Well, look what the stray cats dragged in!
You can dismiss Red Hot Riot as simply copycats if you want but the band deserve so much more. They are street-smart with an inherent sense of fun and I make no excuse for singling them out…
The latest single Move to LA deals with a very modern phenomenon: how many of us spend too much time on social media? Furthermore, how many of us spend too much time fabricating the perceived ideal life; posed, primped and photo-shopped photographs that portray a purr-fect lifestyle. Against a jangly rockabilly backdrop, like the cat that got the cream, we are treated to social commentary and knowing irony from a band discovering their own voice. Know anyone that has declared, just for effect or embellishment that for instance they might move to LA to live?
Live, Red Hot Riot’s performance is animated and lively just like their home-grown rockabilly music. It is all about the verbs. The strings are strummed, notes are plucked and the chords are taken for a walk. The double-bass is slapped, smacked and whacked. The drums are pounded and pulverised…like an afternoon state of the nation address it is not easy to capture totally just what is going on but for the Riot and their verbs, it’s all about the doing! These singles for me, don’t and can’t, capture the live show – how can they? – and I would like that to go on record.
The “recorded video” is a one dimensional take and contains a young dungaree clad “bobby-soxer” surrounded by vinyl records in a record store. I don’t wish to offer up a cheap pseudo- psychology study but it would appear our young band is only interested in music and pony-tailed girls…throwaway I know and I wouldn’t want to dismiss them as single-minded alley cats!
A catty comment spied under a Stray Cats video on Youtube simply states: “When music used to be fun.” The comment glinted like a cat’s eyes at night caught in a neon headlight. In the parlance of twitter, I’ll just leave it there…
By: The Psychobilly Kat
Sleeve artwork by Em Palmer Designs