Alternative Tentacles Indierock | Alternative 9 Items

Alternative Tentacles Records and Crispin Glover Records is proud to present Punch, a new split 7-inch from Patrik Fitzgerald and Motorpsycho featuring Jello Biafra both performing Fitzgerald’s classic song, “Punch.” Patrik Fitzgerald is an English singer-songwriter, known for being one of the originators of the Folk Punk movement. Ranked as one of the most memorable of the so-called “punk poets” he first debuted in 1977 and has become known for his unique combination of punk outrage with a streak of optimism. Originally writing the song “Punch” in 1980, shortly after Margaret Thatcher had been elected Prime Minister of Great Britain, Fitzgerald had this to say about the song; “At the time that the song was written, it seemed like the worst type of person to be in charge of a country would be a right wing monster like Margaret Thatcher or a dangerous ex-actor / reactionary like Ronald Reagan, a bit of a joke figure, but also a gun-toting and gun promoting right wing monster. Nobody might have expected that, by the early 2020s, the world would end up in the hands of actual clowns like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, people written off by their own public as comedy buffoons, people to laugh at but not take too seriously.”

At last! The Darts return from their Bat Cave Covid lair, with Snake Oil—by far their best album to date. The Darts formed in 2016 with the goal of getting some solid female musicians together to make garage punk rock and roll noise, see the world, and basically have a super-fun slumber party every night. They are now hands down one of the best garage bands in the world. This is a much fuller sound than any Darts disc before, courtesy of their longtime collaborator Bob Hoag (FB Rec) and some remote control co-production wizardry from Jello Biafra himself. Featuring the return of Nicole Laurnne on vocals / Farfisa and Hammond organ, Christina Nunez on bass / vocals, and Meliza Jackson on guitars / vocals, Snake Oil is the debut of new drummer Mary Rose Gonzales. The result? It comes out smoking as if the band had been in a pressure cooker throughout the pandemic. Expect the wider sound and sparkle of Laurnne and Nunez’s previous band, The Love Me Nots (which was also recorded by the brilliant Bob Hoag), but with way more raunch—and Laurnne’s voice has never sounded better. Snake Oil is for fans of agile, sultry vocals and beefy, vintage rhythm sections paired with razor-tone guitars. This Snake Oil was concocted to remedy the most unaffected and stiff-legged garage rockers out there!

Nazm sees Jucifer deploy their familiar studio tactic: writing, arranging, producing, engineering, and playing all instruments themselves to create a sprawling concept album. This time, it’s to celebrate their shared love for the Middle East and North Africa (mena) and central / south / west Asian traditional and pop music cultures with fourteen highly textured, intensely personal and passionately delivered original songs. Fans of the band likely know they can expect surprises with each album, as well as recordings which differ drastically at times from their live sound. In this tradition, Nazm strays far from the brutal excess of a Jucifer show (and of their recent releases Futility and District Of Dystopia) but, as with all Jucifer’s recordings, the point is not to imply any static trait of the band but instead to bring to life a story they’re telling.

The infamous, explosive Southern wrecking crew The Legendary Shack Shakers are back with a brand new full-length titled The Southern Surreal. Their first release in five years, the album lands on the band’s 20th anniversary and is their Alternative Tentacles debut. In conjunction with its release, the band will tour across much of the United States and Europe this Fall.

The Legendary Shack Shakers’ incendiary interpretations of the blues, punk, rock and country are all-at-once irreverent, revisionist, dangerous and fun. Built upon a haunting, Southern Gothic theme, The Southern Surreal is a fifteen-track set featuring regular band members Colonel JD Wilkes (vocals, harmonica, banjo), Rod Hamdallah (electric guitar), Mark Robertson (electric and upright bass) and Brett Whitacre (drums), with guest appearances by actor / musician and longtime Shack Shakers fan Billy Bob Thornton, and Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Denison.

Yet another rockin’ new direction from the label that can’t stop expanding its….well,…Tentacles! Meet Kultur Shock—multinational ‘Gypsy Punk’ pioneers, led by irrepressible ball of energy and good cheer, Gino Yevdjevich. Gino was quite the mainstream pop star in his native Bosnia (and the Balkans), when the shelling of Sarajevo began, trapping him in his family’s apartment for two years. He was finally able to flee, first to New York, then on to Seattle. Instead of reviving his pop career, Gino chose (a full plunge) to reinvent himself, reaching deeper into his heart and Balkan roots, and Kultur Shock was born! They began playing slightly electrified Traditional Folk, to a growing refugee audience, including many a dancing Serb. The fan base quickly widened to Krist Novaselic and Vic Bondi, among others, who then drew in Jello Biafra. - Then something happened - A year or two later, they debuted in San Francisco to a sold-out audience at the Bottom of the Hill, packed with almost all refugees and migrants - and a much louder, heavier Kultur Shock. Lineups hail from all over Eastern Europe, Seattle, and even Japan; with a much wilder, more theatrical Gino as ringmaster of all he surveys. A more punked-out, direct version of their close friends and cousin, Gogol Bordello, Kultur Shock mixes Balkan folk melodies and bizarre meters with face-melting metal and blood-pumping punk rock in a pagan cauldron of lyrical, obnoxious, and politically irreverent music stew since 1996. The band released its first three studio records produced by FNM’s Bill Gould on his KoolArrow Records – Fucc the INS (2001 and 20th-anniversary re-master in 2022), Kultura- Diktatura (2003), and We Came To Take Your Jobs Away (2006). Since 2007, Kultur Shock is self-produced and self-released on its own label, Kultur Shock Records. It released Live in Europe (2007), Integration (2009), Ministry Of Kultur ( 2011), Tales Of Grandpa Guru, vol. 1 EP (2012), IX (2014), Live At Home ( 2016), and D.R.E.A.M. (2019). So here to start is Kultur Shock’s Alternative Tentacles 7” debut. To break the ice and dangle the carrot for our eclectic Tentacle fan base, and reintroduce the now post-Covid Kultur Shock, as they head back across the Atlantic, for their main audience and festival dates, and Stateside down the road. “King” and “Country Mohammed” have been live show favorites for some time, and Alternative Tentacles is pleased to showcase them to our audience. With an all-new album is in the works, with hopefully more vinyl reissues of their past CD-only albums to follow, Kultur Shock is here to stay. We love them so much, it’s the Second band with this name on Alternative Tentacles: Dick Lucas’ Culture Shock is the first!

Described as a ’60s garage rock band performing as a mini-orchestra stuck within a Tarantino film, Los Angeles-based Spindrift is a cinematically inspired rock band that has also been described as “Heavy Western” or “psychedelic spaghetti-western rocknroll.” Led by songwriter-producer-composer Kirpatrick Thomas on guitar and lead vocals, along with Portland-based guitarist Becca Davidson, bass/baritone guitarist, producer, and vocalist Riley Bray, and aerospace engineer JOE Zabielski on drums and electronics, Spindrift creates a cinematic scope that has been heard on their compilation albums like Classic Soundtracks Vol 1, 2, and The West (released by Xemu Records), HBO’s Eastbound & Down (Seasons 1 & 2), the Quentin Tarantino-produced biker exploitation film Hell Ride, the film Diablo (featuring Scott Eastwood), and “The Ballad of Darrell Lemaire” from Season 1 Episode 9 of Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia (Viceland). Classic Soundracks Vol. 3 is their tenth studio soundtrack compilation album, co-produced by Riley Bray and Jello Biafra, it completes a trilogy of themes from various feature films, documentaries, and TV mini-series. This final installment reveals a new level of maturity from the band, opening doors to new genres including espionage-esque Bond themes, upbeat guitar duets, “Italian Polizia” car chase electronica, hard rock from the Middle East, psychedelic disco, and progressive “kung fu” rock.

Join those Legendary Shack Shakers as they mark their 25th anniversary as a band on Planet Earth—to celebrate the occasion, they’ve invited former members to help them record an all country & western album! From spaghetti western to bluegrass, western swing to rockabilly, Tex-Mex to country folk, the variety of the genre is on full display. Always ones to respect their history, the Shack Shakers have also included some Kentucky local legends to “pick and grin”. Hotshots such as Stanley Walker (Grand Ole Opry band leader for Jean Shepard and guitarist for Sun Studio’s “Rockin’ ” Ray Smith) and Jack Martin (dobro-player for Lester Flatt) really give those “young ‘uns” a run for their money. And the always-ornery “Hillbilly” Bob Prather (Louisiana Hayride fiddler and running buddy of Opry star Onie Wheeler) pitches in too. Just add The Dead Kennedys’ Jello Biafra, hillbilly royalty Chris Scruggs and an Old Crow Medicine Showman and you’ve got a recipe for what could only be a Legendary Shack Shakers masterpiece. Titling it Cockadoodledeux was done, admittedly, to bookend 2002’s Cockadoodle-Don’t, an album by which many fans were first made aware of the group. However, it also serves to signal the start of another twenty-five years! Just as the plucky, two-headed chick emerges from the egg on the cover, so too begins a fresh start for the band’s creative energies. Once again, generations of fans—both young and old—get to lean in, listen and expect the un-expected.

What do you get when Jello Biafra & 3 of the Zen Guerillas attack 2 songs for a Reverend Horton Heat compilation? You get this aural ass-kicking of a 7-inch!

The A-side is their scathing take on the classic rockabilly tune, "Jezebel," while the B-side is their version of the Rev's awesome tune "Speed Demon!"


The cover art is hand-picked by Jello- and if you think the topless blonde with the dog is striking, wait 'til you see the other side.