1 Rawhide
2 Rock Bop
3 Stuff You Gotta Watch
4 Right Behind You Baby
5 Jezebel
6 Silvertone Boogie
7 Diddley Daddy
8 Breathless
9 My Search
10 Long Black Shiny Car
11 Say When
12 Restless
13 Wham Bam Jam
14 Since You’ve Been Gone
15 Silverado Barbecue
16 Don’t Go Away
17 Crazy Baby
Genre: Rockabilly
Year of release: 2009
Label: Cherokee Records
Condition: new
After performing live on stage for more than a decade, the Silvertones now present their first long player, which features a powerful mixture of 50s-style Rockabilly and Neo Rockabilly.
The band from the North of Germany was founded by the three friends, Jens Staar (guitar & lead vocals), Peter Ohnsorge (double bass) and Sven Oehlmann (drums) in 1991. After practising hard, the three guys played their first gigs in 1995 and rapidly became a popular act on the German Rockabilly scene. After a rhythm guitarist had temporarily played with the band, and Sven had taken a time-out from his job on the skins, the guys got together in the original line-up as a trio in 1997. With this line-up they have played numerous shows in clubs and at major German festivals such as the Bottrop Custom Culture since then.
After some of their songs had been released on a number of compilation CDs in the past few years, such as the Hot & Wild Vol. 1 compilation on Cherokee Records or the single of the German "Dynamite" magazine, there was a growing demand for a complete Silvertones album. So they felt it was time for their first own CD. The songs for the CD were recorded in 2008 and then mixed and mastered at the beginning of 2009.
The Silvertones' sound is influenced both by the early 80s Rock 'n' Roll Revival with artists such as the Stray Cats, Restless, etc. and by the more authentic style of the early 90s as played, for example, by Wildfire Willie & The Ramblers. As a result, their music is a balanced mixture of 50s-style Rockabilly and Neo Rockabilly with the individual tracks having varying emphasis on these two styles, however, without one of them taking priority on the whole. So the CD features a varied, but nevertheless harmonious overall concept with which the band ingeniously merges the two styles to form their own sound, which is likely to appeal to both the Authentic audience and the fans of modern Rockabilly. The tunes are given the special Silvertones treatment with which the careful arrangement of instruments imparts the desired atmosphere to each of the songs. An example for this is Diddley Daddy, a Bo Diddley original, which the band - inspired by a Chris Isaak version of this song - presents as a real dance floor rocker. With the rest of the cover songs the three guys also go full throttle, so that their versions of well-known classics can easily compete with the originals. The Silvertones' version of Jerry Lee Lewis's "Breathless", for example, is as energetic and ferocious as the "master's" original, and clearly distinguishes itself from the innumerous - and in many cases rather weak - interpretations of this song.
Apart from the excellently interpreted cover versions, the CD of course contains a number of self-penned originals. Besides "Silvertone Boogie", a rather traditional Rockabilly tune, it is above all "Don't Go Away" - which has been the favourite of many Silvertones fans for quite some time - that should be mentioned as an outstanding example. At its core, this song is a Neo Rockabilly tune which has the appearance of a Desperate Rock 'n' Roll song played in the best 50s tradition. As "Don't Go Away" was released on the single of the German "Dynamite" magazine so time ago, the CD contains a previously unreleased re-mix of this song.
When recording the songs at the studio, the band's main objective was to reproduce the atmosphere and the sound of their live shows. And they have accomplished this with enthusiasm and an incredible joy of playing, keeping to their band motto:
"It grabs you and makes your bum and hair dangerously moving before it takes you with a strong kick to the Rock 'n' Roll Nirvana… Hi Ho Silver!!" (Johnny Tremor, R.I.P.)
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