Big John Bates

"Take Your Medicine" CD

Devil Sauce Recordings / Wolverine Records

Genre: rockabilly, surf

May 2007

From lovely Vancouver, BC comes Big John Bates, a man and a half who's gonna rip your clothes off and get you dancing with his very own brand of devilish rockabilly. Whether he's performing onstage with his burlesque troupe of scantily-clad gothic Voodoo Dollz or breaking the shit out of your boombox speakers, BJB likes to have fun and Take Your Medicine shows it. The band's sound strikes me as a cross between Killdozer and JSBX, with the main knock being a lack of variety and melody. Certainly, these thirteen songs prove a fun romp, but I can't shake the feeling that they might be better off live - particularly with BJB's notorious stage antics. The best song on here is "Train Wreck," with its hellish guitar and desperate vocal, though a few other songs stick out. For the most part, however, I find a lot of this to kind of blend in with itself. Surely, Take Your Medicine is a solid collection of rockabilly tracks, but I'd suggest checking BJB out live (he's currently touring Europe) before snagging this one.

mp3s (from bigjohnbates.com): aren't you pretty (organ version), tainted love cover

72%

youuuuuuuutube!: the video for "tombstone twist" (not on this cd), live footage of "kitten with a whip"

Fun Fact: BJB and the Voodoo Dollz starred in Episode 1 of Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica, which can be seen here.

Matt Shimmer

[Vitals: 13 tracks, distributed by the band, released Dec 2006]