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Sunday, March 19, 2017

Swamp Rats

A good garage/punk band from the Pittsburgh area, 1966-7......they released only a handful of singles and a
posthumous album, but they were ahead of the curve......their stuff SNARLS.....a "Louie Louie" version that makes the Stooges sound tame. Same for the Sonics' "Psycho", they stood it on its head......a lot of covers here, culled from whatever scraps of the band still exist........

Oh, by the way, the album is entitled "Disco Still Sucks".........
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With covers ofSUCH oft-recorded songs as "Louie Louie" and "Hey Joe," two versions of the sameRolling Stones song, and only two originals among the 13 garage rock tracks, this album probably has only limited appeal to people who aren't die-hard fans of the genre. If you are a die-hard fan, however, there's a good chance that you'll enjoy this collection of garage rock sides originallyRECORDED IN1966-1967. The Swamp Rats' raunchy, fuzzed-out, speeded-up, Sonics-influenced rendition of "Louie Louie," sung by drummer Dave Gannon, is one of the better versions of this standard; their frenzied rendition of the Sonics' "Psycho" (included on Back from the Grave, Vol. 1), featuring Bob Hocko's out of control screaming vocals and a backwards tape loop ending, is even wilder; and tracks such as their innocent-sounding cover of the Beatles' ballad "Here, There and Everywhere," featuring lead vocals by bassist Paul Shalako, demonstrate that the band could do more than sneering fuzz-punk. Furthermore, their two originals, "I'm Going Home" and "Hey Freak," both hold up well; the latter song is highly recommended to fans of '60s garage punk at its most intense. 
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DISCO STILL SUCKS-01 Louie Louie/02 Hey Freak/03 She's Got Everything/04 I'm Going Home/05 Hey Joe/06 It's Not Easy/07 No Friend of Mine/08 Til the End of the Day/09 In the Midnight Hour/10 Here There and Everywhere/11 Tobacco Road/12 Psycho



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