Southern Culture On The Skids is rock’n’roll band mixing surf, rockabilly, garage, country music, swamp rock (and more). The band consists of Rick Miller (guitar), Mary Huff (bass) and Dave Hartman (drums).
Southern Culture On The Skids – Countrypolitan Favorites
YepRoc – Yep 2124
Oh Lonesome Me – Muswell Hillbilly – Funnel of Love – Wolverton Mountain – Rose Garden – Let’s Invite Them Over – Te Ni Nee Ni Nu – Tombstone Shadow – Have You Seen Her Face – No Longer a Sweetheart of Mine – Engine Engine #9 – Fight Fire – Tobacco Road – Happy Jack
In the mid-’90s, Web Wilder released a cover album called “Town and Country,” featuring songs made famous by country artists like Waylon Jennings and Buck Owens, as well as songs from the British invasion era, such as Small Faces’ “My Mind’s Eyes” and King Size Taylor’s “Short On Love.”
One year after the raw “Doublewide And Live,” SCOTS’s “Countrypolitan Favorites” followed a similar pattern. The band covered songs like The Who’s “Happy Jack” with a Celtic twist, The Kinks’ “Muswell Hillbilly,” Slim Harpo’s “Te Ni Nee Ni Nu,” and The Byrds’ “Have You Seen Her Face.” They transformed country songs into rock versions and turned British beats into bluegrass tunes, constantly surprising the listeners.
One of the band’s main inspirations is Creedence Clearwater Revival, which is well represented with “Fight Fire” from the Gollywogs days (available on the Nuggets compilation) and “Tombstone Shadow” (almost with bluegrass harmonies). You can also hear Fogerty’s guitar groove on the Nashville Teens’ “Tobacco Road.” Additionally, the band covers T-Rex’s “Life is a Gas” in an unexpected but well-executed blend of George Jones, Tammy Wynette, and Marc Bolan. They also do a faithful rendition of Roger Miller’s “Engine Engine Number 9,” adding a surf guitar solo in the middle, and put a rock spin on Don Gibson’s “Oh Lonesome Me.”
The standout performance on this album is Mary Huff’s vocal performance. While she demonstrated her singing abilities on previous albums, her singing is exceptional on tracks like “Funnel of Love” and her duet on “Let’s Invite Them Over.” Her rendition of Lynn Anderson’s “Rose Garden” is remarkable and steals the show. With “Countrypolitan Favorites,” SCOTS has proven that they can create a masterpiece with an all-cover album, making this one of their strongest and best efforts.
Southern Culture On The Skids – Girlfight
Sympathy For The Record Industry SFTRI 266CD
Girlfight – Whole Lotta Things – El Mysterioso – Twistin’ On A Red Hot Spike – Hey Chuck Berry – Wheels
Girlfight is a six-track mini CD/10” released in 1993. It consists of two instrumentals and four vocal numbers and is heavily influenced by the blues. The title track is a solid garage rocker with excellent guitar parts and vocals from Mary Huff. “Whole Lotta Things” has a Diddley beat with some added country twang. Bo Diddley’s influence is also present on “Hey Chuck Berry,” a revved-up version of the melody of “Hey Bo Diddley” that ventures into the Cramps’ territory with wild guitar and feedback. “El Mysterioso” is an instrumental with a screaming sax that would make the perfect soundtrack for a film noir or a spy movie set in a strip club. “Twistin’ (On a Red Hot Spike)” is a very dark number that almost sounds like an early Cure/post-Punk song in places (listen to the guitar). The EP ends with a loose cover of The String-A-Longs’ “Wheels” recorded “on a cassette deck in a garage somewhere in Orange.”
Southern Culture On The Skids – Southern Culture On The Skids
Lloyd Street Records [1985]
Bop Bop Bop/Primitive Guy/I Dig Tunnels/Psycho Surfing/Cocktail Song/Rockabilly Mud/Atom Age Trucker/Demon Death/Nothing Song
This is Southern Culture On The Skids’ debut album. The band started in 1983 when Rick Miller (guitar), whose father worked in a mobile-home factory, formed the band with original lead vocalist Stan Lewis, bassist Leslie Land, and drummer Chip Shelby. They released an EP, “Voodoo Beach Party”, which is now pretty rare (according to Miller, some copies sold for $100!!), soon followed in 1985 by their first full length simply called “Southern Culture On The Skids” and released on the Lloyd Street Records label.
This album is quite weird, and it’s hard to make the connection with the band that we now know as Southern Culture On The Skids. The main reasons are that Rick doesn’t sing, and the sound of the band and their inspirations come from just one source. Basically, you could resume this album as a cross between The Cramps, Tav Falco and a bit of Gun Club. It opens with a rockin’ instrumental (Bop Bop Bop) that is maybe the best track of the nine that compose this lp. The sound is more rockabilly (even if it’s a modern version of it) than the following albums. Lewis’s voice evokes Lux Interior but without the charisma and the power of the Cramps frontman. I can’t say this is a bad album. You find good ideas here and there, like the spooky “I Dig Tunnel”, in a vein similar to Eddie Noack’s Psycho, but to be honest, the main interest is the presence of Rick Miller and the fact that it is officially the first platter by Southern Culture On The Skids. Talking about a possible reissue on cd of this record, Miller answered to Butch Lazorchak, “If our popularity gets to the point where somebody can make some money off of them, I’m sure they’ll get reissued! At this point, I don’t have any reason to reissue them.”
This line-up lasted approximately until 1987 when Lewis left. The band continued, but soon after, Land also left the band. Mary Huff from The Phantoms, a Rockabilly band that opened for SCOTS, joined the combo. And the rest, as they say, is history…
