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The Meteors
Alternative Press - Editorial Intern on 6/18/09 @ 12:15 PM - altpress.comYEARS OF EXISTENCE: 1980-present
RECORD TO START WITH: The Meteors: The Kings Of Psychobilly (2008 box set; Anagram UK)
GO DOWNLOAD: "Wildkat Ways," "Wreckin' Crew," "Johnny Remember Me," "Fire Fire," "Please Don't Touch," "Go Buddy Go," "Surfin' On The Planet Zorch," "Michael Myers," "Disneyland," "Slow Down You Grave Robbing Bastard"
THE MUSIC, THE MESSAGE: Back in 1980, the Meteors' twanged-out punk and punked-out twang got them heckled out of the hippest parts of London's punk scene. But like similarly demented U.S. bands the Cramps and the Misfits, the band's combo of '50s horror-flick kitsch, punk rock and tough rock 'n' roll made for an irresistible high-proof concoction. The band revolved around vocalist/guitarist P. Paul Fenech, whose nicotine growl was the dirty exhaust of his souped-up '50s riffs. Fenech's knack for melding purist tendencies (big, rubbery-sounding stand-up bass) to his wackier ones (several songs about the imaginary planet Zorch) earned the Meteors a cult of their own (the World Wide Wrecking Crew) and an actual U.K. radio hit with a cover of a country-influenced slice of Brit-kitsch called "Johnny Remember Me." In the process, Fenech cut the template for the psychobilly subculture that swept Europe in the '80s, but made little impact in the U.S. for well over a decade.
PUNK ROCK RELEVANCE: Fenech hasn't been shy to assert his legacy-the Meteors' 1988 album is actually called Only The Meteors Are Pure Psychobilly-and has every right to do so. Although the Cramps combined similar influences a few years earlier, they and the Misfits were in their own theatrical, Elvis-centric universe. No band but the Meteors represent the dank dead-center of psychobilly as we know it, paying homage to the entire Sun Records roster-without eyeliner but with plenty of muscle and sleaze. The approach cleared a path for like-minded Brits the Guana Bats, Denmark's Nekromantix and Yanks like the Reverend Horton Heat and Tiger Army.
CURRENT WHEREABOUTS: Since 1980, the Meteors have put out two dozen LPs, gained and shed nearly as many rhythm sections and played over 4,500 shows. Fenech is now an icon to tatted-up minions from Osaka to Tel Aviv, but most American kids still couldn't tell him from Screaming Lord Sutch. Anagram UK just released a definitive five-disc box set spanning from 1981's Meteor Madness EP to 2007's Hymns For The Hellbound, aptly titled The Meteors: The Kings Of Psychobilly. -Andrew Marcus
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