Thursday 26 May 2011

Psychobilly brought back to life from the dead Rockabilly ghost

Charlton, Katherine. Rock Music Styles: a history. Boston: MacGraw Hill, 2008. Print.

Library Call Number (Music Library): ML3534.C45

Although this book was fairly basic and written in encyclopedic fashion, it provides an interesting viewpoint on psychobilly's formation. It talks about a "natural progression" into psychobilly because early punk guitar chords and beats were distorted, altered versions of old rockabilly classic. However, it assumes that psychobilly was formed in the UK and Germany however the focus of my assignment is that it truly began it's foundation in California.

The phrase "psychobilly Cadillac" was coined by Johnny Cash in a song of his and it unwillingly nfluenced a young Lux Interior to contact his future wife Poison Ivy and start a band called "The Cramps". I attribute this band as starting the psychobilly subculture and style however Charlton claims it was started by band "The Meteors", "Demented are Go" and "Mad Sin". Charlton also lists the "Nekromantix" as being founding fathers of pyschobilly in Denmark. This is an accurate statement in my mind except she does not explain their move to California and the profound influence they had there on future bands such as their spawned "Horrorpops" and northern California band  "Tiger Army". I feel that all of these bands listed in this annotation have a profound influence on the California psychobilly subculture but also on the rest of the worlds however Charlton has not shown this effectively. However, with this in mind, this is still a fundamental start to finding out more about psychobilly's creation and it is not as honed and specified as other sources consulted.

No comments:

Post a Comment