Monday Hooray! (or “The new one from the Mad Tea”)

Highway 501 runs from Marion, South Carolina, down to Myrtle Beach, pretty much straight and flat the whole way.  Somewhere around Conway it get really boring until you realize that you are almost to the coast, at which point things pick up significantly.  If you are lucky, you are in a pickup truck, far from your parents and about to see girls in bikinis.  Excuse me, COLLEGE girls in bikinis.  Add in to that some tacky shorts and a Surf Punks cassette, and your week is pretty much planned.

Of course, the quality of the Surf Punks is entirely dependent on that set of circumstances.  Who wants to listen to “My Beach” when there are no COLLEGE girls in bikinis waiting on Ocean Boulevard?  Especially when the kinetic energy of rock and roll is much better transmitted through the Sex Pistols or the Ramones or the Dead Kennedys?   Mama always hated the name “Dead Kennedys” but not for the right reason.  The reason to dislike the Dead Kennedys lies much more in the fact that “Holiday In Cambodia” is a drag.  Not to mention that they just keep changing the name of the governor in “California Uber Alles” and trying to make the same point.  Thank God that Jerry Brown might make it easier for Jello Biafra to remember the lyrics.  Seriously, if we can’t have some fun with the music those punks were trying to rescue from the recording industry, why save it?

Of course the industry is dead and the music is free to do whatever it wants now, which is why it is exciting to hear the new EP from New-Punk-Rock-a-Billy-Wave-Surfers The Mad Tea Party.  And while it is pretty daunting to offer up a review of a set of tracks that pull their title from the track which is a put down to critics, I’m going to attempt just that.  Mostly because this record is too much fun not to write about, and anyone who can’t shake their ass to “Rock and Roll Ghoul” deserves whatever Ami Worthen and Jason Krekel have to say about you.

The eponymous track leads things off with the aforementioned kinetic energy of the Ramones and the fun of the Surf Punks, although The Mad Tea’s fun is not site-specific (ie: COLLEGE girls in bikinis not required, although I would assume welcome at least by parts of the band and audience.)  They are offering up this EP as a Halloween offering, and the associated cover art make the $10 vinyl version a real consideration; however, these are not merely campy novelty tunes only good for the season.

“Possessed,” for instance, is nominally about demons, but gives words to the underlying truth that we are often the instigators of our own possession.  The tune also has a spooky vibe in the way that Dwight Yokam’s band in “Slingblade” had a spooky vibe.  Yokam was so far down the spectrum of spooky that you were afraid he might just cut John Ritter (may he rest in peace) any minute.  I guess that was kind of the point. The Mad Tea party is just spooky enough to have some fun being scared, but not so much to really be creeped out.  They are on the near end of the spectrum with Southern Culture on the Skids somewhere in the middle.

Which means that they can even make the story of a steampunk cyborg intent on extracting vengeance from his wife’s killers a danceable track.  Witness “Dr. Phibes.”  Not being much of an authority on the works of Vincent Price, I’ve missed this movie.  Fortunately, I don’t need to know it to enjoy the interplay of Worthen and Krekel’s voices and instruments.  Did we yet discuss the fact that the ukulele features prominently in the music of The Mad Tea Party?  Perhaps it is healthy to view the presence of King Kalakaua’s favored instrument in a Rock and Roll band with some skepticism.  The Mad Tea sold me on it because it’s not there to be a sight gag.  Worthen’s uke is essential to making the band’s sound work, acting as a counterpoint to Krekel’s guitar in a way that keeps it honest.

Without a bassist around, somebody needs to keep the guitarist in line.  The fact that Jason Krekel’s feet are busy providing the drum beats on most tracks AND that he is sharing lead vocal duties further restrict any temptation he might have to walk the melody around a bit.  Therefore, he does keep it tight, getting a little help from The Reigning Sound’s Greg Cartwright on the drums for the final track “Frankenstein’s Den” which also features Caroline Pond of The Snake Oil Medicine Show on “Whooah”s. Ok, so this is a novelty song.  Or more properly, when recorded by the Hollywood Flames in 1958 it was a novelty song.  As performed by the Mad Tea Party, it’s a party song, one that makes you want to invite over a bunch of friends and dance around in the living room.

And if that is what “Rock and Roll Ghoul” makes you want to do, I believe The Mad Tea Party will have achieved their objective.  Of course their music has “meaning” and “purpose” but I suspect that the critical ghoul (of which I know I am not one by the lack of black in my wardrobe) would miss it in his attempt to have every song be a therapy session.  When I want therapy, I’ll listen to Eric Bachmann.  Sometimes, however, I find shaking my ass therapeutic, which is why The Mad Tea Party is good to have as a part of my regimen.