Harry Violet and the Sharks – Jungle Cavalcade

h2_RingMaster Review

Thanks to Dirty Water Records, we can now reveal the Devil’s rock ‘n’ roll representatives in the UK; a band going under the name of Harry Violet and the Sharks with the sole intent of putting a hex on hips and mischief in the heart. Evidence comes courtesy of debut single Jungle Cavalcade, a two-track incitement of dark fifties/sixties bred rock ‘n’ roll from a band “crawling the streets of London, intent on mixing dive-bar jive and 12-bar rhythms with nightmarish grooves”.

Inflamed by the raw siren calls of sax and driven by devilish rhythms, Harry Violet and the Sharks has a sound infusing many more spices and tenacious revelry than can be described in a single line. They draw on inspirations roaming from The Cramps, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, and The Lounge Lizards to The Sonics, Kip Tyler, and Link Wray with further essences influenced by “the eccentricities of Joe Meek productions” and artists like Tom Waits. What emerges on their introduction is something familiar yet boldly unique, a lingering dalliance with the senses and a salacious flirtation with body and imagination.

Jungle Cavalcade stirs up the passions first as it drives straight away at ears with tantalising riffs of guitar and bass in collusion with sultry strains of sax. The seductive yet rapacious tone of the four-stringed devilment is especially masterful in its temptation, bassist Tim Barrow pulling on his strings with a creative animation that has thoughts donning mask and cape as fingers tap feverishly to its and the aligning rhythmic bait of Murdo Mackenzie’s beats. All the while the sax of Max Ellenberger is casting aurally erotic flames to this, inciting ears with his fiery melodies which suggestively flicker as the similarly exotic lures of Harry Violet’s guitar dance. Vocally Harry slips between a grizzled Tom Waits meets Hasil Adkins growl and an inviting roar of clean tones, a delivery as unpredictable and magnetic as the sounds around him. Like Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers plays Johnny And The Hurricanes with The Slytones for company, band and track leave a big grin on the face and an exhausted smile on the body.

As its predecessor, second song Dance At The Korova is also inspired “by the wild and wacky adventures of Frank Buck and the dystopian youth madness of A Clockwork Orange”, and as the first track in control of attention and appetite from its first sax and guitar spun breath. Bouncing around with an open fifties romp and stomp as another great scramble of rhythms line-up with a very agreeable cartoonish hook linked to the guitar’s persistent almost nagging melody, the song is the manna for any hop and the spark to many an energetic intimacy.

Some songs just hit the spot and ignite all the wants and irreverent devilment needed to have a seriously good time. Jungle Cavalcade has two such protagonists delivered by a band you feel has only just started twisting our bodies and turning on unbridled instincts.

Jungle Cavalcade is out now on 7” vinyl and for download via Dirty Water Records.

http://harryvioletandthesharks.co.uk/ https://www.facebook.com/harryvioletsharks https://twitter.com/harryviolets

Pete RingMaster 04/02/2016

For more exploration of the independent and promotional services check out http://www.zykotika.com/

MFC Chicken – M.F.C. Chicken Time!

Nov9

Pics: Lorenzo Pascual /Dena Flows

Determined to once again twist hips and bodies into shapes and directions never meant to be, MFC Chicken once more get virulently riotous with third album M.F.C. Chicken Time! It is another bundle of their inimitable fifties bred stomp of rock ‘n’ roll and rhythm ’n’ blues, and more of the delicious revelry which marked the band’s previous pair of acclaimed albums. Theirs is a sound which has discovered its perfect recipe but conjures new tasty delights from the same irresistible ingredients. It is aural fast-food pleasure to get greedy over but as the new encounter proves, using familiar spices does not have to lead to predictability or the absence of ingenuity.

MFC Chicken began six years ago with Spencer Evoy, a Canadian musician relocating to London, finding like-minded spirits a top a dirty Holloway Road chicken shack, and giving birth to a garage rock ’n’ roll band quickly earning themselves a potent reputation live and through 2012 debut album Music for Chicken. Released as subsequent propositions through the mighty Dirty Water Records, its success was eclipsed two years later by Solid Gravy, the band’s second album reinforcing and escalating their sound and following, backed as ever by a live hunger seeing the band seemingly everywhere. Earlier this year a richly flavoursome appetiser in the shape of the (Get Outta The) DJ Booth and Lake Bears! singles whetted the appetite for more of the MFC Chicken spiced poultry themed devilry; a wanting more than wholesomely fed by M.F.C. Chicken Time!

Study Hall gets things rocking first, the rhythms of Ravi setting tempo and intent as the vocals of Spencer Evoy join the swinging gait of Zig Criscuolo’s bass and the mischievous guitar of Alberto Zioli. Soon Evoy’s sax is afoot with the festivity, leaping over the sonic strands and infectious rhythms. As if it was needed, the opener confirms that the MFC Chicken sound, and subsequently album, is something to rigorously dance to; exhaustion and pleasure the prime results.

The following Gross People spins a sixties hued adventure with the great tang of keys flirting from within the hazily infectious air of the song. Across the album keys are provided by either Angus McPake or Reverend Parsley, a flavoursome coating to the lively rhythms and great vocal bunching which supports Evoy. As the opener, the song is an easy involvement, an eager persuasion matched by those of 14 Girls and All Afternoon. The vintage air which wraps the album as potently as modern tenacity brings a Little Richard meets Screamin’ Jay Hawkins enticement for the first of the pair whilst its successor leaps around with a naughty twinkle in its melodic eye reminding in many ways of The Stargazers, the eighties version. It also simply grips feet and eagerness, leading them like a puppy into a bounding energy before making way for the sultry instrumental flame of Bad News From the Clinic. With the fiery voice of the sax teasing ears amidst the thick catchiness cast by guitar and rhythms, it is another inevitable boisterous bop, one with an enjoyable hint of The Munsters theme to it.

There is a sense of Hank Mizell to the heftier rock ‘n’ roll of Uncle Willy, a great vociferous harmonica its spiciest tempting whereas Tennessee Girl springs an inescapable trap of rowdy rhythms with that ever delicious sax the juicy instigator in the fusion of rockabilly and garage punk. As always though, it is the full craft and creative devilment across the band which makes MFC Chicken songs burst from the speakers, two prime examples there leading to another in the ballsy saunter of Sit Down, Mess Around and in turn the rhythmic shuffle of 29 Bus, keys and guitars respectively leading resourceful romps from the enslaving rhythmic bait of Ravi and Criscuolo.

The second of these two is a particular favourite within nothing but across M.F.C. Chicken Time! but as the other tracks, including the colourful sixties melodic flirtation of I Can’t Feel My Leg, it get eclipsed by the bewitchingly brilliant Kahuna Hoodoo Hoochie Coo Flu Blues. From its opening sinister noir clad second, the song prowls and swings with a dark jazz and rock ‘n’ roll devilry. Like a mix of again Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, this time with a whiff of Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers and Lonesome Sundown in tow, the track creeps through ears and into the psyche offering the most inventive and compelling encounter on a release stocked with nothing less than thick captivation.

Rumble Strip is a grin of imagination and mischief next, its rock ‘n’ roll sheer feel good majesty matched by the flirty swing of Colonel Sanders’ Bastard Son, another irrepressible slice of rich tasting R&B/garage rock ‘n’ roll enterprise. Both has the body moving through 360 degrees of festivity before allowing Where Is The Meat? to bring the excellent encounter to a rousing conclusion. Ensuring the ever present smile sparked by the start of the album, of release and listener, is as broad as ever at its close, the song simply sums up the glory and fun of MFC Chicken and M.F.C. Chicken Time! in its two thrilling minutes of creative mayhem.

There are no major changes in sound from predecessor Solid Gravy, but there is definitely new freshness to the imagination of adventure and flavours woven into M.F.C. Chicken Time! The result is another hour of unbridled and one of a kind fun and rock ‘n’ roll pleasure from MFC Chicken; that a real treat in anyone’s book.

M.F.C. Chicken Time! is out from November 9^th via Dirty Water Records digitally and on 12” vinyl @ http://www.dirtywaterrecords.co.uk/shop/#!/MFC-Chicken/c/2990295/offset=0&sort=normal

http://www.dirtywaterrecords.co.uk/mfcchicken https://www.facebook.com/MFCChicken

Pete RingMaster 09/11/2015

For more exploration of the independent and promotional services check out http://www.zykotika.com/

MFC Chicken – (Get Outta The) DJ Booth and Lake Bears!

May2

(Pics: Lorenzo Pascual & Dena Flows)

After two ridiculously infectious and excitable slabs of rock ‘n’ roll devilry posing as albums, London based MFC Chicken in their own words “figured it was time that we gave the DJs out there something to spin when out in the wilds. A full length album is great for playing at house parties but in a sleazy cellar bar with some frantic dance floor action the DJ’s gonna want a proper vinyl 45.” So that is what the band came up with, not one but two slices of MFC Chicken revelry to ignite the dance-floor, a pair of incitements which simply throw feet and emotions into a blissful frenzy.

It is fair to say we unknowingly had a sweet spot lying in wait for a band like MFC Chicken, an inner instinct stroked and seduced by the band’s two frantic slabs of R&B fuelled rock ‘n’ roll going by the names of Music For Chicken in 2012 and Sold Gravy two years later. With hooks and beats inescapable bait, vocals virulent incitement, and flames of sax an intoxicating bedfellow to all around them, both releases created an insatiable stomp of surf and garage rock within a web of Rhythm and Blues embraced vintage rock ‘n’ roll. There is no stopping the MFC Chicken sound once it takes hold, or a live presence which has seen them the darlings of festivals, venues, and differing countries alike. And it continues in potent style with the new singles, the quartet of Spencer Evoy (tenor sax, vocals), Alberto Zioli (guitar, vocals), Ravi (drums), and Zig (bass) on fine and irrepressible form once again.

(Get Outta The) DJ Booth opens with its title track and a vintage guitar tang which kisses ears before beats and vocals add their potent spices to the fifties bred rocker. Like a mix of Ray Charles and Bill Haley, the song managing to have the fiery essence of the former in firm collusion with the cleaner sounds of the latter, it blazes away with rampant keys and melodic tenacity as rhythms continue to stomp through ears and into the passions. It is a simple, busy, and irresistible encounter matched perfectly by accompanying song Colonel Sanders’ Bastard Son.

The second song has the kind of nostalgic swing which was never out of place in either a Chick Berry stroll or a Connie Francis pop persuasion. It soon takes on a rawer, almost dirty nature though, leaning much more towards the bluesy garage enterprise of The Sonics thereon in. This is tempered by the sonic imagination of the guitar and the ever inflammatory call of the sax, each individually offering a warmer but no less mischievous enticing to envelope the lyrical revelry. As its predecessor, the track is gorgeous, and the single alone enough to make MFC Chicken the focus of current attention.

Of course there are two offerings and Lake Bears! is just as compelling and thrilling an encounter. Its first track is Lakebears Theme and in some ways has an even more anarchic and voraciously devilish manner to its presence and sound than on the other release. Imagine Little Richard even more over excited than normal whilst Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Jerry Lee Lewis bring their own distinct slightly salacious invention, then you are close to the two minutes of rock ‘n’ roll rampage going on.

Second track is called Theme From Lakebears, a devil fuelled instrumental with voodoo beats and demonic sonic lures around tribalistic vocal urges. A lively shimmer of surf rock adds even more sinister qualities to the outstanding tempting of ears and imagination, providing if taken as one, a blissful end to four increasingly magnetic new MFC Chicken products.

Roll on another album is all we have left to say.

(Get Outta The) DJ Booth (Dirty Water Records) and Lake Bears! (FOLC/Dirty Water Records) are both available now on 7” vinyl and download via http://www.dirtywaterrecords.co.uk/shop/#!/MFC-Chicken/c/2990295/offset=0&sort=addedTimeDesc

https://www.facebook.com/MFCChicken http://www.dirtywaterrecords.co.uk/mfcchicken

RingMaster 02/05/2015

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MFC Chicken: Music For Chicken

Jul10

Sometimes things are just meant to be and that is the strong feeling when it comes to rock n rollers MFC Chicken and the background story to the band. It all started with the arrival of Canadian Spencer Evoy who with his trusty sax in tow moved over to the UK around a year ago. On what he called a pilgrimage to the recording studio of Joe Meek he found himself outside a fried chicken shop on Holloway Road, London. With stomach yearning for the delicacies within but pockets financially incapable to fully assist, Evoy slipped out his trusty friend…his sax you naughty people…and proceeded to busk for his supper. His sounds made their eager way through the window of the flat above the shop leading to its occupant bassist Bret Bolton to call out his appreciation and thus two musical brothers were united from that point on, the pair within days forming a band named after the now closed down shop, MFC Chicken.

It is a story which almost reaches fact is stranger than fiction heights but surely is the proof that this band was destined to bless the world with its presence, and wow does it do that with its debut album Music For Chicken. The release is pure joy from start to finish, Evoy and Mancunian Bolton alongside Brazilian Alberto Zioli on guitar, and London boys Reverand Parsley and Ravi on keys and drums respectively, unleashing the purest joy with their poultry themed party of garage rock n roll driven rhythm and blues. There is one warning though, for some reason it will make you feel rather hungry by the end of its final slice of pleasure.

Released August 6^th via Dirty Water Records, a label which cannot do any wrong right now with its releases it seems, the album strolls up to the ear with a confident swagger called Chicken, Baby, Chicken. With initially the guitar teasingly showing off alongside great group harmonic shouts, the song erupts into an eager tonic for the heart through a fiery blend of Billy Haley, Johnny Burnette and Hasil Adkins. It is a great start easily matched by the following Every Girl on The Tube. From its first surge of Evoy pumping the senses full of tenor sax goodness the song ignites a feisty air for its greedy sounds, a garage rawness which lights the fuse for further submission and adoration. The guitar of Zioli is as keen and wonderfully teasing as the sax play and combined with the beats, keys, and playful bass sounds makes for one exuberant track.

As each song leaves its crazed energy the album simply gets better and better. It is not that the latter songs are any better than the earlier ones just that the accumulative effect is overwhelming and leaves one grinning like a man who just got lucky, which I guess is what happened. Tracks like the hot and crazed instrumental Wild Safari with its elephant sax sounds and slight Batman theme sounding hook has limbs and emotions jumping even if the lack of rampaging chickens and stampeding cockerels noises is disappointing, whilst the throbbing Laundromatic is a scorching melodic blitz upon the ear with seeds in the band which has influenced MFC Chicken by their own admission the most The Sonics, which simply excites.

Music For Chicken at times offers up flavours which are easily recognisable in other bands and songs though you always feel it is merely coincidence such as with Chicken On The Bone, the song a dead ringer for a Showaddywaddy song well if it had been given steroids and introduced to Johnny Kidd and The Pirates. Wine, Women, Rock’n’Roll is another with familiarity from a seeming heavy spice of Johnny Carroll splashed with a wash of Screamin Jay Hawkins.

The album closes as magnificently as it started with the trio of Man-Sized Tissues, Family Value Meal, and Fifty-Seven Acres of Pain ensuring every drip of pleasure is wrung into the heart of their recipients. The middle of the three is especially wonderful, its explosive melodic beauty of keys and guitar punctuated with sensational sax clucking a delight not heard since the fifties Fat Daddy Holems song, strangely enough called Chicken Rock.

Music For Chicken is nothing but total pleasure and a party for the ear and heart to gate crash relentlessly whilst MFC Chicken has one diving into the fridge, damn them.

https://www.facebook.com/MFCChicken

RingMaster 10/07/2012