The Bent Scepters, Hellevator Music (Ginger Rds

The Bent Scepters, Hellevator Music (Ginger Rds CD)

The Bent Scepters are a five-piece from Iowa City, US of A, which should quickly catch a few willing ears around Madrid or Cologne if they keep recording material such as what can be found on their brand-new second CD album Hellevator Music. Surfing on their website you'll find references to the usual 60's milestones, from The Electric Prunes to The Kinks or The Zombies, but there is more to it than that and the combo is everything except one more "just okay" revival garageband : think The Smugglers, instead, in a poppier vein, or Duotang with guitars, in other words some real good 60's-influenced music with a mod/punk 70's boost, a 90's twist, and a penchant for good weird fun!!

The guys got together in the early 90's after the demises of their previous bands, The Dangtrippers and Head Candy, two powerpop/r'n'r bands that some might be a bit familiar with if they went through several copies of the 91' Alex Chilton Tribute on Munster Rds (they did In the street and Thank you friends - the 'Trippers were also on the Australian Plimsouls tribute), and they started doing the usual gigcircuit in Iowa City and as far as Chicago, St Louis or Minneapolis, after having recorded their first tapes, the Bikinis, Guitars and Martinis cassette, as bait. They soon became a favourite live act and went back to the studio to record a few singles and their first CD longplayer, the self-released Blind Date with Destiny (Prescription Rds - 1996), which was then re-released in '97 on a Los Angeles label, Bizarre Planet, with 8 new songs and some of the old ones taken off.

Their second and latest album is thus this hot Hellevator Music CD, released in '99 on a way kool Chicago label called Ginger Rds. The 12-track kicks off with the very good mod, farfisa-driven High Flying Bird but really shifts into gears with the two following tunes, Mindrocker (ass-shaking geetar & harmonica duels and lyrics full of "Waw-yeahh!!!" to shout along to) and Stand In Line (you start dancing The Fly and The Watuzi and your cat looks at you as if you just fell through a hole in the 5th dimension), and then you are off for a r'n'r joyride to Swingtown with more top-notch songs such as Above The Law, Frank Zappa's Trouble Everyday (one fine example of their versatility and good taste), or their ode to automobile reliability, the bitchin' My Toyota!!!  

Don't know what the latest line-up (led by brothers Dan and Doug Roberson, vocals & guitars) is up to right now but if these guys ever decide to cross the Atlantic I 'll make sure to catch 'em live - I bet they are quite suave on stage! and I'll try to grab their earlier recordings, as, from what I read of their promo material, these are more than worth checking out.

(First published May 1998, Real Kool Trash Newsletter #8, printed version)