Well, British Summertime is in full swing. Cold Wet Miserable one minute, sunny the next. but hey, Worry not let RPM introduce you to a few new videos that will blow away any blues first up are these nutballs hailing from Switzerland with their Garage noise better known as The Jackets with ‘Loser Lullaby’
Next up we turn the plane around and head East to Canada to be precise and your in-flight entertainment is courtesy of this new video from Autogramm who tell us all about ‘The Cool Kids’. “Cool Kids Radio” was originally written by C.C. in Berlin with Rich Jones (Michael Monroe, Loyalties, YoYo’s, Ginger Wildheart etc.) Hey just check this bad boy out and then if you happen to be in the area why not catch them live here –
July 19 @ Yoko, Hamburg DE
July 20 @ VEB, Lübeck DE
July 23 @ Kap Tormentoso, Stuttgart DE
July 24 @ Geschichtswerkstatt Altes Volksbad, Mannheim DE
Finally, one taken from the recently reviewed album ‘The Down South Spaghetty Accident (reviewed Here) RMBLR is their name and ‘Next Time’ is the track so until next time take it away RMBLR and remember kids play fair and Stay Sick!
Seeing as four is the new three we thought we’d throw this Rock and Roll hand grenade into the mix and add some Rainy Days & Mondays extra time. Hot off the press Wet Dreams drop brand new video for ‘Boogie’ check it out here
Debutalbum ‘Wet Dreams’ out March 29th via Black Pop Records
Norway’s newest power-punks Wet Dreams have revealed a brand new single today called ‘Radioactivity’, the final taster of their debut self-titled album which is due for release on March 29th via Black Pop Records.
Sebastian Ulstad Olsen of Wet Dreams (and Death By Unga Bunga) described the track as, “about everything that’s wrong with rock’n’roll in Norway today. Please use more than 5 minutes on songwriting numbnuts! It’s also named after a really great band from Texas”.
Wet Dreams previously released the brilliant single ‘Boogie’ which Ulstad Olsen of Wet Dreams explained the influences behind: “This song basically wrote itself. I’ve been a fan of raunchy and heavily distorted Boogie Rock since I first heard Guitar Wolf.”
The band announced the album with the storming single ‘Bad Boy’ along with a video that songwriter Sebastian Ulstad Olsen of Wet Dreams said was, “…filmed in the deep forests of our beloved Østfold, Norway, this is the site for a secret festival happening every year. If you know, you know…”
Wet Dreams were consummated in an Oslo basement, when Death By Unga Bunga frontman Sebastian Ulstad Olsen had conceived a few bastard songs he did not know what to do with. The songs grew into a fast and scruffy EP, released in the summer of 2017 – and now the self-titled debut album is finally here.
Wet Dreams is a punk rock/garage group from Oslo consisting of members from FOAMMM, Warp Riders, De Marvells as well as the aforementioned Death By Unga Bunga. They played one of their first ever concerts at Norway’s biggest festival, Øya in 2017, which lead to them being highlighted by NME as one of the best discoveries from the event where they described them as being for fans of “The Ramones to The Vaccines” and said their set was like “Motorhead covering The Hives”. In 2018 they have played festivals in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Following the album release in March 2019 the band will tour Norway, Europe and the US.
Wet Dreams recorded the album by themselves, while Øystein Braut (Electric Eye, Dig Deeper, Soft Ride, Low Frequency in Stereo) aced the mixing, birthing an album of gritty, aggressive and ultra-catchy punk rock n roll.
Songwriter Sebastian Ulstad Olsen had this to say on the sound of the band: “Even if the song structures aren’t miles away from the stuff I write in Death By Unga Bunga, I’ve been longing to challenge the recording and production process. I love music that bends the rules, so Wet Dreams is a great laboratory for this purpose.”
The record is about the idea of being – or trying to be – “larger than life” to conceal one’s own insecurities. The collection on the surface may appear a classic testosterone-fueled out-pour, but the lyrics combat this with belief that ultimately we’re all just humans with the same fundamental needs and desires.
The Wet Dream-song ‘I Can Fly’ will be featured in an upcoming episode of the US TV show ‘War Games’ – an interactive up-to-date take on the 1983 classic Matthew Broderick-starring film.
Well, we certainly didn’t stand still in the last seven days as we brought you reviews from a range of artist old and new with The Lemonheads starting things off with the second studio album of cover versions entitled ‘Varshons 2‘. As Evan Dando and Co, head out on a UK tour this week to promote the record RPM gave it the thumbs up as Dando led the band through some pretty diverse waters. Westerberg, Cave and the Eagles all made it onto the record which as an aside came out in a scented banana yellow version as well.
It was also a week that saw two live albums hit the death decks at RPM with Metallica lending a ‘Helping Hand’ Where they released a double album with proceeds going to a most admirable cause and helping the most vulnerable in society a real genuine act of kindness that doesn’t get the exposure it truly deserves as the rock stars are often castigated for their excesses but seldom praised when they do reach out with a simple yet effective act of kindness. So a huge well done from us at RPM as Johnny H gets stuck into the double slice of vinyl trouble.
The second of our live reviews came when Martin gave The Godfather a good seeing to with their fantastic ‘This Is War’ the once over. describing it as, “Loud Sharp and Beautiful”, is about as close a summery as you can get. It’s fair to say that it damn near captures the current line up right at the top of their game. It’s certainly raw it’s certainly loud and no question it has the Godfathers roaring on all cylinders and has you wondering why all live albums can’t sound this good. Essential listening no doubt about it.
We also brought you a summary of this years Gathering from North Wales as Mike Peters and the Alarm romped through a huge chunk of their back catalogue over two nights with plenty of special guests that included original Alarm Guitar player Dave Sharp, from Texas Ryan Hamilton and 80’s pop rockers Mark Shaws then Jerico. This year’s festivities weren’t without incident as the PA went down twice but it didn’t deter PEters who climbed into the audience with his acoustic guitar and un mic’d got the audience singing along and making the most out of a potentially bad situation and making it a memorable evening no doubt about it. Gathering twenty-Seven was again a privilege to attend and I can’t wait for 2020 and number twenty Eight.
We also brought you The Spangles album launch show from way up North otherwise known as Harrogate as Ben Hughes had an equally splendid evening with an immensely talented band playing one hell of a debut album. I for one hope there is a lot more to come from these three guys because their album was easily one of 2018 best releases.
As far as news goes we joined the rock world in wishing Bernie Torme a speedy recovery from his hospitalization from double Pneumonia and hope he’s back to full health as soon as possible. The same for our Australian friend Hayden McGoogan from The Black Heart Breakers who also found himself in Hospital this past week – Get yourselves fit and health please gents and I’m sure I speak for all the writers at RPM in wishing you both speedy full recoveries.
There was also some superb festival news as The Dead Boys were announced as headliners for this year’s Rebellion Festival in Blackpool along with Walter Lure who will be playing L.A.M.F. at the festival and across the channel in Belgium Sjock Festival announced a raft of superb bands added to this years festival including RPM favourites The Hip Priests and Barstool Preachers who play alongside The Hives, Hellacopters, Electric Frankenstein, the Briefs and Gluecifer. To be fair news wise last week was a bumper week for great rock n roll news.
Anyway, that was last week on RPM and as we are always looking forward here’s what you can expect this coming week on the website. We’ve got a couple of bumper interviews with the likes of Slyder from Last Great Dreamers as they announce a lot of dates for 2019 in what appears to be a hugely busy year for the band. Also, we have a monster interview with “Demons” Matheus Carlsson which should see your Friday seem a lot more enjoyable as we spoke about the past present and future of the band in what also looks like a great year for the band.
As for album reviews we’re once again scouring the globe for great bands and we’ve certainly got those coming at you with the debut long player from ‘Wet Dreams’ reviewed today by Johnny H and there is also the long-awaited long player from Jim Jones & the Righteous Mind’ coming later this week as ‘CollectiV’ has certainly been entertaining RPM HQ and what will be one of the years top albums no question about that. We also look back on some significant happenings this coming week in punk, rock and pop music history so keep it RPM folks for all your turbocharged Rock n Roll!
Its surely just pure coincidence but in the same month that the game-changing Sub Pop recordings by Green River get a long overdue vinyl reissue this ten-track debut from the – as of right now -unknown Norwegian garage punk rockers Wet Dreams lands on my desk.
What’s the connection I hear you ask? Well, nothing really other than this Wet Dreams album sounds like it could have been recorded as a follow up to ‘Dry As A Bone’, it really is that amazing.
Formed in 2017 and running concurrently with his day job fronting the power poptastic Death By Unga Bunga. Wet Dreams is the sound of Sebastian Ulstad Olsen turning up the Super Fuzz to 11 whilst rejoicing in the melodic delights of sixties psych. Joining him on this journey to the centre of the brain drain are members of FOAMMM, Warp Riders and De Marvells and having already played festivals in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway you really get the feeling that this is more than just a side project for all those involved
One listen to the album’s lead track ‘Bad Boy’ confirms this, as not only is this a track accompanied by the ludicrous type of video that Unga Bunga specialise in, but also this bad boy (ouch) literally screams along on a buzzsaw guitar riff complete with overdriven vocals that are also oh so sugary sweet, and this evoking the sound of garage punk at its infectious lo-fi best.
It also process to be the perfect appetizer for the full album, with tracks like ‘Blueslata’, ‘Band-Aid’, ‘Radioactivity’ and ‘Roliglata’ all coming on like long lost ‘Nuggets’ or ‘Pebbles’ tracks with certain hints of The Mary Chain and Unga Bunga’s recent UK tour mates Ash all thrown in to the melting pot.
‘Her’ and ‘Blueslata’ up the ante in the overdrive department and both showcase Wet Dreams at their hard-rockin’ best mixing in some Sabbath and Quo whilst still managing to sound like neither of them and thus reinforcing the musical alchemy going on here. Elsewhere ‘Depression’, ‘Beautiful’ and album closer ‘I Told You/Drugs’ display a more out and out punk influence albeit one laced with that essential shot of power pop.
With a running time of 25 minutes, this ten track album takes the old cliché of all killer no filler and rams it down the throat of anyone thinking this is anything other than a full-on garage rock record from a band who are very much looking to take things to the next level with dates in Norway, Europe and the US already being pencilled in for the rest of 2019.
Released at the end of March you can pre-order your copy of ‘Wet Dreams’ via the record label website or via Wet Dreams’ Bandcamp page both of which are linked below.
Always nice to get a Monday morning off to a good start well it won’t get any better than this slab of punk rock from Norway. Wet Dreams indeed get these bad boys on your radar asap.
Wow is it really 30 years? Seems like a great time to watch this great song and video again and hope the reissue delivers some great bonus material. ‘Love Junk’
Finally with a new song up on Bandcamp but no video we thought it only fair to show this bad boy which guarantees to kiss any Monday morning right between the eyes take it home boys and turn up the speakers because its Watts with enough Kiss references to satisfy Gene and his payola machine. take it away gents
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