 |
| The Stomachmouths' new Speed Freak best-of album brings together 13 tough-to-find gems from Stockholm's garage punk kings. |
When The Stomachmouths began playing vintage American teen music in Stockholm 1983, they had no European predecessors. There had been a few new wave-era bands in Britain and Sweden that covered a Nuggets tune or two, but for those bands it was always part of something else. None of them had gone the whole nine yards and stripped away all alien elements from 1960s punk, like the Stomachmouths.
The 1980s garage scene was created and has to be understood as a complete immersion in American pop culture from the 1950s and pre-hippie 1960s. It wasn’t about heavy fuzz guitars or tattoos, it wasn’t about wearing leopard skin pants and proclaiming a “revolution”. Everything like that just had to go. It wasn’t a retro scene either, because nothing like this had ever existed in Scandinavia. In this pure garage scene the Stomachmouths were undoubtedly kings. They were the best live band, they had been around the longest, they had the most developed sense for the right moves and attitude. Musically the band was top-notch, with no loose ends or weak links. Few would challenge the notion that the Stomachmouths spearheaded this scene because they took it so seriously, like a mission. – Patrick The Lama
The Stomachmouths' Speed Freak comp is due out March 31. Check out the Subliminal Sounds site right here for more info. Listen to their 1985 single This Is... The Stomachmouths (Månsi Sunlight) and the "I'm Going Away" (Got To Hurry) EP from 1986 along with a couple of vintage live clips after the track listing below.
The Stomachmouths – Speed Freak
Side A
1. Don’t Put Me Down
2. Wild Trip
3. Speed Freak
4. Dr. Syn
5. I’m Going Away
6. Eegah!
7. Cry
Side B
1. Don’t Mess with My Mind
2. R&B No. 65
3. Waiting
4. Almost There
5. Heart of Stone
6. Something Weird
