CRAWLING CHAOS - The Gas Chair LP

I used to see this album around a lot in the early 80s as I scoured the independent record shops looking for oddities to add to my record collection.It was on Factory Benelux, like Section 25 and Crispy Ambulance both of whom I loved, but I never got around to making the purchase. Truth to tell, it scared me a bit, the cover, the awful reviews I'd seen, the one track I'd heard Peel play...years later Factory completist James Nice reissued the set on his own LTM label and I was persuaded finally to give it a go. I think I must have played it once, made a non-commital hhmming noise to myself and filed it away neatly under 'C' in my rack. Years later - this week in fact! - I made one of my occasional shut my eyes and grab a CD to play at random selections, and here it was again. Gas Chair by Crawling Chaos. And as I've already given it four stars the ending to this banal little story is already ruined: I kinda like it, it's not nearly as scary as the younger me feared, the opening number is a rather nifty little insrumental in which somebody new to the synthesizer discovers all the effects buttons at once while a guitar and bass combo riff along in a pleasingly head-bopping manner. More stuff follows; a folky one, another instumental, one that sounds a bit like Motorhead duing an unplugged session, the ghost of Can hovers around in the background muttering about plagiarism...Honestly, this wouldn't freak out your granny at all, unlike that funny little Will-I-Am fellow.The Chaos might have been invented as a lark to p*** off NME journalists convinced that Kid Creole was the future of music (witness some of those scathing reviews, reprinted in the CD booklet)but they had a certain verve and the sort of two fingers to convention attitude that these same journalists were praising to the rafters just a few years earlier; what is more, their one and only single 'Sex Machine' contains some of the funniest lyrics this side of John Shuttleworth.Not an unreserved recommendation, but I'm certainly glad it exists.

Cool!!!

To make clear where to put Crawling Chaos musically I'd say they are in the same league with the Butthole Surfers in terms of chaotic and weird song structures and oddness altogether. Don't expect any easy listening stuff or straightforward popsongs with this band. CC is nevertheless more kind of folk orientated or less heavy mental guitar orientated like Butthole Surfers. Either way, if you like the band from Texas, you'll probably like Crawling Chaos too.You'll also find 2 bonus tracks on the remastered album. I think they're awesome. Go check this one out.