Guitarist and visionary Stephen Hartley earned his footnote in the Rock’n’Roll annals three decades back. As part of Burnley’s legendary Notsensibles, he recorded the immortal ‘I’m in Love with Margaret Thatcher’: a slice of supremely daft punky brilliance which has rightly been hailed as a DIY classic of its’ kind.
Thankfully, unlike so many who have since gone off, got proper jobs and become the new boss same as the old boss, Stephen’s bid for provincial DIY freedom remains live, livid and kicking. His proudly analogue power trio VINCENT BLACK LIGHTNING continue to record their inspired and gnarly anthems in the back room of a terraced house in Lancashire and then press ‘em up by hand in the very same space. A method which continues to bring joy to W&H’s collective heart.
VBL have already crossed our palm with silver discs courtesy of their ‘Lay Your Rug’ EP and 2009’s highly impressive ‘Songs from the Underbelly (Part One)’ LP. Their fourth release is the album’s erstwhile follow up (this time with a black sleeve and the band’s patented woodlouse insignia) and we’ll be getting down to business with that shortly. In the interim, though, let’s take their third on the chin: a delightful slab of 7” black wax coupling two typically barmy’ n’ brilliant slices of life courtesy of ‘Karaoke Kid’ and ‘Me & My Babies.’
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Built around a rousing guitar figure, an unlikely “sha-la-la” bit and a fantastically off the wall guitar solo towards the end, ‘Me & My Babies’ is diverting enough, but ‘Karaoke Kid’ is the one here. A sparky and metronomic garage blast cut with a sharp line of The Fall’s patented Nawthern rockabilly, it’s a hard-driving hymn to the fame-for-fifteen-seconds karaoke game (“one hundred songs to choose from, a shiny microphone/ a flashy tape machine and words on a video screen”) delivered with reserves of both bile and humour to spare.
Essential stuff, then. Oh, and while we’re on the subject, keep an eye out for Eli’s latest signings, The Fat Cunts. Four bald bastards from Bacup. They’ll knock yer socks off.
Eli Records online
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