Bad Checks - Johnny Bring Your Girlfriend Home - 1985from Loretta Records EP "Graveyard Tramp"
from The Independent:
A mutant blues/punkabilly/garage rock outfit, Bad Checks was founded in 1980 by the Mann brothers, Robin and Clif. The old school rockers became one of the area's signature acts playing with about every important underground punk and alt-rock group of the time. Alternating between a laconic rumble with the despondent blues pulse of Jon Spencer and a muscle car guitar hum racing hell-bent for leather down old-fashioned rock-n-roll highways and unmarked dirt roads, the quartet sizzles like steak gristle cooking on V-8 manifold.
Bad Checks recording debut, the 1982 single "I'm Paranoid," was a pleasant enough bit of Ramone-ology. By the time of the follow "Graveyard Tramp" on their own Loretta label, the Durham band had grown to a foursome (three-fourths of which amazingly still holds together today) and developed its own compelling sound.
"Graveyard Tramp" was a masterpiece of growly menace that perfectly evokes its title and which has now been reissued on CD by Clif Mann's co-owned label Demonbeach. Somehow I've never had the chance to see them live and haven't heard any of their albums since the disappinting follow up, "Innocence." But "Graveyard Tramp" remains the supreme soundtrack of the Halloween holiday season.
Band members:
Robin Mann - guitar, backing vocals
Clif Mann - bass, percussion, backing vocals
Hunter Landen - lead vocals, percussion
Mike Griffin - drums, percussion, backing vocals
posted by Michael Slawter | 8:23 AM
3 Comments:
Really cool song. You're doing a great job with this. Thanks!
I saw the Bad Checks open up for the Dead Kennedys in Raleigh way back when. Blew me away. 17 became a DD hit on the radio.
The album cover of Graveyard Tramp features a photo taken in a Raleigh cemetary. Extra points to anyone who can name any of the girls in the pic.
I daresay anyone who spent any time in the scene in those days has 'done it' with one or more of the 'Tramps'. I know I did, and one of them was IN the graveyard.
At least one of the 'Tramps' deserves a post here... Sonar Strange. I will be surprised if any recordings of this seminal NC band exist, though I know they did a number of demos. Sonar (third Tramp from the left) and one-time Safehouse guitarist Terry McInturff campaigned their brand of H-fueled Southern Goth in such clubs as the long-defunct Fallout Shelter and the Brewery (they were better at the Shelter - most bands were).
Thanks, Sonar, for turning me on to Midnight Oil. Still sorry I didn't stay, and still think of you on Walpurgisnacht.
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