The Staggers

The Staggers - Teenage Trash Insanity (Wohnzimmer/Sound Flat Recordings) by Robert Rotifer: You won‘t find Farfisa organs, amps or fuzz pedals in the tidy garages of respectable Viennese mansion blocks (that‘s where the keep their Mercs), and there‘s definitely no surfing in Graz. The spiritual home of garage punk this clearly isn‘t, and yet there is a band that has set out to turn their Austrian hometowns into unlikely breeding grounds for undomesticated, irrepressible teenage noise. And we‘re not talking about ringtones. In case anyone should doubt the sincerity of six young Austrians choosing to look like American teen delinquents from the mid-sixties, let it be said that, far from being some sort of post-modern practical joke, Teenage Trash Insanity is a highly charged, primitive yet effective counter-reaction to the 21st century‘s disappearance up its own bland backside. As anyone who has been to one of their shows will attest, The Staggers don‘t do polite retro-by-numbers. Their raucous gigs usually culminate in frontman Wild Evel (in varying states of undress) drinking beer from his winklepicker boot, and by the end of the night nobody gives a toss if they‘ve just seen the future, the past or indeed the undead face of rock‘n‘roll. Zombies don‘t care about revivals. “We‘re doing a style of music that has been going for a long time!“, Wild Evel freely admits, “I‘ve got nothing to say against that! But for a lot of the young kids who don‘t know about this music we might be their introduction to the world of garage punk! We don‘t want the wildest, most primitive, most creative and most partying of all musical genres to be forgotten!“ As you can tell, Wild Evel is the sort of in-your-face character who ends each sentence with at least one exclamation mark. He writes unashamedly stupid lyrics about Black Hearse Cadillacs, mental breakdown, Wild Teens, silly dances and characters like The Jaguar, The Ripper and The Wolfman, he looks and behaves just like the mop-topped monsters in his cartoons, but only wears his black-rimmed glasses if he can still find them the day after the gig, and his seam-splittlingly tight made-to-measure suits regularly fall prey to his onstage antics. All band members have played in various garage punk, surf and psychobilly outfits. At one point Evel was asked to join the surf beat combo The Pat S. Syndicate as a singer, and The Staggers evolved from there, with Evel and guitarist Los Fixos as the only remaining Syndicate members in the current line-up. Between them, Los Fixos and fellow guitarist Shakin‘ Matthews exchange some pretty nifty surf and rock‘n‘roll licks, but rest assured they‘re still primitive at heart, which just so happens to go very well with the primeval rumble supplied by Earl Kri on bass and drummer Candee Beat, altogether adding up to just about enough masculine energy to balance out the overwhelming presence and piercing shrieks of Lightnin‘ Iris on her nasty Farfisa organ. Over the last couple of years of tireless gigging all over Europe, The Staggers have accumulated a fan base going far beyond the limited, if growing, numbers of the international garage punk community. They have supported legendary acts such as The Sonics, The Monks, The Music Machine, The Monsters, psychobilly heroes Demented Are Go! and pioneers of neopsych The Fuzztones................... “We‘ve played three times with the Fuzztones already!“, says Evel, „And we recorded ‚Cellar Dwellar‘ for a tribute album which came out on Rudi Protrudi‘s label Sin Records (‘Illegitimate Spawn‘). Obviously they‘ve been influential, but like The Fuzztones we prefer to stick to original sixties garage no-hit-wonders.“ There‘s a charmingly purist streak about The Staggers which sets them apart from all those H&M-clad opportunists who have come out of the woodwork in the slipstream of bands like White Stripes, The Hives or Mando Diao: „To me those are just normal rock bands who are more related to seventies rock acts than sixties garage!“, observes Evel, „They‘ve got more in common with AC/DC (who I like, incidentally) than The Wailers, Trashmen, The Sonics or ? & The Mysterians... By the way, Mando Diao were in the crowd when we played in Hamburg!! Hehe...“ As far as Evel‘s concerned, his home country Austria is „completely infested with indie, emo, guitar pop, hardcore and ska. Everything is wishy-washy nowadays, anyone is anything! Sometimes I almost wish there were clear lines again and people would declare their colours instead of being a mod, a rocker and some electro-techno-type all at once...“ Too true. And Teenage Trash Insanity by The Staggers is just they kind of record that should help the kids make up their minds. ..

The Staggers - Little Sister, Directed by Hannes Rossacher (DoRo), 2007 The Staggers - Wild Teens / Video Directed by Lightnin Iris 2005 The Staggers - Black Hearse Cadillac / Video Directed by Greame Pearce 2005 The Jaguar!!! / cut by lightnin iris, 8mm camera by OchoResotto The Staggers - Little Latin Lupe Lu live @ Primitive Festival (Rotterdam 2007) The Staggers - Wild Teens live @ Primitive Festival (Rotterdam 2007)