At the time, back in the early seventies the Vietnam war was still raging, Susan Dietrich and her husband Joel and their tiny daughter were political exiles, living like refugees in the States. Joel would be imprisoned for having resisted the draft. For nine years they had subsisted on spare change and meager sales of their artwork on the streets. Finding a dilapidated, old accordion in a junk store was the major cause in turning her life around.  And “the Space Lady began her odyssey on the streets of San Francisco in the late 70s, playing an accordion and dressed flamboyantly, transmitting messages of peace and harmony. Following the theft of her accordion, she invested in a then-new Casio keyboard…” and plays minimal prog lo-fi space pop.

EURO TOUR SEPT – OCT

10.09. HU Budapest – Kontra Club + 11.09. AT Vienna – Rhiz + 13.09. CH St. Gallen – A-Synth Fest + 16.09. BE Brüssel – Les Ateliers Claus + 18.09. NL Tilburg Incubate Festival + 19.09. BE Antwerp – Het Bos + 20.09. NL Amsterdam – OCCII + 21.09. DE Darmstadt – Oetinger Villa + 24.09. SE Malmö + 25.09. SE Stockholm – Mother Shows + 26.09. SE Göteborg – Koloni + 29.09. DE Berlin – Marie Antoinette + 01.10. F Paris – Le Chinois + 02.10. + F Paris – Espace B + 03.10. F Nantes – Le Lieu Unique + 07.10. ES Barcelona – Heliogabal

Sept 10, Budapest, Kontra Klub with

Maria Violenza  (I, lo-fi dark arabesque synth punk)
Alone (Srb, Nikola Vitkovic graphic artist’s dark-electro project)
Szentcsalád Oral Orchestra (H, urban blues by an RNR666 founder)

„I was always thinking about the Swiss Music Awards,
and I’m highly against it.”

If you’re a frequent visitor on our site, I’m sure that you know Reverend Beat-Man and his record label, Voodoo Rhythm Records. He has been nominated for the Swiss Music Prize, which will be awarded for the first time on 19 September. Among the nominates also are the folk-punk band Mama Rosin, and the avant-garde music group Ensemble Phoenix Basel, in which you can find Alex Buess, who is also member of the experimental space rock trio MIR.

„My biggest idol has always been Batman, so everyone just called me Beat-Man.
Now my name is just Beat-Man, even in my passport.”

Born Beat Zeller in 1967 near Berne, Reverend Beat-Man has become a firm fixture on the music scene. He first tried his hand as a singer and musician at the age of 13 before forming his band The Monsters in 1986 and setting up his own record label Voodoo Rhythm Records in 1992. With The Monsters, Zeller created an entirely new genre that fuses psychobilly with garage punk and went on to showcase it with more than a thousand concerts in South America, Japan, Australia, the US and the rest of the world. He attained cult status thanks in no small part to this work with Voodoo Rhythm Records, which has gained him a reputation as a resolute champion of innovative and experimental artists. In Switzerland, his achievements were honoured with the Canton of Berne Special Recognition Award in 2007.

A short film has been made about Beat-Man on the occasion of his nomination

„We are all mountain people with weird, hard, heavy and strange ideas.”

„to be on stage with Howlin’ Wolf once
that would have been the greatest for me.”

„The Rolling Stones today (…) just shit, Mick Jagger and such, boring as hell.”

Abridged version of John Schooley’s legend

„Details of the early life of John Schooley are sketchy. Various sources place his birth either in Columbus, Ohio or Vancouver, British Columbia. We do know that his family moved to the rural enclave of Niangua, Missouri when he was still quite young. His parents were sharecroppers, barely scratching out a living from the rocky soil of the Ozark Mountains. The youngest of eight or possibly nine siblings, John Schooley did not take to farming, or, apparently, work of any kind. He could be found, often as not, shirking his chores to hunch over his guitar. He would stomp his foot on a board or on the front porch, frequently scaring the cows.  The family Victrola was stocked with any 78″s that could be found, mostly by Jimmie Rodgers, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Doctor Ross, and Don Van Vliet. Most evenings the family tuned to radio station KWTO out of Springfield, to hear the “Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle with Chet Atkins and his Famous Guitar” perform as part of the syndicated “RadiOzark” network.

School was never to his liking and Schooley quit after graduating the fifth grade. Chafing at the dreary small town life of Niangua, Schooley left never to return. He rambled north to Columbia, Missouri. First trying to put together a hot-jazz combo along the lines of the then-popular Django Reinhart, but he was unable to find suitable musicians. Then, billing himself as “John Schooley and His One Man Band”, he rigged up a kick drum and hi-hat and began performing at “house frolics” and on the sidewalk in front of local record store Whizz Records. He met with minimal success. He was frequently chased away by the proprietor with a broom shortly after setting up. Being unwilling (or perhaps unable) to learn pop hits of the day, Schooley tried to force his listeners to dance to his own frequently atonal blend of blues and country, again with minimal success.

The musical scene in Columbia was so stagnant that when it was announced that bluegrass stars The Oblivians were coming to town, Schooley was able to secure the opening slot even though he had no band together at the time.” He founded the guitar, drum, and vocal trio The Revelators. Surprising success. „When the record, titled “We Told You Not To Cross Us” was released it caused a sensation in at least three Missouri counties and parts of Arkansas and Illinois. The Revelators were immediately rushed off to a whirlwind tour of Europe, which included performances for the as-yet not-dead Princess Diana and Archduke Ferdinand.”

After the break-up he went to Texas „and took whatever work he could find, from oil roughneck to hotel elevator operator. He eventually started another musical combo, the Hard Feelings” while he continued performing as one man band. He added harmonica, snare drum, and washboard to his kick and hi-hat apparatus and recorded some songs.  „Voodoo Rhythm recently uncovered the tapes of these songs, long presumed lost, in an oil drum outside of Lockhart, Texas.” Album preview

„The Man Who Rode The Mule Around The World” LP, CD
on Voodoo Rhythm Records (CH)

Euro tour with Urban Junior in Sept-Oct.

A missing moment of his legend: toured as an additional guitar player for the blues legend R.L. Burnside.

*

The Family Fodder is among the funniest British bands ever. Since the mid-70s they have been playing really indie pop music, but literally! It’s independent from everything. So the best. Now here is a vinyl-only collection of 11 love songs, that have never before been released on vinyl. Alig Fodder says about it: „We collected all the love songs together without all the annoying instrumentals, dubs and solos.”

„Just Love Songs” LP on Staubgold Records (France)

You can find some music videos in reference to this album on their site.

Second common work of Hawaiian born half Chinese/half American experimental guitarist Dustin Wong (was in Ponytail) and Japanese pop star Takako Minekawa. It’s more playful than the previous one, because there are more J-pop moments.  Takako sings about quantum physics, human consciousness, and flying above a desert all within the framework of Japanese puns in the song “She He See Feel”

„Savage Imagination” LP, CD on Thrill Jockey Records (US)

*

Obnox is Bim Thomas Lamont, the drummer of raw blues band Bassholes. He has plenty of drive because he is working on two albums at the same time now. But before everything else he has thrown out an EP which is stuffed his basement jams. Harsh distorted rock and roll sometimes is like a strange Ministry.

„The Juke That Sat By The Door” EP on Chunklet Records (US)

First two albums of Tinariwen will be released on vinyl first time by Light In The Attic Records (US).  Tinariwen is a bunch of Tuaregs, they play traditional Tuareg music,
which is influenced by blues and Hendrix.

„WE LOVE ALL THE DESERT, THESE ARE PLACES
WHERE WE FEEL GOOD TO LIVE AND TO CREATE.”

3 tracks from the album „Amassakoul” which was released originally in 2004.

Tuaregs are nomadic people in the Sahara. When African countries achieved widespread independence in the 1960s, the traditional Tuareg territory was divided among a number of countries. The situation naturally led to some (unsuccessful) uprisings. They’re living as refugees in some countries of Africa.

“TINARIWEN IS A BAND BORN INTO CHAOS.”

The founder, Ibrahim Ag Alhabib saw a cowboy to play on guitar in a western film in his childhood. After the happy end he fabricated his first guitar from a tin can, a stick and bicycle brake wire. He has formed his band in a Libyan Tuareg refugee camp, where they were under military training in 1979. When the revolution broke out in their homeland in 1990, they left Libya behind, put down their instruments and took up guns to fight for the Tuareg independence in Mali. When the conflict died down, the band returned to music. And they have become successful refugees around the world.

The first album ” The Radio Tisdas Session” almost in full.
It was released originally in 2001.

For Tuaregs the Sahara is not one desert but many,
they call it Tinariwen, id est: The Deserts.

a wanderer bluesman on Robert Johnson’s path from Christchurch, New Zealand

“Self Employment is the key to an early grave, I see this in lots of musician friends of mine as well. You are your own travel agent, your own booking agent, your own photographer, your own graphic designer, your own manager, your own producer… on top of that you are a musician. With my show I am the drummer, singer, guitarist and sometimes harmonica player, you could say it is not a way of life, it IS life”.

Delaney Davidson

„Rise & Shine” from the album Swim Down Low on Outside Inside Records (Italy)

His previous two albums were released by Voodoo Rhythm Records (Switzerland)

Deutsch Punks Also Not Dead Just Changed

Chuckamack – Im Knast – EP on Staatsakt Records (Germany)

*

Shovels and Rope is a Charleston, SC band consisting of Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst. Formed in 2010, they sing harmony driven folk, rock and country songs using two old guitars, a kick drum, a snare, a few tambourines, harmonicas, and and maybe a little keyboard sometimes.

Swimmin’ Time – LP, CD on Dualtone Records (US)

Scott H. Biram from Texas

“My music is the bastard child of Punk, Blues, Country, Hillbilly, Bluegrass, Chain Gang, Metal, and Classic Rock,” or in brief it’s “Depression Era Metal.”  About love and jelaousy, alcohol and drugs, sin and forgiveness and similar stupid, but very important human affairs.

Never Comin’ Home

form the album Nothin’ But Blood on Bloodshot Records

Euro tour Sept-Oct: Switzerland, Austria, France, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany. Vienna Sept 4.

Listen to the full album

pref: Tuaregs are nomadic people in the Sahara. When African countries achieved widespread independence in the 1960s, the traditional Tuareg territory was divided among a number of countries. The situation naturally led to some (unsuccessful) uprisings. They’re living as refugees in some countries of Africa.

“TINARIWEN IS A BAND BORN INTO CHAOS.”

The founder, Ibrahim Ag Alhabib saw a cowboy to play on guitar in a western film in his childhood. After the happy end he fabricated his first guitar from a tin can, a stick and bicycle brake wire. He has formed his band in a Libyan Tuareg refugee camp, where they were under military training in 1979. When the revolution broke out in their homeland in 1990, they left Libya behind, put down their instruments and took up guns to fight for the Tuareg independence in Mali. When the conflict died down, the band returned to music. And they have become successful refugees around the world with their traditional Tuareg music, which is influenced by blues and Hendrix.

Chaghaybou from the album Emmaar. It’s about the trials of their people.

It’s their first album which was written and recorded far from their homeland in the deserts of  Californian Joshua Tree National Park. „We watched Western movies, during the recording and ate burritos, and the engineer who worked with us is from Nashville.” Previous Grammy winner album was recorded in the Algerian Desert, because „We love all the desert, these are places where we feel good to live and to create.”

For Tuaregs the Sahara is not one desert but many,
they call it Tinariwen, id est: The Deserts.

and then my head’s in the bowl for the rest of the night…

Firewater Liquor by Natural Child

from the album Dancin’ With Wolves on Burger Records (US)

In Keith Richards’ view
Natural Child is just the second best rock and roll band of the world.
You can read from this and find more stories about the band
on the famous RNR666’s interview.

MOVIE STAR JUNKIES started as an organ and drum duo in Torino in 2006.
They played Suicide-like music. The duo involved a quintet.
Since then their music has been showing influences of
the music of Birthday Party and Gun Club, and standing
under strong literary impressions.
Their first album was dedicated to Melville, the second one to William Blake.
Those were released on Voodoo Rhythm Records.
Their name was inspired by a John Waters’ photo.

MOVIE STAR JUNKIES in Budapest at RNR666 Party in 2008

They have involved in many other projects

– Occult, psych, folk outfits: Gianni Giublena Rosacroce,  La Piramide di Sange,  Mai Mai Mai,  Futeisha

– Alternative rock bands: Vernon Sélavy,  Vermillion Sands,  The Me’s (= the bassist Nene Barato with Austro-Hungarian jazz singer Réka Csiszér, French-Vietnamese burlesque performer La-la Morte and Simon from the Swiss Pussywarmers)

– oAxAcA free jazz ensemble