#JOHN SCHOOLEY & THE REVELATORS

[dustedmagazine]

Rocket 808 — House of Jackpots (12XU)

House Of Jackpots by Rocket 808

This is the second album for one-man blues/drum-machine phenomenon Rocket 808, and, like the first, it’s a volatile combination of the primitive and the mechanical. “Under Surveillance” opens the argument the rickety pulse of manufactured drums, the blaring wail of electric guitar.  From the blues, proprietor John Schooley borrows a nodding, tranced repetition, as reiterated phrases drone out of focus in long lingering bent notes. From dance he imbibes an antic lo-fi agitation. When a burbling synth erupts mid-way through the track, it’s like John Lee Hooker trying to find a groove at a mid-1990s Chicago house session. Yet the even the electronic elements have a rusted out, weathered air. The beat cavorts, the music moans, and it’s like a glimpse at some dusty, power-outage future, where robots hunch over warped 78s.

Schooley first came into view in the Revelators, a punk blues band that recorded just once in the late 1990s on Crypt. The one-man set up, by its nature, pulls him away from that older band’s volume-warped fidelity to the blues template—and towards a hybrid of Suicide’s eerie synth punk and, say, Bob Log III. “Nazare” juxtaposes Link Wray’s lingering, rumbling chords with the trebly swish of fabricated high hat. A desolate plastic unreality reins in elemental sounds. “Long Stretch of Desert” strips the blues to twitch-y head-butting reiteration, the da-dum, da-dum, da-dum like a surgically implanted heart beating. The guitar notes stick, then vibrate like darts in the board.

The last time Dusted wrote about Rocket 808, our reviewer (long gone, if it matters) saw Schooley’s blues-synth amalgam as a not-very-successful party trick, but I sense something deeper going on. The old tech that Schooley uses is just as obsolete as the radiating ephemerality of his whammied surf chords. There are no cowboys, no djs, no blues, no disco anymore. In fact the whole town’s empty and the neon signs are pocked with dead spots, and still the long sad wail of blues drifts over from somewhere, chasing a hobbled mechanical beat.

Jennifer Kelly

[burlveneer-music]

Urban Junior - Urban et Orbi

One Man Band - Switzerland - A twisted trip into a synthetic world of Electro Clash Garage Punk, Blues Trash, ’80s New Wave Death Disco and raw Electro Punk! URBAN JUNIOR plays SYNTH, GUITAR, DRUMS, an 80s Beatmachine & sings thru a worn out megaphone…SIMULTANEOUSLY!!

Stefan Frühmorgen aka Urban Junior is from Zurich in Switzerland who started his music career 'beliefe it or not' in the end 90's, in a Boy-group called HNO. but he changed big time and we present you his third long player on Voodoo Rhythm Records, he had a creative brain atom explosion during the Corona period and we had to choose these 14 killer tracks from 35 great songs, the impact of which can hardly be topped, they tell you the stories of dishonour and punishment, sadness and the rudimentary everyday life of a punk rock one man band star The Stupidity of punk and the simplicity of techno combine the despairing soul of the blues. this man has everything in one! Urban Junior is a musical and physical phenomenon. This is higher level electro trash garage boogie disco blues punk, second to none Super unique. the lyrics are a poetic revelation between frenzy, fear, anger, sadness and hope. Urban et Orbi - 14 brand new bangers. Crunchy and creamy, Stompy and Screamy, Stitchy Itchy and Streamy...whatever he does, he kills it!!! p.s. The whole album is a personal attack and a comeback, C.C.S. for example, a personal statement is against cancer Urban et Orbi is written, composed, recorded and mixed by Urban Junior Stefan Frühmorgen, the Urban From the Orbi living in the Urbi exept ‚everyday can get you down‘ written by John Schooley

[bandcampsnoop]

11/29/19.

Driving music I wish I had today. It wouldn’t have been a crowd pleaser, but there were stretches of I-5 where it would have been the perfect soundtrack. 

Following a late 2018 debut 7", 'Rocket 808' is the eponymous debut LP from the latest brainchild of John Schooley, a guitarist with an impressive resume in the American underground going back a couple of decades with bands including but not limited to the Revelators, the Hard Feelings, John Schooley's One Man Band and Meet Your Death. This, however, might be his most daring gambit to date. Combining the primitive analog drum machine of 1970s New York underground icons Suicide with the snarl and twang of guitar progenitors Link Wray and Duane Eddy, Rocket 808 has created a unique aesthetic mixing minimalist proto-punk noise and roots guitar into a new futurism, finally giving us the tomorrow with flying cars we were promised in 1950s EC Comics, Blade Runner, and back issues of Popular Mechanics.

I would add there is also something akin to Snapper and Peter Gutteridge.

[allmusic]

ALLMUSIC STAFF PICK

The Revelators We Told You Not to Cross Us February 25, 1997 Punk A set of monophonic blues-punk so raw it could give you trichinosis, the Revelators' first and finest album, 1997's We Told You Not To Cross Us, is a Dixie-fried blast of heart, soul, and bad attitude. Build around the wailing guitar of John Schooley, the unrelenting drumming of Mark Walters, and blast-furnace vocals of Jeremiah Kidwell, this is one of the rare examples of a band sounding even more dangerous than they probably intended.

- Mark Deming

[dustedmagazine]

Rocket 808 — Rocket 808 (12XU)

Rocket 808 by Rocket 808

Rocket 808’s eponymous full-length debut pairs Link Wray’s guitar with Martin Rev’s drum machine, and the results are about the sum of those parts. Plenty of albums communicate their influences more clearly than anything else. Rocket 808 is one of them, and guitarist, vocalist, and drum machine operator John Schooley (also of Meet Your Death) doesn’t try to pretend otherwise. (There’s a cover of “Ghost Rider” for good measure.) His obvious affection for the source material and dextrous playing make for a listen that’s often fun, if not very memorable.

At its best, Rocket 808 is like happening upon an especially lively, talented street performer. The album is a fine demonstration of Schooley’s proficiency in his chosen style of guitar. Also, there happens to be a drum machine. As a creative choice, it’s a simple anachronism. The programmed beats are simply there, where a live drummer would normally be, as if Schooley picked up a drum machine to accompany his act out of convenience. If he intends to exploit the menacing, mechanical pulse, like Suicide famously did, that doesn’t quite come across. When live drums (from Orville Neely of OBN IIIs) show up halfway through the closing title track, they complement his guitar playing at least as well. 

Schooley’s use of repetition, one of Suicide’s most effective tools, doesn’t always make his compositions more powerful. Some tracks sound languid rather than driving and forceful. The slowest predictably drag. The album peaks whenever Schooley lets go and shreds — often the reward for sitting through a prolonged buildup. Rocket 808 is also an example of how a minimal setup can backfire and just sound thin. When a second guitarist joins Schooley on a few tracks, the results are distinctly fuller. Rather than demonstrating versatility within his self-imposed limitations, Schooley tries out a few approaches for his concept, some of which work better than others. His vocals, which are perfectly competent and appropriate, show up on his covers of “Ghost Rider” and Ersel Hickey’s “Goin’ Down That Road,” as well as the title track. His decision to sing on that original and not the others seems a bit arbitrary. The idea to meld Link Wray and Suicide is a clever one, which suggests that this project has unrealized potential. Wray helped lay the foundation for rock music, and Suicide exaggerated rockabilly tics with sinister results. Both were trailblazers, and while their music may not shock the way it once did, it’s stood the test of time. Rocket 808, however, sounds more dated than what came before it. The album’s fundamental issue might be that it’s a bit tame. The best of the garage revivalists, like the Gories (and the Revelators, of which Schooley was a member), capture the thrill of hearing rock ‘n’ roll for the very first time. Schooley fleetingly pulls that off. However, he also evokes how his influences might sound to a listener who knows they’re historically important but doesn’t see what all the fuss is about. Rocket 808 could be consistently thrilling, if only Schooley tapped into the exciting, dangerous things about Link Wray and Suicide, both then and now. Ethan Milititsky