Smokin’ Daggers and More – Thirsty Dog: December 17, 2022

Thirsty Dog Night is made up of four homegrown bands, who cover an eclectic mix of styles but ultimately make great, ferocious rock’n’roll.

The Loam Ranger

Let’s start with the wildest. The Loam Ranger is one incarnation of Willie McKay from the Manawatu. He’s a one-man band, electric guitar and kick-drum, and he has taken to heart the wild rockabilly men of Fifties Memphis, like Sonny Burgess and Billy Lee Riley. What the voice unleashes attempts to be crazier. Smashing through the songs as if possessed with that Wild Spirit of American music that Los Angeles punks X laid out in their best album.

First off is the Bill Monroe classic Muleskinner Blues. The tempo is a little slower, it sounds like country rockabilly with menace. Has a similar style to Alex Chilton when he starts to get seriously crazy and joyful at the same time. Yodellay Hee Hoo!

Diesoline Cowboy. He says it’s a waltz, and he sings about his Massey Fergusson. The Dillard’s description of Dylan in the mid-Sixties comes to mind. He sings like a dog with a leg caught in barbed wire.

The Ranger just keeps on getting better. He did study jazz performance and played in various professional outfits some decades ago.  Then he found this way of making his music connects to the wild, transformative nature of the beast. Shakes ‘em off as much as he brings ‘em in.

Of course, there has to be a Bo Diddley workout. It is Roadrunner, but there’s lots more tossed in, like a bit of Mumblin’ Guitar.

He works through some classic American artists. Jimmie Rodgers’ I’m Free from the Chain Gang Now sounds the closest he gets to conventional country.  

He asks for more cowbell on Subliminal Cowbell, and the audience obliges. Sounds like rockabilly Domino style, which ends up as country Bo Diddley.

Wolf Party has a John Lee Hooker stomp. Like to see me high? / I’m a hillbilly wolf.

What starts as grunge surf becomes This Train.

Swamp Stomp is a rockabilly raver in the best cow-punk fashion of Rank and File.

It’s great to see a one-man guitar and drums get real gone for a change.

Smokin’ Daggers

Smokin’Daggers are a three-piece rowdy rock’n’roll and rhythm’n’blues outfit from Auckland. They’ve been on the scene for a while, and I cannot tell you more about them, being the first time I have seen them. They do share the bass player with the Cthulus, later.

Time Bomb Hi Skool and Way You Touch has the sound of Sixties garage punk. Rough-as–guts rhythm’n’blues  in the wake of The Rolling Stones and Yardbirds.

I can hear lyrics legal high long goodbye on the faster metal punk of Loose Bones. Drums and bass supply a brutal and storming engine throughout their set. The drummer has a minimal set-up, more akin to a jazz or skiffle group.

Some heavy Led Zeppelin riffing introduces Koko Taylor’s Voodoo Woman. Then follow that with Etta James’ Just a Little Bit.

They rip through these songs with the speed and economy of The Ramones.

Brainwashed sounds like The Coasters if they added some punk energy to their sly, humorous take on comedy rhythm’n’blues.

They finish it at punk warp speed with covers of two Sixties cult classics, I’m the Face (Hi Numbers/The Who) and Wha’Cha Gonna Do About It (Small Faces).

Elliot and Vincent

Elliot is the young woman on drums, and Vincent on guitar has a slight resemblance to Jimmy Page. Not long out of high school, and easily the youngest people at the Thirsty tonight.

So, they have a White Stripes sound from when they were doing their Zeppelin thing. Repeated low register fuzztone guitar riffs and solid rhythmic underpinning.

They’re also the grandchildren of Bo Diddley the Originator. All the British heavyweights used his grooves as a template. He also lays claim to rap and punk. The only group that noticeably didn’t were the Beatles, unless you want to count P.S. I Love You, itself an homage to Peggy Sue.

The guitarist churns out the Cadillac assembly-line metal machine music. Firmly rooted in the hi-revving psychedelic sounds of Daevid Allen and occasionally some of the twang of Link Wray.

They’ve got their hearts in the right place and it will be interesting to see how they progress.

Cthulus

Cthulus are one of the best classic-sounding all-instrumental surf bands in New Zealand. That’s rhythm and lead guitarists, bass player and drummer.

They pretty much recreate the sound you hear on the best single volume collection of this timeless music. The Rhino Records 4-CD Surf box.

No frills on stage, just technically perfect. Like the lead guitarist’s fast double-picking.

They run through a lot of classic tunes like Bombora, Moment of Truth, Surfari. The best can evoke the feel of waves rolling and crashing on the wild west coast beaches.

Unknown Territory is a late-period Dick Dale number which also carries a bit of country twang.

Malaguena is an old tune which Richie Valens fashioned into surf. It also has the Eastern bells of Miserlou and Hava Nagila.

High quality rock’n’roll in the best of traditions on a wet night just before Christmas in Auckland’s Thirsty Dog. A Four Dog Night. That’s the Loam Ranger, Smokin’ Daggers, Elliot and Vincent and Cthulu.

Rev Orange Peel    

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Leonie Moreland

Smokin’ Daggers:

Loam Ranger:

Elliot & Vincent:

Cthulu: