Thursday, May 26, 2005

Brother (Patrick) Bainée caught this shindig and figured you folks oughtta hear about what you missed...



RIP OFFS / ZODIAC KILLERS / FOUR SLICKS, MAY 25 : A PUNK NIGHT IN PARIS

For me, Supercharger was probably (with the Gories) one of the most interesting punk groups from the early 90's. After they disbanded in 1993, Greg Lowery formed the Rip Offs with pals including Jon Von. Those guys were on stage yesterday in Paris, for 3 sets, with probably all of the songs lasting less than two minutes. The show was organized by Born Bad (the best record shop in Paris).

The Fours Slicks, Jon Von new group, opened the show with a powerful garage/rockabilly set. The set included their should be a hit "Betty Lou" and covers of Gene Lamarr’s "That Crazy Little House On The Hill" and Junior Gravley’s "You Lied To Me Honey". They have one single out and a second one is coming soon on Savage records.

Then the Zodiac Killers, hit the stage for a shaky/fun/sexy show. They played a set of 45 minutes including 23 songs - some from their new LP, only available at the moment on vinyl as a special colour edition sold during the tour. The last song was Supercharger classic "Sooprize Package for Mr Mineo" (no, it's not a Mummies' song).

After that, everybody was ready to see the Rip offs, for a 1 and only reunion show, well in fact, half of the former Rip offs : Greg and Jon, linked by Marc - Four Slicks drummer and of Born Bad fame) and Jeremy - male guitarist of the Zodiac Killers. So they have to rehearse (Jon Von lives in Paris now, too) to provide this show of 15 songs (+ 2 same songs for the encore), including instant classics like "My Baby Yeah", "Wild Jane" (a tribute to Jayne Mansfield), "Baby Let Go", "Zodiac" (another Supercharger song)... for a moment I though that the boat will break in two and sink, with all these punks (well, only 75 paying entrances, a shame) jumping around.

It was a very hot day, with a beautiful weather :"j'adore Paris au mois de mai". May is a very good month for Rock'n'Roll, a long time since I saw so much cool records issued at the same time : the Zodiac Killers, Reatards (on Shattered records), Superhelicopter (on P-Trash records), the Hodads (hi Sean). Now I wait for the Cramps new DVD.

That's all.

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