RICHIE AND THE CREEPS - Richie and the Creeps (Illustrious Artists/Reverberation)
I wish it was 1985 again. There'd still be a real Triple Jay (not a bland, homogenised, hip hop-playing sell-out), Citadel would be putting out a record a week (on vinyl singles), you could still buy worthwhile music at local record shops and bands like Richie and the Creeps would be all over the airwaves and through the pubs. It's not 1985 but us old folks can dream, can't we?
The self-titled album from the ex-Tumbleweed singer Richie Lewis and his band has been a long time coming (they've been dragging their arses up from Wollongong to play Sydney dives for half a decade but there was an EP that predates this, I heard.) I'm paying a compliment when I say that the record sounds like it belongs in the mid-'80s. Those were the days (brace for another reminiscence) when the Cramps were driving all self-respecting underground bands back to the roots they never knew they had, and the likes of Perth's Bamboos were putting out genre-defying records that crossed '60s garage rock with swampy country in the most original way.
So how to describe it other than born out of time? "Lamb To The Slaughter" swaggers into the saloon like early-days Johnnys and there's no mistaking the Gun Club shroud that's draping the shoulders of The Creeps' cover of "Fire of Love". "Roman Candle" sounds like the Fleshtones at their finest while "I Think I'm Going Crazy" is a hayride back from hell that doesn't spare the horses. "Medusa Eyes" is simply irresistible (and not in a Robert Palmer way.)
Richie's the dominant force on beefy vocals, guitar and song-writing but wife Shaz (bass), Al (guitar and vocals) and Nate (drums) are a dynamic unit who put the power under the bonnet (or hood, depending on where you're reading this.)
If you want the Creeps ethos spelt out for your next university thesis, it's all there in the lyrics of "Only Human" where Richie declares (and I'm paraphrasing 'cos I'm lazy) that he likes the drug abusers, the normal people and the mistake makers. Show him he's not alone. –
The Barman
