The Woolly Bandits
at the Press, Saturday, November 15
By: Jonny Whiteside
Here’s a blast from the shadowy rock & roll underground that you can’t afford to ignore. IE big beat troublemakers the Woolly Bandits, fronted by the striking shouter Chrysta Deeryn Collins, anchored by the thumping abandon of get-around bass brandishing wildman Rick “the Crusader” Collins, and lent plenty of extra altitude by lead guitarist Tracy Lee Skull, the band deliver a brain-pulping mixture of resolutely throwback garage-psychedelia, served with extra-spicy jumbo portions of farfisa, fuzz and distortion. They bring a mother of a set list, too, characterized by socially irredeemable original howlers as “I Like to Drink & Drive,” and such heavy-gauge covers as Syd Barrett’s quintessential psych-anthem “Octopus” and the Seeds’ “Pushin’ Too Hard.” But don’t roll your eyes as that last title—the “Crusader” himself has, er, enjoyed, a long, on-again, off-again alliance with Sky “Sunlight” Saxon, touring internationally behind Saxon in the latter-day, 21st century road version of the Seeds (and anyone who knows Sky also knows that such a relationship is based on equal parts revelatory experience and downright maddening high-jinks), affording Collins a wealth of untamed, insider insight which he does not squander on the bandstand. It’s most certainly worth noting, too, that ax-man Tracy Lee Skull began his musical life with the classic late 1970’s East Los Angeles punk rockeros Thee Undertakers, completing a wild, rebel hybrid that enables the Wooly Bandits to turn your head inside out within the course of a single number. That kind of accrued mastery, taken with the groups raw, upstart aggression, is the ideal formula for a hell-raising, kick-out-the-jams Saturday night. Expect nothing less. (Jonny Whiteside)
The Woolly Bandits at The Press, 129 Harvard St., Claremont, (909) 625-4808, Sat., Nov. 15., 10PM
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