Oh! Gunquit: London's 'Rumble-Bop, Trash, Stomp, Blitz' Quintet - 'Eat Yuppies and Dance'

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“Where the Squares don’t fit, you’ll find OH! GUNQUIT….”  Oh! Gunquit are a London-based, Rumble-Bop, Trash, Stomp, Blitz band who concoct a brew of Raw R&R, Wild Garage, and twisted Freak-a-Billy.

The nucleus of the band started in 2010 after becoming neighbours and frequenting sweaty cellar dance nights around town. They formed the band around the idea of creating a blend of Primitive Surf, Garage-Punk, RocknRoll, & mixing it all up. Oh! Gunquit are named after a town in Maine, USA which has been an artists' colony since the 1800s named after the Abenaki Indians partial to the idea of all guns quitting. The Soundtrack to B-Movies, Road Trips, & Adventuring….Live the band are a blur of Howling Vocals, Horns, Buzzsaw Guitars, Rumbling Toms, and Exotic R&R fun. Cos y’know…

On the back of their recent  debut album 'Eat Yuppies and Dance' on Dirty Water Records, the critics have been bopping and shaking all the way to the printers:  

 "The sleazy Bad Bad Milk and Voodoo Meat Shake are pure Lux ‘n’ Ivy, while the more poppy Pony Boy and Into The Woods wouldn’t have sounded out of place on The B-52s’ Cosmic thing album. The dark and lurching I Need Help Now meanwhile has a hint of Nick Cave about it, which is never a bad thing." Pure Rawk 

"I am forever wandering and weaving in and out of different sound pools and here again I find something delicious and untypical to salivate over. Into the 'Sinkhole' we go, a low-fi accented tympanically ticking piece of sub-trashy spillage that is tossed around the bowl of sound, given a condiment splash of shadowy clashed spice, invaded with a pseudo-sci-fi inflection and vocalised over with feisty garishly coloured girliness (something to be proud of). The assistance of he hollers and crisp string quivers all accentuate the song and give it a tidy ass wiggle that appeals, although from here on in I am expecting a rise in stature - what a greedy pig I be." Fungal Punk

Time to meet your new favourite band and album, and the beginning of frequent visits to hospital A&E because of the twisted rhythmic effect on the body and the deranged dance-floor tempting offered. The culprits are UK provocateurs Oh! Gunquit and debut album Eat Yuppies and Dance. With more agitated rhythms than found in a Cardiothoracic unit entangled in a web of virulent contagion built on salacious grooves and naughtily flirtatious temptation, the band’s sound is pure irrepressible addiction. Hints of their devilish practices have been unveiled for quite a while by singles, videos, and an acclaimed live presence, but with Eat Yuppies and Dance, the London based quintet has just infected the world with their finest moment yet. RingMaster Review

If anything, "Head Bites Tail" is even stranger - in a good way. The guitar in this song is furiously energetic and also pretty psychedelic. Add to that some greasy horns and some rock and roll howls that sound like Pussycat and The Dirty Johnsons, and what you have is a song that is delightfully strange. In fact if you were going to file this in a record store, delightfully strange would be as good a description as you could find. You'll hear more of those Pussycat-style howls in "Caves". However, the thing that makes this song really interesting is the guitar part that sounds like a trippy take on the guitar in "What'd I Say" by Ray Charles. Some bands are weird - and that's fine. In fact, it's commendable because at least bands that are weird don't sound like a dozen other bands. Oh! Gunquit has an unusual sound, and that is exactly what makes the band so enjoyable. It has created a sound that is unusual and easy to dance to. If you like bands that defy easy classification, give Oh! Gunquit a try. This album is a good blend of garage rock, psychedelia, and soul, and it is available now from Dirty Water Records. Schwindy's Indie Spotlight

There is more to this beat combo than just being a mash up of the Cramps and the B-52s although there are certainly parts of those bands sewn into Oh Gunquit's DNA. And there is a definite B-movie vibe going on sometimes via the lyrics and the guttural noises coming from the mouth of Swasey like she howls on 'Caves'. It's also often surreal, like, who else is gonna pen a tune about gone off milk? But I do like the saxophone a lot and the vibe is fantastic. 'Hope In Hell' has a great rhythm and is infectious. I could imagine these go down a storm in some smokey, sleazy bar room. 'Pony Boy' is more of a rocka, maybe in the vein of Imelda May which is another slight shift which weaves yet more fabric into this rich tapestry of styles. Having said that, granted, it's not a seismic shift in styles but it does add variety. Uberrock

Catch Oh! Gunquit live when they play Weirdsville with Mars Needs Women

Order 'Eat Yuppies and Dance' here

The Dirty Water Club started in October 1996 in the Tufnell Park neighbourhood of north London, at a venue called The Boston. The club's name is derived from The Standells’ 1966 hit ‘Dirty Water’ which glorifies the US city of Boston, Massachusetts and its River Charles.

Past performers have included The White Stripes (voted by Q Magazine as one of the top 10 gigs of all time, Mojo one of the top 30 and Kerrang one of the top 100!), The Gories, NOBUNNY, Kid Congo Powers (from the Cramps, Gun Club and Nick Cave's Bad Seeds), The Fleshtones, Billy Childish, Radio Birdman, The Dirtbombs, Thee Michelle Gun Elephant, The 5.6.7.8's, The Horrors and The Brian Jonestown Massacre to name just a few. The club has also seen some original ’60s performers, such as The Monks, ? and the Mysterians, Kim Fowley, Sky Saxon, GONN, Michael Davis of the MC5 and more grace its stage.

Their in-house record label, Dirty Water Records, is one of the leading garage/beat/(real) R&B labels in the world.