Last year when moving the Dionysus Records office I found a few boxes of empty Dukes of Hamburg LP covers. Shortly after, our old pal, Dukes of Hamburg’s  Thilo Pieper reconnected with Dionysus, giving us news that there are now two reformed Dukes, in the US and Germany, and sending over some new recordings of his version of the  group based in Bielefeld, Germany. We agreed to do a new LP and run enough LPs to fill the empty jackets for both Bad Side of July (Dukes of Earl) (around 300 copies) and Twist-Time im Star-Club Hamburg (around 400 copies) LPs. Both are available via Dionysus Records Mail Order (follow the above links)  as well as select shops and internet mail order companies… you can only get them on vinyl as there are no CD or download versions of either! The represses also have different label designs than the originals, courtesy of Thilo!

The new Dukes of Hamburg release Liverpool Beat on Dionysus will be out soon, we’ll let you know when it’s just about ready to ship!

As we get closer to year’s end, lucky Southern California residents have two fabulous holiday events to attend this weekend – on Saturday, 12/14 A Very Vintage Xmas variety show and marketplace at the mid-century Mayflower Club in North Hollywood and on Sunday 12/15, Jonny Whiteside’s rockin’ Messaround at the Viva Cantina across from the Pickwick Bowl in Burbank

Saturday, Dec. 14, 2013: 6 PM A Very Vintage Xmas featuring The Martini Kings, Burlesque, Comedy, a Vintage Marketplace and More!
Mayfair Club
11110 Victory Blvd.,
North Hollywood, California 91606
(818) 769-9805
Doors Open for Vintage Vending at 6:00 pm – LAST MINUTE HOLIDAY SHOPPING! 
Show Starts at 8:00 pm-Midnight
$15.00
Tickets available here – or at the door if there are any left!
FREE PARKING in the Mayfair lot

Fans of swanky lounge music (a la Rat Pack era), cocktails, dancing, modernism, exotica and tiki, lowbrow comedy and magic, burlesque, vintage fashion, accessories collectibles and art – join us for a night of retro madness at one of the valley’s oldest private clubs!

Join The Martini Kings for a very special night of vintage variety acts. Hilarious Comedy, Amazing Magic, Titillating Burlesque, Dancing, DJ Lee Joseph, Delicious Cocktails and Tasty Snacks, Vintage Vendors, and of course – the intoxicating sounds of L.A.’s leaders in lounge – The Martini Kings featuring our 8 piece big band including our vocalists, the fabulous Sonny Moon and fantastic Miss Kate Campbell…..with this year’s special guests Emmett Hadley’s Olde-Tyme Christmas Band! And a special visit from the Big Man himself….Santa!

Sun., Dec. 15, 2013, 6 PM:  Jonny Whiteside’s Messaround
Viva Cantina
900 West Riverside Drive
Burbank, CA 91506
All ages; FREE SHOW!
FREE PARKING across the street at Pickwick Bowl (same owners).www.vivacantina.com

with Golden Sombrero, The Mau Maus, The Billybones, South Bay Surfers, Dick & Jane Family Orchestra

It’s an All Ages Free Admission Yuletide Frolic of Deep Mayhem, High Merrymaking and All-Around Untamed Unparalleled Musical Ka-Pow!

Messaround shotcaller Jonny Whiteside rallies five of the finest, freakiest bands in all of Los Angeles for this flat-git-it, once in a lifetime shimmy-shakin’ shindig. The participation by epic, epochal 1977-era Los Angeles punk rock pioneers The Mau Maus and the Billybones  is an event of such rollicking tribal significance that there is not hyperbole enough to adequately capture the Olympian-scaled artistry and achievement these men carry with them. Rick Wilder and Billy Bones are not only history making trailblazers and proud punk tradition bearers they are performers both yet capable of absolutely sizzling, high-voltage stage presentations and vocal performances of masterly, arresting interpretive power. Their creative resources, as evidenced on two recent and respectively superb albuns, are as emphatic and fiery as ever, demonstrating just how fortunate we are to be able to witness this level of sheer rock & roll disrectitude. MAUS MAUS! BILLYBONES!

Golden Sombrero, led by Ward Dotson, the skewed guitar genius (who’s brilliant playing defined the Gun Club’s sound just as much as did Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s vocal) finally returns to the ‘Mess! Throwing down a kaleidoscopic selection of late 50’s-early 60’s Adult Contemporary, every song is like a case of spontaneous combustion and the resulting incandescent conflagrations are wondrous to behold. With boss bassist Steve K and jazz-informed drummer Charles Maxey, Golden Sombrero extends and enhances the Dotsonian School of Musical Cool with admirable, reckless velocity.

Underground Bombshell Jane Cantillon scrubs up her unruly brood The Dick & Jane Family Orchestra for another intoxicatingly unpredictable visit. DJFO is magnificently pop-centric exercise in real-now, old school oddball that’s laid waste to audiences everywhere from the Cinegrill to NYC’s Limelight. Teamed with indefatigably swinging-strumming-spouse Richard Ross, an uptown head with a dog-eared downtown hep that lends the proceedings an bewitchingly indefinable cool, and steady-rolling rock apostle Lee Joseph on bass, Dick & Jane Family Orchestra’s mixture of offbeat charm, earthy aggression and expectation defying creativity—including a brand new Jane-composed Christmas tune—is assuredly gonna knot your tinsel into a terrific twist!

The South Bay Surfers These Paragons of mind shattering underworld rock & roll impurity once again convene to deliver their traditional Christmas set–you’ll hear everything from “Feliz Navidad” to “Run, Run Rudolph” in an entirely new and wild, wild, wild way!! Damaging cerebellums across the Southland since the 1980s, the indescribable SBS show–an alchemical combination of fetishistic passion and naked inadequacy–is second to none. Not for the timid, the SBS’ dedicated employ of aimlessness, chaos and deep reverence is revelatory in its sheer, bizarre display of sideshow weird (“so woefully deficient in the talent department that they could possibly be the world’s worst rock & roll band.” — All Music Guide) Ho, Ho, Ho

Congratulations to our fabulous Creepy Creeps on winning the Best Live Band category at the 2013 San Diego Music Awards! Link to NBC News article here

Robert Plant’s favorite band – The Creepy Creeps – photo taken in 2011

This year, Tiki Oasis explores the Hawaiian influence on American music. Part Americana, part Hawaiiana, Hulabilly is an American music style derived from the blending of Rockabilly and Haole Hawaiian music. The live musical entertainment at this year’s four-day Polynesian Pop festival/celebration features numerous roots and rockabilly performers, a couple of Elvis (the King of Hulabilly) salutes as well as the essential exotica / surf / instrumental sounds Tiki Oasis is known for.  DJs will be covering the gamut of these musical styles as well and this year, LuxuriaMusic.com will be featuring their DJs in the indoor marketplace.

Two current and one future Dionysus artists will be playing the event this year. Big Sandy, whose still in-print first album, “Fly Rite With” was released by the label in 1989, will be headlining the event at a special Sunday Hoedown with the legendary El Vez. Surf / Exotica creeps, Creepxotica who have released their “Haunted Bossa Nova” LP on Dionysus this year, will be playing at the Bali Hai Meet and Mingle on Thursday Aug. 15, along with The Fishermen, featuring Brian Lease, former vibe player of  ’90s Dionysus lounge sensations, Frenchy, and Tiki Oasis favorite, Kim Tsoy who will be backed up by a band including Dionysus’ Records Lee Joseph on bass. Jason Lee  and the RIP Tides, whose debut LP will be released on Dionysus, will be playing poolside on Friday. Jason Lee will be teaching a “Twang Guitar” seminar on Saturday at 1:00 PM. Dionysus Records’ Lee Joseph will be doing a DJ set of all rockabilly, poolside, on Saturday at 2:15 PM. There will be a Dionysus Records vending booth in the Outdoor Marketplace on both Saturday and Sunday.

For detailed information check the Tiki Oasis website. Here is the schedule of bands on the main stage:

THURSDAY (Bali Hai)
Emcee: King Kukulele
Lanai Stage 7pm
King Kukulele
Lanai Bar 6pm – Midnight Eric Musick
Lanai Bar 7:30 and 9:30 sets
Fisherman & Kitty Chow
Lanai Stage 8pm Kim Tsoy
Lanai Stage 9pm
Interlude Featuring Coco Tiki, Mimi Le Meux & Marina the Fire Eating Mermaid
Lanai Stage 9:30pm Creepxotica

FRIDAY (Crowne Plaza)
King Kukulele/Co-Emcee: El Vez
5:15 – Hukilau Hot Shots
5:45 – Polynesian Paradise Dancers
6:15 –  B Stars
6:45 – Molotov & Dixie D’Lish
7pm – Miss Tiki Oasis Contest hosted by El Vez and Nikki Napalm
7:30  Lucky Stars
8:15 Vic Trevino Jr
9pm  18 Wheelers

Saturday (Crowne Plaza)
Emcee: King Kukulele/Co-Emcee: Big Sandy
5:30 -The Cheap Leis
6pm –  Hulabilly Costume Contest  – Prizes for Kids & Couples!
6:30 -Acapulco Radio 7pm – Round Two Hulabilly Costume Contest – Prizes for Best Male, Best Female
7:20 – Molotov & Dixie D’Lish
7:40 –  Dancers Ke Polani Ohana E Kai
8:15 The Hula Girls
9pm Southern Culture on the Skids

SUNDAY (Crowne Plaza)
Emcee: Otto von Stroheim
5:30 –  Doors open, come dance with the Hang Ten Hoppers!
5:30PM – 10:00PM Okie Oran Disc Jockeying
6:30PM –  El Vez Special Solo Performance Featuring a tribute to “The King”
7:30PM  Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys
8:30PM  Intermission interlude with Hang Ten Hoppers
8:45PM  Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys

Images: Creepxotica, Jason Lee, Kim Tsoy

Dionysus Records is proud to release on a limited vinyl pressing, Istanbul, Turkey’s REPLiKAS’ first American album (their sixth Turkish release) Biz Burada Yok Iken.

REPLiKAS’ Biz Burada Yok İken consists of classic Turkish psychedelic and garage cover tunes from the 1965-75 Anatolian Pop period. It is the definitive salute to their linage with extremely powerful covers of songs by Mavi Iskilar, Erin Koray, Mogollar and others. The LP is pressed on thick vinyl, and comes with an insert fully annotated with background information on each track and its’ original artist and release – illustrated with pictures of the original record sleeves. Biz Burada Yok Iken is distributed by ILD, request it at your favorite record shop or purchase here from Dionysus mail-order.

Have a listen and look at one of the tracks on the album

Replikas – Kaleden Kaleye Sahin Ucurdum from replikas on Vimeo.

REPLiIKAS debut album Köledoyuran (2000) and second album Dadaruhi (2002) were released by the Ada Music label. The band’s third album, Avaz, was produced by Wharton  Tiers and released in May 2005 by the Doublemoon label. The band recorded their fifth album, Zerre, in a former prison located in the Gökçeada Island, which they converted to a studio. Peyote Music released this album in November  2008.

Alongside releasing albums and playing concerts, REPLiKAS also writes music for films. In 2001 the band composed their first soundtrack  for the movie Maruf by Serdar  Akar. In 2005 the band crerated music for Kutluğ Ataman’s movie titled İki Genç Kız which won them the best film music award by SİYAD in 2006. The soundtracks were collected into an album named  Film Müzikleri which was released by Poztif in October 2006.  The band  took part  in Fatih Akın’s documentary Crossing the Bridge. Pieces from their albums have also been used in various short and feature-length movies.

REPLiKAS have  just released their latest EP on Ada music featuring seven new songs, and a box set which includes the remastered versions of their first two albums, Köledoyuran and Dadaruhi plus EP #1

Commenting on the recent upheaval in Turkey,
the band has released this statement:

We have been experiencing an extremely violent attempt to convert to a more totalitarian regime using all kinds of police forces, including civil gangs provoked by the prime minister himself. The word “more” is deliberately used above because the functionality of democracy in Turkey is a highly debatable topic since the inception of the republic. Open exchange and plurality is the last thing the current government wants because they cannot control the Turkish people in the same authoritarian way. Now the Gezi Park, where the protests began, functions as a symbol, yet this resistance is not solely an environmentalist effort, but an act against the oppressive regime of the prime minister and the ruling party. It is a fight to preserve the culture and history of this society, where people of different origin and belief live with respect to each other’s rights and freedom peacefully.

The majority of the cultural acts are either cancelled or postponed. This movement has evoked a very powerful wave of artistic expression among the people of resistance. People have regained confidence and continue to develop collective wisdom which will be reflected in all forms of art as in music. Many anti-government and anti-violence songs came out during this crack down and we also never give up on writing music independently, encourage and support young musicians on being individuals.

This is the largest and most effective public resistance which took place in Turkey and it still continues. It is hard to predict its long term impacts on our future work, but we believe it would be definitely positive, enlightening and connective, just like the movement itself.

Tune in to LuxuriaMusic.com for the first Over Under Sideways Down of  April! This special Noir and Exotica episode features a 1/2 hour guest segment from Dionysus Records recording artist Jimmy Vargas of  Jimmy Vargas and the Black Dahlias from Australia – along with a stack of exotica vinyl from show host Lee Joseph. Find the show at LuxuriaMusic.com at 3-5 PM, Pacific Time!

On Wed., Feb 27  at 3 – 5 PM Pacific, my in studio guests on Over Under Sideways Down – LuxuriaMusic.com during Lux’s Listener Sponsorship Drive will be D. J. Bonebrake and Paul Eckman both in Orchestra Superstring who have released two CDs and one LP on Dionysus Records. We’ll be asking you to support commercial free LuxuriaMusic.com while we talk about and play tracks from D.J. and Paul’s many bands. We will also be making available a copy of Orchestra Superstring’s Kalopia signed by both D.J. and Paul for a lucky Listener Sponsor or two! Tune in!