This has been a sweet week for the discovery of rock ‘n’ roll. A week ago I’d never heard of the Chin-Chins or even had the notion of Swiss punk rock.
And a week ago I’d never heard of a rock ‘n’ roll band from Nashville called Hans Condor.
So far I haven’t found a copy of the Chin-Chins’ album, so I’m stuck playing the tunes one at a time on YouTube, which is fine, but after fixing Google Music All Access or whatever it’s called, the Hans’s Sweat, Pizz, Jizz & Blood went into heavy rotation. It is a fantastic piece of guitar rock songwriting, crudely recorded and lacking a real rock singer (he’s a shouter), but the band is so good and clever with the arrangements that these awesome swingy arrangement-y things emerge from the murk and remind me, anyway, of all the history of this music these guys are playing the life into. SWJ+B was released in 2010, shortly after which the band broke up. They’re now back together, with a new drummer named Ryan Sweeney, and I suspect he won’t be quite as punchless as the similarly named outfielder who recently played for the Cubs. Here’s an interview with a blog called West Ghost Media. They seem like nice guys who write rocking songs with good lyrics.
I posted what may be the album’s best song and the best video the other day, but the album is full of delights. I feel like this is the album the Box Tops would have made if they were starting today, rather than 50 years ago. Or maybe the album the Replacements would have made if they were starting out today, rather than 30 years ago.
The same love of soul and country music, filtered through a rock ‘n’ roll heart.
Here’s a tune called I Can Make Lots of Money.
Founding member here and helped name the band, we started off with Charles on a wine red Gibson Les Paul studio, Brandon on drums, and I borrowed a Beatles-style bass that could only hold 3 strings (E, A. D). We played extremely drunk (At least I did) and great rock n roll, including a song I wrote, “Basketball Blues” that I sang (screamed) which was never recorded. Brandon the drummer used to yell “Hans Condor Hess Neow Furr Burger!!” I think we may have embarrassed Charles. I haven’t heard from him in many many years. We used to play the Springwater many many times. I eventually quit and joined Across Tundras (2009-2011) then quit and moved back to my tiny hometown.