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Hells Bent On Rockin': A History of Psychobilly

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Craig Brackenridge

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“A school in the East Midlands, new term 1981-82. A new boy enters the class and is introduced by the teacher. He has spiky hair and wears a T-shirt, Doc Martens and tight denims with tiny turn-ups. He is instructed to sit [in] the nearest empty seat. The boy beside him has a flat-top and wears a tartan shirt, crepe shoes and loose denims with big turn-ups. As the latest addition to the class takes his seat he mutters to his new neighbour “Rockabilly bastard!” “Fucking Punk” replies his schoolmate, and they glare at each other menacingly. One year later they are wrecking wildly together at a Meteors gig – best of mates.”

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Book:Hells Bent On Rockin': A History of Psychobilly
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“Many of the first generation of Psychobillies were often ignorant about the history of Rockabilly and gained their love of Rock’n’Roll not from lovingly collecting twenty-five year old 45’s tracked down in dusty American record stores but by watching ‘Grease’ and ‘Happy Days’ alongside seeing Matchbox and The Stray Cats on ‘Top Of The Pops’. This was a generation weaned on ‘The Wanderers’, ‘Lemon Popsicle’ and stacks of low-rent TV advertised Rock’n’Roll albums.... They may not have known who [1950s rockabilly-country singer] Narvel Felts and [1950s rockabilly artist] ‘Groovey’ Joe Poovey were but they sure as hell had heard of Darts and Showaddywaddy and they undoubtedly knew “who put the bomp in the bompshoobompshoobomp” never mind the fucking ramalamadingdong.”

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Book:Hells Bent On Rockin': A History of Psychobilly
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“Drinking games were also part of the gig experience including a live favourite which would follow later in the band’s career, the infamous “Wheel of Misfortune,” a huge wheel to which punters were strapped to and spun after being fed a bucket of booze through a hose. This often resulted in the victim being left in an unconscious stupor or forced them to let go a multi-coloured fountain of puke. Snakebite [beer mixed with cider] was the supposed content of the bucket but many would shudder to think what foul potions were also added to the receptacle.”

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Book:Hells Bent On Rockin': A History of Psychobilly
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“When I was 18 I gifted my 11-year-old step cousin a copy of Rancid's "...And Out Come the Wolves." Because of this her side of the family blamed me for many things. Caught her smoking at 15? Rancid. Disappeared for a long weekend? The Girl's a Time Bomb. Posed nude for a magazine 3 days after turning 18? They just disowned me. I'm a bad influence it seems. I've been a bad influence for a long time.”

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Book:More Snakes Than People: A Rural Gloom Graphic Novel
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“The modern rockabilly rebel is inevitably facing a tension between succumbing to the pull of the past—a kind of remembering—and a forgetting that the integrity of any embrace of the past is challenged as contrivance and dissimulation by the near-universal availability of the once-local, once-rebellious, and once-novel style.”

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Book:Performance Anxiety in Media Culture: The Trauma of Appearance and the Drama of Disappearance
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