The Escalators - Live At Le Havre 1983

The early 80s saw a rockabilly revival, with bands such as The Stray Cats and The Polecats bringing back the riff and the quiff. Psychobilly, with trace elements in its DNA of punk, original rock’n’roll and assorted underground trash movies, noise and comix, was cuddly old rockabilly’s delinquent kid brother. The Cramps were the first psychobilly band, with The Meteors their early-arriving UK counterparts. Unfortunately, intra-band rivalries led to a schism and the departure in 1982 of bassist and songwriter Nigel Lewis, along with drummer Mark Robertson. They formed The Escalators, so-called not after moving staircases but after ‘escalators’ – people who caused escalating tensions during the Cold War. Live At Le Havre 1983, a date memorable for the band typically getting into hot bother with the local gendarmes, captures The Escalators at their ramshackle best, rattling their way through material that has never been recorded or released officially, from Slumberland, with its snarling punky attitude, to The Day The Sun Burned Down, the thunderous drums almost a match for Love’s Seven & Seven Is in sheer relentless fury.