Berlin based Israeli musician Charlie Megira is dead.

It is total unbelievable for me. No, that is just a bad joke. He is so young, and need to play at RNR666 Party.

But it seems the whisper is real.

Charlie Megira was an exceptional musician, a guitar virtuoso. On the picture above with his last band The Bet-She’an Valley Hillbillies. „Surf, Poetry, Rockabilly” was the slogan

but the formula is not so simple.

When I met his music at first he played wispy almost ethereal surf rock and roll on guitar, piano and castanets. But after he made a Joy Division- , Cure-, Sisters of Mercy like dark wave album with his girlfriend as Charlie Megira & Hefker Girl. After Charlie Megira and The Modern Dance Club was founded, where every mentioned style merged into high energy garage rock. And finally he went back to the beach with The Bet-She’an Valley Hillbillies. The last album.

And a free download live show on WFMU radio with covers of Joy Division’s Heart And Soul and TV Personalities’ Diary Of A Young Man.

And an interview with almost all of his music, and a „best of” playlist on RNR666 mag.

A fragment from it:

„I also used to hang out with my older cousin that introduced me to some rock music like Whitesnake, Iron Maiden, Scorpions, and more. I remember I once asked him why all those bands are wearing dirty and ripped cloths, I thought they were poor and maybe could not afford to buy nice cloths… Anyway I really got into this heavy rock and also liked Bob Marley a lot. (…) I had a roommate that played The Smiths on a tape and for me it sounded horrible so I punched him in the face and broke the cassette and put on the Scorpions’ gold ballads.”

Hey Charlie, just one more song, please!

DAIKAIJU (USA)     OXYGEN DOGS (H)     FACEBOOK EVENT

DAIKAIJU ON EURO TOUR

Just follow Shiva Trash
on the way of Helter Swelter

surfy garage rock from Chula Vista (Deep South California)
debut 7″ on Chulo Punks Records (US)

The clip based on a real life incident

Trouble Books are an Akron (Ohio) based experimental pop duo. Lejsovka & Freund are their side project. They play „DIY shitty classical” music with a little Michael Nyman feeling on piano, cello, clarinet, bass clarinet, violin, computer, synthesizer, and voice. „These pieces are made by and for the view from huge sunroom windows overlooking a wooded ravine. Hopefully that honesty comes through.”

Mold On Canvas LP on Bark and Hiss (US) & MIE Records (UK)

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The debut album of The Wtyhces  „Annabel Dream Reader” is among the most anticipated albums. Proto-metal grunge surf psychedelic noise rock from the English countryside

Annabel Dream Reader LP/CD/digital on Heavenly (UK), Partisan (US) & Dine Alone Records (Can). In July they are on US Tour.

One of the best European garage rock/punk label is Goodbye Boozy Records. It was founded in the late 90s in Teramo, which is a little central Italian town. The label is focusing limited edition 7″ vinyls. Some names of the roster: Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, King Khan, BBQ, Lantern, LiveFastDie, Red Mass, Straight Arrows, Movie Star Junkies.

Some of the recent 7″ vinyls are free to download now: The Hemingers, Sick Thought, Blowtops, Cosmonauts, People’s Temple, Tight Jeans, Livids, Drags, Warm Soda.

Cosmic Trip, France’s wildest underground rock’n’roll festival, gets underway tomorrow in Bourges, France. Headliners include US-based garage rock’n’roll band Swingin’ Neckbreakers, extra-terrestrial surf afficionados Man or Astro-man? , garage rocker kings Fleshtones,  Voodoo Rhythm’s very own Hipbone Slim and the Kneetremblers, indie garage punk trio Shannon and the Clams. The festival will also feature a few bands who had already played at previous RNR666 shows, such as Italian psych/punk duo Go!Zilla and Greek outfit Bazooka (as a last-minute change due to the pull-out of Gravedigger V), and Bob Log III will also be given a worthy opportunity to prove his shit is still perfect.

Japanese experimental metal wonder Boris states about their new album: „the band masterfully intermingles sludge-rock, blistering crust punk, shimmering shoegaze, epic thunderous doom, psychedelic melodies and just about everything else they’ve ever done.”

„Noise” album on Sargent House in June. Pre-order

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French punky country surf garage rock’n’roll by Sapin from Rennes

„Wrong Way” album on Azbin Records. The label’s team members are from such great garage bands as Le Pecheur, Regal, Animal Trophies and The Skeptics.

„I was eleven. I took a few lessons, but not many really. I used to hide from my guitar teacher. Maybe I didn’t feel he was teaching me the right stuff or something.”

In the mid-80s under the influence of 50’s rock and roll Dex Romweber founded his legendary „hardcore Americana” band Flat Duo Jets – as if it came from the grave

Then they went US tour with The Cramps. Their records were released by roots and authentic rock and roll specialist Norton Records and others. 1998 brings the major label contract to them but the album Lucky Eye (with unusual horn and strings arrangement) was the swan song. After the break-up Dex made some solo records and founded the Dex Romweber Duo with his drummer Crash LeResh. In 2007 he was replaced with Dex’s sister, Sarah, who was member in indie pop band Let’s Active in the 80s. She says: „there are few things that me and Dexter absolutely agree on 100% – like Chopin, reincarnation, UFO’s, ghosts…”  „and psychology” – Drex completes the list.

„There is a real film noir quality to what we do. Really man, you see the darkest alleys. You see the most haunted streets. You see the wildest prostitutes. You come across drugs. You come across incredibly long drives. You come across band arguments. You come across mysterious people. You come across great people. You come across tremendous assholes, you see this real weird part of America that most people don’t really see on that level. When each record comes, I’m trying to figure out what’s going to fit at this time and what’s a picture of the last two years I’ve lived. The songs that come to me are very much a mirror of what my life has been like since the last record.”

The next chapter is Images 13 with repainted versions of Who (So Sad About Us), Rachmaninoff (Prelude in G Minor), Henry Mancini (Blackout!), Harry Lubin (composer, 60s sci-fi series, Outer Limits, One Step Beyond) and there is a deadly love ballad We’ll Be Together Again, which was written by Eddie Cohran’s girlfriend Sharon Sheeley after the fatal car accident. She also was in the taxi. The song was never released formally but recorded by Jackie DeShannon in the early ‘60s.

Images 13 – new Drex Romweber Duo album on Bloodshot Records. Two intelligible, post-edited sentences from my notes about it: Dynamic roots rock’n’roll with surfy garage rock feeling. There’re some reminiscence of Elvis, Bowie, Iggy Pop.

source of quotations

Double A side split single by

GUANTANAMO BAYWATCH
„surf sex sludge garbage”

SHANNON & THE CLAMS
„a heartbroken John Waters trying to be a good girl”

dirty sweet rock and roll on Suicide Squeeze Records

Record Store Day will be on 19 April.  Participant stores on your location.

crampsy surfy fuzzy garage rock duo from France
Los Dos Hermanos play Alienor

from their 7″ single on Six Tonnes De Chair Records. They fill unexpected historical references into their exotic music due to their shared passion for History. For example

„Allegedly the styles return 20 years after. So – if you didn’t recognize it – the 90s are came back.  By the way, we continuously repeat ourselves from the creation. Just our instruments are altered. ” Some years ago I wrote this in connection with previous Odonis Odonis records. It was a mix of 90s style music. The chaos keeps growing. Er industrial grunge experimental cold gaze “punk or whatever i feel.” Another fantastic Canadian band

„Hard Boiled Soft Boiled” album on Buzz Records in mid-April

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All is vice versa. Freethinkers of nightclubs pour melancholy slogans on the dance floor. Swiss psych kraut pop by Klaus Johann Grobe. By the way, this is a duo

7″ + debut album on Trouble In Mind Records