METEORS MEET SCREAMING LORD SUTCH ACE MAD 1 PSYCHOBILLY

	£		103
	$		136

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THE METEORS MEET SCREAMING LORD SUTCH

ALL BLACK AND HAIRY

JACK THE RIPPER

LONDON ROCKER

OH WELL

VOODOO RHYTHM

MANIAC ROCKERS FROM HELL

MY DADDY IS A VAMPIRE

YOU CAN'T KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN

RELEASED ON ACE RECORDS

MAD 1

THIS ORIGINAL LP COMES IN A STICKERED SLEEVE

Combining a revved-up variant on the classic rockabilly sound with a tongue-in-cheek obsession with horror movies and cartoonish violence, the Meteors were the U.K.'s leading psychobilly outfit, and often proudly declared that they were the only true exponents of the style (though history records that the Cramps were serving up their own ghoulish mix of rockabilly and horror first). The Meteors were the brainchild of guitarist and vocalist Paul Fenech, who first made a name for himself in the late '70s as a member of the British rockabilly group the Southern Boys. After a spell, Fenech and Southern Boys upright bassist Nigel Lewis teamed up to form a two-man rockabilly combo, Rock Therapy; drummer Mark Robertson was added to the lineup in 1980, and the group adopted a new name, Raw Deal.

While Raw Deal was beginning to attract attention among rockabilly fans and had landed spots on compilation albums, Fenech decided to give the group a new image. They adopted a punk-inspired look, added a mock-sinister undertow to their music, and adopted lyrics inspired by horror films such as The Hills Have Eyes and Blue Sunshine. Needing a new name to go with their new image, they began calling themselves the Meteors. In 1981, the group released its first album, In Heaven, issued as part of an ill-fated deal with Island Records, but the band's real breakthrough came with 1983's Wreckin' Crew, which featured a hit single cover of "Johnny Remember Me." By this time, Lewis and Robertson were both out of the band, replaced with Mick White and Steve Ginger' Meadham taking over on bass and drums, respectively; frequent personnel turnovers would be regular part of the Meteors' story from this point forward, with Fenech the sole constant though literally dozens of lineups.

The band remained a popular attraction in the United Kingdom and Europe, touring frequently and releasing recordings at a steady pace through the 1980s and '90s, though it gained only a cult following in the United States. In the fall of 2000, Fenech announced that the Meteors would be giving up live performances following a swing through Germany, but to the relief of fans, he reconsidered and a few years later yet another lineup of the group was touring regularly and hard at work on new recordings.

He couldn't properly be considered part of the British Invasion — he never had a hit in the U.S. or the U.K. — but Screaming Lord Sutch laid some unheralded groundwork for the phenomenon. With a rock & horror act based to a large degree on Screamin' Jay Hawkins, David "Lord" Sutch was one of the first genuine rock & roll longhairs, and his bands employed such sterling instrumentalists as Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Ritchie Blackmore, Nicky Hopkins, and Mitch Mitchell before they became famous. His early-'60s singles — mostly over-the-top Halloween novelties or covers of early rock and R&B standards — are genuinely energetic and fun performances that rank among the few out-and-out raunchy rock & roll records waxed in Britain before the ascension of the Beatles. Twiddling the knobs on his first five singles was the legendarily eccentric Joe Meek, who embellished Sutch's modest talents with his usual grab bag of treated instruments, compression, and odd effects. While he holds a position of undeniable importance in the history of British rock, Sutch was not a talented singer or musician, and the records he made after the mid-'60s were pretty lame despite the presence of some stars who remembered him fondly (and had even sometimes played in his band in the old days). A well-known public figure in Britain, he ran for Parliament several times in the '60s, representing the National Teenage Party, and he founded the pirate radio station Radio Sutch in 1964. He published his autobiography in the early '90s.