Sunday 20 August 2017

Bonkers for Bontempi...




JUST ROLLIN' ALONG.....


The 2006 release on Soundflat Recs.
It's curious but strangely reassuring, that even in todays clime of social media and Youtube etc that a personality such as Marcel Bontempi comes to the fore and generates (albiet limited)  a furore around a release, any release...Again, albeit limited and it hasn't slowed down over the last couple of years either. Having been 'adopted' by the 50's Rockin' crowd, fans of Americana Roots music and assorted folk who just dig 50's styled tunes that draw on the influences of Rockabilly & Western Swing in the main. This cat actually spent most of his performing years on the fringes of the Garage Punk circuits with his band The Montesas, a 60's Beat'Garage band that admittedly had a healthy dose of Rockabilly influence also, which isn't all that surprising considering some of his pre-Montesas recordings (all of which are super rare and equally expensive). As part of a Rockabilly trio, way back in the mid 90's Marcel was already writing his own material and playing guitar and the vocalist for 'Tijuana Tex & The Cowbones' covering the likes of Kip Tyler's 'She's My Witch' which appears on their sole vinyl EP.
In 1997, Marcel released his first solo 7" a hauntingly beautiful track called 'Deep Blue Sea' pre-dating Richard Hawley's trademark vocal stylings by a good 5-6 years...Well worth picking up if you ever see it and have a healthy bank balance !

Artwork for lost Migraine Recs release.
Sometime during late 2013, a bit of a disaster struck when the PC containg Marcel's archive recordings and recordings for upcoming releases suffered a major failure and the material stored on it was lost. With no back up saved and retrieval proving impossible, the tracks were gone. Among the lost recordings were the tracks 'No Club Lone Wolf' & 'Wolf Call' which were due to be released by the ever fine label Migraine Recs (Also home to the equally fine OHA Recs)...There were also a couple of other releases slated for around this time but the circumstances meant these would never see the light of day....Not in the form of the 'original' recordings anyway. The good news is that for the past couple of years, Marcel has been painstakingly re-recording the lost tracks, laying them down under the same conditions where possible, as the oriniginal recordings. So...The missing Migraine 7" will be coming out sometime in the not too distant future.

Out early Sept.
 And while we are on the subject...'Crawfish', the 7" released on OHA Recs a couple of months back !
That was crazy, our allocation at Trash Wax was sold out in a matter of minutes after mentioning we had copies available and the complete pressing run (only 250 copies) was gone in a matter of hours !
Good news is that Mr Bontempi is releasing a brand new track 'Bury All My Troubles' (co-written with the highly talented Paul Sheahan of The Sirocco Bros) with what is probably his most in demand track 'Dig A Hole' on the flipside. Released on his own label 'Twi Lite Recs' this 7" is already in high demand and probably sold out through the usual vendors BUT there will be copies available directly from Marcel on the day of the actual release sometime around the 2nd week of September and if that isn't enough for you ?  Fab label 'Stag 'O' Lee' in Germany will also be releasing a Bontempi 7" before the end of the year !  So keep your eyes peeled !

If you got this far down....Well done !

Shedload of cool slop, trash and rockin' nonsense as we like it here : www.trashwax.com

Stay Wild Peeps !