The Swamp Gospel, Thee Faded Pyctures, Spotted Dick and the Wylde Knights at the Double Down Saloon, Saturday August 13, 2016

Once again, the Swamp Gospel had a sweaty good time with our soul salvation at the Double Down! A great, receptive crowd were well-lubricated by the time we began our revival and handled snakes, sipped strychnine, spoke in tongues, let me lay my hands on them and sang hallelujah. One of our better revivals of recent times.

(As usual, thank you to Nikki Ruffling for the cool SG pix!)

Up next, from Phoenix, Az, were Thee Faded Pyctures, featuring Jamie Lamb (ex of Vegas' Dirty Babies [with Brother Lenny from the SG], among many other groups), on lead vox and Voxx organ, along with Scott Obrand on guitar, Danny Hawkins on drums and Danny Bravo on bass. They produce a wild'n'raucous, Pebbles'n'Nuggets'n'Back From the Grave-styled garage sound, with plenty of furious fuzz, poundin' rhythms and psycho screamin'. Great covers of classics like "You're No Good", "Night of the Phantom", the Grodes "Cry a Little Longer", the Fabs "The Bag I'm In" (the Swamp Gospel did the B-Side, "Dinah Wants Religion"), "ESP" (The Pretty Things did as "LSD"), the Pleasure Seekers' "What a Way to Die", as well as plenty of originals, including a Fleur Del Mal tune, "Tonight We Die" with Joe (Spotted Dick) singing along. At the end they had their buddy Steve join in on sax, as well. Totally fun set!

I don't know all of Jamie's history, but I do believe that he and Joe played together at some point, so it was appropriate that we got Joe's current combo, Spotted Dick and the Wylde Knights, on the bill. They are silly, fast'n'frantic, Vegas punk rock, with goofy lyrics, a few bad jokes, buzzsaw guitar'n'drivin' rhythms. They got the crowd moshin'n'dancin' and yelpin'n'ravin'. Good times!

As always, thanks to the super crew at the Double Down for a roarin' good time!