As eagle-eyed quiff-haired types will no doubt have deduced, this is the follow-up to Cherry Red’s 2003 psychobilly compilation, Psycho Cats. Given the label’s seemingly inexhaustible access to the genre’s vaults, it comes as no surprise that this collection is just as strong.
A major source of material is the Bentham family’s Jettisoundz archive, which throws up welcome, fairly obscure live footage from the likes of Lost Souls, Shakeout and Surf Rats. That said, the Karen Bentham-directed late 80s promos of The Meteors’ covers of Please Don’t Touch and Rawhide are, of course, the major highlights.
The scene’s other major players are well represented in Guana Batz’s Just Love Me, at the legendary home of psycho, Hammersmith’s Klub Foot in 1987; King Kurt with a suitably gunge-splattered Zulu Beat from the Marquee in 1983; and Demented Are Go with Zombie Stalk from the 1993 Big Rumble festival, which, along with the previous year’s event, provides another valuable source.
The sound and picture quality of most of the 32 videos is very good, partly because much of it is pretty recent. Special mention must be made of The Sharks’ 2005 amusingly Madnessinfluenced Jack The Ripper promo.
