Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Shindiggers- "Maximum Beat"

Well, this was bound to come along one day.
51 tracks from this frantic mid '80's Melbourne combo, includes complete studio recordings plus lotsa rarities with most tracks appearing on CD for the first time. Comes with 16 page full colour booklet and liner notes from mainstay singer Bill Leggett. All tracks remastered from original source tapes.

I knew the Shindiggers knew 51 songs, at least, but didn't realise they'd recorded quite so much.
These guys were a mainstay in the Melbourne live scene of the early/mid 80s, playing a potent and trashy R & B/R & R blend, usually at a breakneck pace. If I saw them once, then I musta seen them 40 times- here's a setlist from back in the day:


The "Australian Milkshakes" tag doesn't do them justice, and neither did being lumped into the "psychobilly" camp with a bunch of their contemporaries. Their live shenanigans- which for a while included Bill being carried on stage in a coffin in homage to Screaming Lord Sutch, and occasional bouts of inter-band fisticuffs, were always entertaining.
Ahh, they don't make them like that any more. All credit to the crew at Off The Hip for cutting through the (still ongoing) feuds to get this out there.

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