The Kettering Vampires - perform Nico & The Velvet Underground

Kettering n. - The pattern left on one's posterior from sitting too long in a wicker chair 
Vampire n. - Iain Duncan Smith

The Kettering Vampires have nothing to do with either definition, nor, disappointingly, are they from Kettering. Welcome to an alternate universe where "Blodwyn P. Teabag records some overdubs on a tune called Shit Weasel", bands are called things like The Thurston Lava Tube, and there is a cult around a long extinct band called The Deep Freeze Mice. This is all the fault of a bloke called Alan Jenkins, as indeed are "The Kettering Vampires". Alan came up with this name for a band that were previously called The Otter Sandwich. According to Alan "A couple of the guys have a history in the business - usually when somebody tells me they have a history I have to send out some hired bastards to erase all trace of it". Alan's name is on the cover because "a record with my name on it automatically ensures seven figure sales and a Grammy". Well, it didn't work for Warhol, so why not?

This is all true.

Guitarist Lenny Ninja Snake here leads his creatures of night on an album covering the iconic Warhol album in a surf stylee, with the track list backwards, and a pear replacing the banana, natch. Lenny, who is part Scotch used to be a balloonist on Pavonis Mons, until his mum told him there was a future impersonating Dick Dale, which Len carries off with no little panache. Transported to Earth to make cheap Top Of The Pops covers albums in the 1970s, Lenny, an anarchist at heart famously drenched Litlle Jimmy Osmond tunes with "twelve minute feedback solos".

Keyboard player Neil Ska, so called because his mum christened him Neil, plays a nifty line in Farfisa organ wheezees and things that go "screeeee". He's a dustman in the real world, his "four O Levels" coming in useful when determining who can be fined for putting some wrong shit in the wrong recycling box. Neil studied "at De Montfort University under Dave Bartram of Showaddywaddy".

Bass player Jack Darkness has been known to spit his own weight in tobacco chews, when not helping Lenny dismantle journalists' psyches, or breaking their knees. Famously attired in shiny boots of leather, it was his idea to mix up the surf with a bit of ska on The Ketts' languidly slack-jawed version of Venus In Furs, that lights up this album like a 40 watt energy saving bulb, taking about 28 minutes to get into gear, or so it seems. Jack also plays a Prepared Bass Guitar. This means it is in tune.

Did I tell you about drummer Minnie Bannister's socks? No? That'll have to wait, then. Minnie, a hirsute woman in her mid 70s is surprisingly adept at catching mice, with spoons, which she also uses in place of drumsticks, to some effect on the appealingly proplapsed take of I'm Waiting For The Man. She plays Prepared Ostrich Spoons. This means the ostrich was cooked.

That was all one barefaced lie.


Tracklist:
1. European Son (2:24)
2. The Black Angel's Death Song (1:34)
3. I'll Be Your Mirror (4:13)
4. There She Goes Again (2:52)
5. Heroin (15:05)
6. All Tomorrow's Parties (3:06)
7. Run Run Run (4:22)
8. Venus In Furs (5:30)
9. Femme Fatale (2:17)
10. I'm Waiting For The Man (4:02)
11. Sunday Morning (3:20)

Total running time - 49:14


Line up:
L. Ninja Snake - Lead Guitar, Ostrich Guitar
Neil Ska - Organ, Prepared Piano, Ostrich Prepared Piano
Jack Darkness - Bass Guitar, Prepared Bass Guitar
Minnie Bannister - Drums, Percussion, Spoons, Ostrich Spoons, Prepared Ostrich Spoons

Links:
Buy this, and other jolly good nonsense, HERE