Beware the Dangers of a Ghost Scorpion - The Legend of Goatman’s Bridge
This bright yellow disc captures four terrifying tunes from the reigning champions of horror surf: Beware the Dangers of a Ghost Scorpion. Ostensibly, BTDOAGS is made up of four undead Texan teenagers from the 60s who met their untimely demise in a post-school-dance-gig car wreck on Goatman’s Bridge in Denton County. Lucky for me, they happen to reappear in Boston just last year only to begin haunting every reputable venue and dive bar within the city limits. BTDOAGS play a form of traditional 60s surf which brings to mind the Ventures and the Trashmen, with enough cool tempo changes and drip reverb to more than hint at the swagger of The Cramps and the rapid fire blues licks of early Gun Club. But it’s the double-edged twin guitar attack that will really make a listener sit up and take notice. A zombie-themed group sporting bandana facemasks on a 7” featuring titles like “We Welcome the Living (But Only If They Came Here To Die)” and replete with b-movie imagery is hilarious enough, but when you hear them trading barbed solos over dead-on 12-bar progressions and tom-heavy thumpalong rippers, it renders their camp pure genius. I highly recommend seeing the band live for the full effect (nothing like getting the wild-eyed staredown from a strat-strapped corpse who’s violently shaking his tremolo arm), but in the meantime you ought to join their “Fang Club” and pick up a copy of this Scopi-o-Tone Recording ASAP. The only vocal uttered on the whole EP seems a promise BTDOAGS intend to keep: “Heads Will Roll!” Don’t say they didn’t warn you. (Scorpi-o-Tone Recordings, 2011)
