run tonto run

Couple of undeservedly unknown bands that I’d like to put on a pedestal this week.

Los Plantronics
(from Norway)

I don’t remember how I got track of this surf’n’rolling band in the first place, but once I heard samples from their albums I immediately hooked up with their promotional department and ordered the debut CD “Mariachi Death Surf”, 7”EP and t-shirt (picture). Got ‘em today (with some bonus merchandise) and I’m thrilled, so fucking thrilled that I had to uncork a bottle of wine and put a little money aside to order the rest of their albums some fine day.
Usually, instrumental music, or surf music as they say, is shiny happy crap and thus bores me to death, but Los Plantronics is surf music without the water maybe, it’s sing-a-long shit even though there’s hardly any vocals and it’s seriously heavy, mescal-driven Tijuana rock’n’roll with bullets and arrows crisscrossing the sky. Leave all the davieallens and dickdales of the world working on their tans and keep an eye on this Norwegian band.


Trouble Bound Gospel
(from Finland)

Their new release I got a few days ago, been listening to it intensively ever since and it’s already one of the highlights this year. “Down The Rabbit Hole” is one absolutely amazing rock’n’roll album with brilliantly executed package: an old-style gatefold sleeve and the vinyl weighing 180 grams (forget them goddamn flabby frisbees). The music, it’s inhaled and unfiltered rock’n’roll tingling with blues from alleyways and swings from booze-ridden debaucheries. Damned scorching good, like snorting vodka.
And they’re a bunch of good lads, too.