11/09/2022 London SS & Dead Hombres @ The Dublin Castle

Another great night of rock 'n' roll at Camden's legendary Dublin Castle. Making their return to this venue tonight are Dead Hombres.

This lot kick out a dirty gritty raw version of 1950's rock & roll - with a hint of punk attitude. Guitarist Nigel seems to have now resigned himself to permanently handling vocal duties after they tried adding a new singer to the band earlier this year but it didn't work out.

I'm pleasantly surprised to hear 'Baby Moonrider' - a song from frontman Nigel's old band the Gasoline Queens with more than a hint of Dogs D'Amour about them. The rest of the band's set are originals with an authentic old school rock 'n' roll sound and understanding of the feel of music from that era.

Next up is a taste of rock 'n' roll from a much later era, but still decades in the past - the mid 1970's to be precise. This is actually a gig to promote the release of their first ever single 'Star' - it's only taken them 47 years! It is actually quite good though.

After the demise of "The greatest band you've never heard of" the influential and ahead of their time Hollywood Brats (for the full outrageous story read singer Andrew Matheson's brilliant book Sick On You) guitarist Brady formed a new band - using the ill-advised name London SS. This was before punk rock was even a thing, but the band contained future members of The Clash, The Damned, Generation X, and The Boys. The band never released anything and went through various lineup changes - falling apart before punk happened. In 2012 Brady reformed the band - with himself as the only original member. Hollywood Brats were effectively the UK's version of the legendary New York Dolls - although Andrew Matheson in his book claims they weren't actually aware of the New York band at the time. The new London SS lineup definitely owes something to the highly influential US band though.

In fact this new version of London SS sounds like it has more in common with the New York Dolls than the later British punk bands featuring ex-members. There is definitely more of a sleazy glam influence here - maybe partly because of having Taj from Paradise Alley on guitar alongside the legendary Brady. Basically this is a good fun rock 'n' roll band and worth seeing if you get the chance.