The Woolly Bushmen are Positively Primitive
The Woolly Bushmen are Positively Primitive
The Woolly Bushmen are aptly named as they are positively primitive. Like 
some missing link or newly discovered anthropological discovery, The Woolly Bushmen are what amazing garage rock sounded like between 1957 and 1963. In the newly inhabited wild frontiers of the American Suburban landscape, where frustrated teenagers plugged in and turned on years before an LSD addled Dr. Tim Leary recommended they do, or had even thought it; young men fleshed out noisy riffs and hammered away at 2 and 4 downbeats in a perspiration soaked purge, every bit as visceral as a sweat lodge ritual, and every bit as important.
Post Buddy Holly and pre-Beatles, while Elvis was busy marching left-right-left, what was left of real Rock and Roll via The Kingsmen, was being investigated by the FBI. It proved to be a tough time for rock as anything and everything vaguely dangerous was falling apart. So bands like these managed to fill the void.
With this eponymous release, the band manage to unleash a dozen amazing songs, each better than the last. “C’mon Baby” invokes the spirit of Eddie Cochran and tears loose with the subtlety of a tornado in a trailer park. “Gotta Go Out West” is an unhinged rocker that’d be the perfect soundtrack number for a street racing scene. “Promise You Won’t Leave,” is a slower, more restrained number, but just as intense as the rest the disc. The instruments sounds flat out raunchy on “The Mongrel.” Everything is overloaded, excitable and over the top, with a howling and manic vocal.
The Wooly Bushmen are trapped in a beautiful amber soundscape where all they do is simple and brilliant. Uncluttered and unhurried, these three, Simon Palombi (guitar, organ and vocals), Julian Palombi (drums and vocals), and Jacob Miller (bass, guitar and vocals), approach to their instruments is so unpretentious as to sound fresh and new. They never temper the music with punk edges or speed. These are garage purists and like a beautifully and lovingly restored 1955 Chevy, worthy of your time, attention and appreciation.
