Clouds Above, in my opinion, is somewhere between Vampire Love and Night Terrors: the penultimate track of the album is slow, long, and by the end the sound becomes charmingly depressing.
All I see is dark clouds above. Yea, nothing but those dark clouds above. Well, all I see is dark clouds above. Yea, nothing but those dark clouds above…
Well, the last song is actually Monster Blues. It worked out… curious. The fact is that the track tells how Lee woke up with a monstrous headache, and the last thing he remembers is mixing potions in his laboratory for a monstrous party. It’s kind of just a joke song, but… For some reason, the prohibition era immediately came back to my head, when there was no rock and roll yet, and the blues ruled the ball. So, in those years, alcohol turned into anything in songs, even milk (respectively, in the track Malted Milk by comrade Robert Johnson). And they didn’t do it for fun – it was just the time; it was not accepted to sing about alcohol in plain text.
And so, on the one hand, it is unlikely that Thee Gravemen were thinking the same thing. But on the other hand, it’s not for nothing that the song was called blues? In general, as for me, it turned out very cool: blues-rock, in which alcohol disguises itself as potions in a light horror fog – as if in 2015 someone recorded a song for 1920. A perfect end to a wonderful album.
In general, what can I say? It would be wrong to compare Monster Blues with Comrade Thornton’s solo Grease & Oil: the second pair of hands responsible for the drums is a subtle but significant difference. The instrumental parts on Monster Blues seemed to me to be much more complex and technical – one person simply cannot play this while being responsible for both drums and guitar at the same time. Therefore, this plate should be evaluated separately.
And, as it seems to me, I will not be able to do it soberly. To be honest, in my opinion, I’m obsessed with Leadfoot’s work, and I can’t give out criticism – it stupidly can’t be generated during the ecstasy that I experience when listening. I scrolled through the album four times and experienced only pleasure and nothing but pleasure. It has everything that a rock’n’roll fan might want to hear. A track about cars? There is. About the girls? There is. A horror movie? There is. Something just to dance? There is one too! And everything that can be figured out at the junction of these topics is also present!
But if you still try to sum it up… Well, I very often have a negative attitude towards the concept of ‘album’ – in the last century, it was not for nothing that the single was the main format. It’s very difficult to come up with a really good song worth recording. And when the era of digital technology came and major labels switched to albums, these very albums, in fact, remained the same singles, on which only one track was good, and everything else stupidly clogs the digital space.
But Monster Blues is a real album, and every track on it is worthy of a single. If it suddenly seemed to you that I belittle some compositions, believe me, this is not the case. Accompanying the listener in each song of the album, the delightful minimalism of the Gravediggers truly captures, and the energy is transmitted even on the relatively slow Vampire Love and Dark Clouds Above. This is one of the best CDs I’ve ever listened to, and definitely the best you can choose for October 31st. Stomp-a your hooves and shake-a your tail!
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2. Trick Or Treat
3. Night Terrors
4. Graveyard Express
5. Breakdown Boogie
6. Satan’s Twist
7. Vampire Love
8. Silk Stockings
9. I Won’t Let You In
10. Buckles And Chains
11. Dark Clouds Above
12. Monster Blues
Download Thee Gravemen – Monster Blues (2015) (mp3, 138 Mb)
I know them both), Darren did a tour of Sweden for us in 2010, we spent the night at his house). Then one day I almost brought them to Moscow with a concert, but it didn’t work out. Lee is very active, constantly recording and releasing something on vinyl.
He is currently assembling a car on his channel. The Pontiac Grand Am is 73 years old. It’s just a pity he doesn’t respond to comments – I still can’t get the full text of the track My Girlfriend Is A Werewolf out of him.