| Available through Surfdog Records, each one of these CDs was recorded on a different night during the Stray Cats 2004 European summer tour.Long You Wanna Live Anyway?Brian Setzer Orchestra) with school friends Lee Rocker (born Leon Drucker) and Slim Jim Phantom (born James McDonnell) in the Long Island town of Massapequa, New York.Formation and rapid UK success
2 Return to the U.His Comets, had little initial success in the New York music scene, and had to move to England before they saw any success at all within the nascent rockabilly revival there.After a gig in London, Stray Cats met producer Dave Edmunds, well known as a roots rock enthusiast for his work with Rockpile and as a solo artist.Stray Cats, released in England in 1981 on Arista Records.They were popular immediately, scoring three straight hits that year with "Runaway Boys", "Rock This Town," and "Stray Cat Strut."Stray Cats returned to the United States, signed with EMI America, and in 1982 released Built for Speed, a combination of their earlier LPs.Rant N' Rave With The Stray Cats, was almost as successful.MTV, "Rock This Town" and "Stray Cat Strut" both hit the American Top Ten, over a year after their British chart peaks.Stray Cats was seen as an avatar of retro style.In late 1984, Setzer broke up the band amid much bad blood.Americana sound on albums such as 1986's The Knife Feels Like Justice.In 1989, they reunited once again for the album Blast Off!This was their first North American tour in over 15 years.Stray Cats have reunited periodically for live performances.The Brian Setzer Orchestra.He has Seven Grammy nominations.Albums
Stray Cats (1981)
Gonna Ball (1981)
Built for Speed (1982)
Rant N' Rave with the Stray Cats (1983)
Rock Therapy (1986)
Blast Off!All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.Stray Cats is the first album from the rockabilly band Stray Cats.Stray Cats recorded a political song.This album has never been released in the United States.All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.Your search did not match any products.Too many keywords can constrain your search.If you want to specify which of your search terms should match the author's name and which should match the title, you should conduct an Advanced Search.Track your recent orders.View or change your orders in Your Account.You have no recently viewed items or searches.After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.Sign in to get personalized recommendations.You have no recently viewed items or searches.Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.If you always seem to pick up stray catsyou should know the best way to take
care of an injured
small
animal.Jets and the Polecats clawing at the charts.I'm sure they'd be happy to see a band of their ilk in the charts now!Jim McDonnell) in Brooklyn on 20th March and Leon Drucker, better known as Lee Rocker.Brian left in early '80 to join school pals Jim and Lee and form the Stray Cats.The following month, Runaway Boys was released as their first single and the rest his history.Slim Jim all over the skins.That Bottle Down with Lee Rocker taking over the vocals while Brian played his best Eddie Cochran licks.Dave Edmunds and the Stray Cats.Gonna Ball, Arista had them produce it themselves with help from Hein Hoven.London to the Air Studios in Monserrat in the West Indies.Miss Prissy commenced proceedings with a couple of guitar filled rockers.Disappointingly, it only made 57 before falling off the charts after three weeks.For one it's not an instrumental.Cats took this as a personal assault.States in December, performing on ABC TV and signing with EMI.Slim Jim and Britt Ekland.Sunday night, hour after hour of crap just to hear where they were.It was a great album and one that had us believing again.Mel Collins adding some meaty saxophone and Watkins filling out the sound with his piano.Now I love it because of Lee Rockers' brilliant beat and the galloping country sound.Won't Stand In Your Way followed.Thankfully, Brian won the argument and 14 Carat Soul were added.US singles chart, peaking at 35.It's a poor album but I won't sell it because Slim Jim looks like Joan Collins on the cover.Angeles which they produced themselves.Rock 'n' Roll Trio original.John Mellancamp than John Cash, not my cup of tea.Definitely the pick of the new songs.Bamba where he played a cameo role of Eddie Cochran.It was a part he'd been practising for years.Following years of non rockabilly solo ventures, April 1989 brought us Blast Off!The title track is a blast, a 100 mph rockin' start.Rockabilly Rules is a manic romp, great fun.Slip, Slip, Slippin' In was a mighty fine version of the Eddie Bond classic.Nine Lives was a jazzy Stray Cat Strut rewrite.Let's Go Faster on Liberation Records.Records release Choo Choo Hot Fish.Please Don't Touch and My Heart Is A Liar were really strong.Faster was an improvement.Lee and Slim Jim providing a frantic rhythm like the golden days and Brian playing some glorious guitar.That was pretty much it then as far as the Stray Cats goes.Lifetime Achievement Award from Gibson.Carl Perkins tribute at the House Of The Blues.Dave Edmunds joins them for The Race Is On.They would snigger at "sir" rambling on about Elvis and Shaky.Eagle records whilst skyving off during lunch.Could this be true, was Sir actually a hep cat daddy?Why had he started wearing lime green socks and those pointed shoes to class?Mind you I didn't risk taking any 78s to class, they were a vicious bunch for a church school!Stadium "Rock", U2 and the Boss (rhymes with Toss incidentally).The programme went as follows.Title music (Stary Cat Strut) plays.BS: When I was six years old I had three records were in my house.Beatles and Stones were doing.Long Island playing these things.It was aculture shock, but we were just ..Brian plays "air violin") he's playing lovelorn (?London, a club, or whatever, what do you do?"Ah, we don't know" we just kinda like Huckleberry Finn or something.Runaway Boys video plays.Runaway Boys was really just before that era.It happened to work on Runaway Boys.AP: Number two on the list here, Rock This Town.It was an all day affair.LR: Yeah that video was strange because that was a single in Europe, Rock This Town, and we never did a video for it, because at the time, like we were saying, videos weren't that important a thing and we wound up doing that video maybe a year and a half after it was a hit in Europe, in America, for MTV and the American market.Rock This Town video plays.Lee with the bass and I was tapping on a phone book or something and we just..England except Brain wrote that one in my garage.BS: The frustrating period was the backlash period.And that we couldn't understand.Hard to cope with isn't it really?Stray Cats who, and they had like forgotten about us overnight.Stray Cat Strut video plays.How did that relationship actually start?He knows more about that style of music than anyone we've ever met.LR: He's a rocker and he's a guitar player, a musician as well as a producer.Yeah, I don't have that problem anymore.Jim helped with the lyrics and it took a while to get right.In the bloody Caribbean.You worry so much about it.AP: Little Miss Prissy.Little Miss Prissy video plays.Coz that and Runaway Boys I think was.If it's too raw and it doesn't have any technology, well that's just like making a demo tape.SJ: It was done in New Orleans it was in the summer, it was like 104 degrees.Pretty much every town had a rockabilly band.English talent in the American charts?They put us in with that.BS: Yeah, especially France.It's still pretty big news here.LR: Oh yeah, Carl Perkins has come down to see us and we've played with him.AP: You must get a tremendous buzz out of that?And those people still play.AP: And you're had positive feedback from pretty well all of them.You're just like we were but in your own way.That's a great compliment.Rebels Rule video plays.LR: I don't think I've ever seen it.BS: It wasn't a full scale production video.SJ: It was a French TV show.That we were doing something you know.AP: Are you a great bike freak?Paris to London when I lived over in London.BS: That's probably one of our favourite tunes.Carat Soul, they didn't have record out then.But it never did hit it.BS: I'm very proud of that song.AP: What's the feeling like when it doesn't get in the top five.Is it a feeling of frustration?SJ: Mumble, mumble, mumble (laughs).And yet it was number 2 or something, a big hit.As far as the video goes, it's a pretty good video.There's a '49 Merc in there.Do you ever get away from the business?LR: Yeah you get away from the business.BS: Like I told you before I just kinda mess about with my bike.Look At That Cadillac video plays.Just like Eddie Cochran that is The Stray Cats are playing the perfect American teenage music.Eddie, they've become a Stateside phenomenon with LP sales of over two million.If he'd lived, maybe Eddie Cochran would have been as big as The Stray Cats.Like Brian Setzer, he played a pretty mean guitar.In contrast, The Stray Cats have taken to their limousine life.Well, I for one won't forget them playing one of the most exciting shows of my life.Brian is of a somewhat less angelic appearance these days.Brian Setzer is the ultimate professional popstar.Speed (compiled from the two British Arista albums) as confirmation that The Stray Cats are a con.The Stray cats make sense as idols.Baby Let's Play House sounds like Scotty Moore just sidled out of the wings to jam.Setzer isn't messing around.For The Stray Cats, rockabilly is not a bag of myths, simply a music.Stray Cats simply aren't riding that mystery train, and that is what their detractors cannot stand.Tonight and the Buddy Holly of Peggy Sue.This ain't pure teen heaven, but it sure ain't "febrile sexuality".The Stray Cats hail neither from the inner city nor the backwoods, but from suburbia itself.America like any other rock 'n' roll band does.Miami and back, stuffing ourselves with food, and all the time The Stray cats stay in their rooms.Slim "very much in love" Jim is with his Britt.Are you guys having fun?"I'm having a great time, I know that."Still silence from the blond one.Setzer stares at nothing."Er, this stuff about the rockabilly revolution that's sweeping America.Do you in fact, see any, um, quiffs outside of New York or LA?""What we do, I don't think is revival.Some people are starting to dress up, but it's really just the music.It's just good dance music, you know?"Except that in the beginning, the original rockabilly was quite quickly diluted into pop.Elvis joined the army, it was over, and next thing you had Fabian and the Twist.Brian: "It's a whole new thing, the kids think we are the first ones, and that's important."Brian: "I think that's kind of a warped viewpoint, really.Lee: "Everywhere in America is the same almost."Lee: "It's like in London, all the kids with pockets full of money (!Brian: "Yeah, it's like Bebop Harrell said he went to London and they wanted him to play Be Bop A Lula with brushes?Lee: "That's treating it like a museum piece.Brian: "Rockabilly, what we're doing, is in the back of everybody's mind, but it's never been done.Jamaicans in England and they can relate to the ska beat.Bebop Harrell and Bubba something or other.Jim: "The guy who screams ob Be Bop A Lula!".Brian: "All those guys have come down and met us at some point, and they're thrilled as shit for us.Brian: "Yeah, so that's the stuff I been listening to lately."Brian: "As a matter of fact, I'm pretty hot on the banjo.There was more blues on Gonna Ball than on the first album, more slide guitar.Lee: "The roots, what rock 'n' roll started from.Hank Williams and stuff, coz it's all so closely related to old blues things."Jim: "That's what I know best".Are you playing a white music, a white sound?Jim: "I guess it is, since we're white ."Brian: "I hate to start picking us apart like a doctor, you know.Y'know, it just comes out the way it does."Brian: "I think looks are part of my success.Las Vegas, and I woulda made a lotta money.Jim: "I guess Elvis was reallt the best when you come down to it."Brian: "Elvis was the best.Ponders with a grin) They do like that ballad, though."How much of the purist is there in The Stray cats?Brian: "I don't think you can go too far with it, y'know, but we do what hits us."Brian: "We were really getting fucked about pretty bad with Gonna Ball."The press there creates the fans.Besides, there wasn't a single on the album.There are very few bands that can actually override the press there.Jim: "They liked the song about the pussycat."I'd rather hear that than a lotta "new music".Lee: "But so much of that stuff is so polished, there's no loose ends, it's just like a perfect sound.Everything where it is, there's nothing raw about it."Brian: "Yeah, we're changing all that.The only difference is here they all like us, whereas in England they all hated us!"We sold two million fuckin' copies."But the giant corporations looking for another Stray Cats is exactly what could destroy it.Jim: "I think the kids can tell.Brian: "It got weird when I couldn't walk the streets.Lee: "Good old British reserve."Brian: " Yeah, a bit of restraint.Now, in America, I can't go out of my house.You got people hanging around outside your house trying to steal the garbage!Brian: "I think this band would have made it if the bottom had fallen out of the stock market.We're selling records down here in Florida.So something's going on.Jim: " Let's go play in the rain."John Walters on why the Strays met with wild enthusiasm.Boy George crowd, look strangely normal.Stray Cats, he now basks in the American sunshine, haing left England and its infamous weather behind him.To start with there's the wickedly chopped '51 Mercury that was used in American Graffiti."Big Daddy" Roth's workshop where it was painted and stripped.Stray Cats' most popular singles, and a very appropriate description of the driver.Cats' Rant 'n' Rave album cover.Quiffed college kids bopped till they dropped to the group's classic hits Runaway Boys and Rock This Town.Union Jack boxer shorts for a stroming version of Somethin' Else.Barney's Beanery, and spots two local characters, Big Tony and the Tattoo Kid, guzzling beer and playing pool."You're with some group, aren't you," he says, still staring.Stray Cats," says Setzer coolly."So what are you doing these days?"Setzer tries to ignore the remark.Big Tony pours himself another glass of brew andd turns to the Tattoo Kid."Those are the kind of guys I grew up with.Bob Dylan and Robert Plant.Has Brian Setzer begun to grow up or has he simply gone Hollywood?"From Long Island, it was an hour's trip to Manhattan.There weren't many musicains around.And for some reason, on Long Island I'm looked at with contempt.Stray Cats, and I took it when the Stray Cats broke up.I've always taken shit out there.Like, "What right does he have to think he's famous?There's no one here who's any good.Heartbreakers, producer Jimmy Iovine and Don Gehman, who produced The Knife Feels Like Justice.Setzer may have found a home, but his album shows that he is still finding his way musically.Nonetheless, the album establishes Setzer as a serious rocker.Stray Cats are far behind him now.The Stray Cats, of course, is a very sensitive subject with Setzer.When I get bored with things, I always go on to something new.Pretty heady experiences, to be sure."Basically, I called Lee on the phone and told him how I felt," he recounts.They wouldn't take my calls.Cats broke up," he says.When's your record coming out?So it frustrated me to no end.Stray Cats cut with journeyman guitarist Earl Slick.Setzer is taking a walk up to his hillside sanctuary.What matters is keepimg my integrity as a musician.Like, what the hell is David Lee Roth going to do now?You know, I think drugs are a waste of money.Pete (Farndon, the Pretenders bassist who died of a drug overdose).Guitar Player Sept 1983 (Rockabilly issue!"If rockabilly cool could only be inherited, Setzer would have nothing to worry about.Williams and his mam a devoted Elvis fan.At 14 he bypassed all current fads to model himself after an old photo of Eddie Cochran.The Stray Cats simple lyrics and danceable rhythms appealed to teds, punks, skinheads and rockers alike.Lotsa people put the cart before the horse.There's no effects involved there.Why does rab appeal to you?BS besides being really a guitarist's music, it's dance orientated.It's got all the aspects of great American music.SUN sessions it just blew me away.Did anyone teach you rab?Have you met any of the rab originators?BS Jammed with James burton recently, oh man it was great.Those guys came to see us in nashville and places like that.What were your earliest rab gigs?BS I couldn't get a gig doing rab, nobody would hire me , it was disco time!Was this the origin of the Stray Cats?BS Yes that's the origin all right.The band members would rotate constantly.How did the Stray cats come together?BS These two cats started coming down all greased up and looking real cool.They played drums and stand up too!You were in the Bloodless Pharaohs?Did the hard times continue there?In London we slept in Hyde park or in bum hotels.Dave Edmunds and the Stones came to see us.BS It was hard to believe actually.To see your name in the paper was a real kick.Places where rab had never died.Bri and his beloved gretsch on the cover.BS I think it's great with all these new rab bands coming out.Listen to that stuff but don't rely on it too heavily.Try to build your own style. |
