Jay Vee Presents | Snakerattlers

Here we go again!  With the dust just settling from our last r’n’r extravaganza, it’s time to wrench the lid from Pandora’s box once more – and, hoo boy, is this one an absolute belter!

If you’ve been anywhere near a sweaty dive venue in the last eight hundred-odd days, headliners SNAKERATTLERS will need to introduction.  On the other hand, assuming you’ve been living an axolotl-like existence in a lightless cave for the same period, here goes:  this venom-flecked, hornet-liveried husband and wife duo coalesced from the smouldering wreckage of incendiary punks the Franceens two years back.  Now with a second album under their belts and a signing to legendary garage-punk maison d’excellence Dirty Water Records, they’ve developed a well-earned reputation as one of the best live acts currently in existence.  With a savage sound that recalls the best of the Cramps, Stooges and before-they-were-sh*t White Stripes and adds a haunting, spectral quality presumably imbued by their none-more-gothic York environs, they’ve been destroying stages and blowing bigger bands off the stage since their inception, and have no reason to stop now.  As if all this weren’t incentive enough, this is also your prime opportunity to grab a copy of recently released long-player ‘ALL HEADS WILL ROLL’ on Dirty Water.  Get in.

The dubious honour of tiding over an impatient mob before our headliners hit the stage goes to JAY VEE & THE CARDINAL SINS.  Fronted by your humble (well, maybe not so humble) promoter, this black-clad trio specialises in a particular own-brand garage-punk racket that sits somewhere between the Sonics, Dr Feelgood and Chris Isaak (you heard us correctly) and looks like a blur of flying limbs and gnashing teeth, held together with copious amounts of hair grease.

Second on are Redcar’s own SHAKIN’ NIGHTMARES, making a very welcome JVP debut.  As befits a hydrocarbon-drenched band from the sprawling, oxidised industrial northeast, there is darkness in abundance beneath their distorted rock’n’roll twang.  May this be the first of many visits darn sarf.

Opening up proceedings are returning heroes THE V-1s.  Fronted by mega-quiffed and mantid-gaited subculture veteran Mark Dudley and backed by a shit-hot young rhythm section, the band constitutes the best possible result of a bored fan taking matters into his own hands.  Delivering a thudding, spiky set of twisted knife-sharpening punk rock, we’re honoured to have ’em back spilling first blood on our greasy boards.

The scene is set, the beer is great, and the tunes will be mighty – and all this for a measly seven English pounds. Miss it at your peril – you have been warned!