Inside The Noise floor: The Pink Slip Daddies — Meth Test (SUB006)
Despite the pink suits and questionable shades, Phoenix’s Pink Slip Daddies have tapped into the zeitgeist of the working class, evoking the rockabilly gods of yore.
Y’know that sound that happens right before you die? Of course you don’t. but The Pink Slip Daddies do. More specifically, vocalist and all round madman Carlton Thornton III isn’t just familiar with the sound, he’s captured it, studied it, and fully understands it, thanks to a near fatal motorbike crash in the outer suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona.
“Lemme tell you, on the death bed there’s a lot going on — bright lights, hallucinations, panicky nurses... but deep in the fang of each ear is a shudder, shake and thump, kinda like a coconut falling off a palm tree. That’s the demise. The death song. If you’re lucky enough to wake after that, well, you got yourself a conversation starter.”
This sound, of course, has nothing to do with The Pink Slip Daddies’ music.
Back in the tangible realm of consciousness and dive bars, The Daddies ply their trade, ripping through frenetic psychobilly sagas and romping punk rock played at meth level. Apt, then, that their debut EP be titled Meth Test; a twenty-first century testament to the band’s biblical heroes, The Cramps, Rancid, Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Feathers, and Reverend Horton Heat, to name a few.
Phoenix born and raised, The Pink Slip Daddies (Carlton Thornton III — vocals, Stu Ellison — guitar, Marcus Bigalow — double bass, and Thornton’s little brother Harvey on drums) churn out nitro rock the way factory men hustle — with nothing but a backstory, colorful language, and an urgency no middle classer will ever understand.
“My daddy was a factory man, his daddy too, and his daddy moved out here from Minnesota to find work building the Hoover Dam. Don’t let the name fool ya, Carlton Thornton III is purebred white trash all the way. ”
Clocking in at just over fifteen minutes, each of the seven tracks on Meth Test feels more like a worker’s anthem than a dive-bar slam fest, sung by men who know the sound of a compressor dying at dawn. An aura of nostalgia bleeds into the music too, evoking the roots of rockabilly with hot rod antics (Lizzie Took the Axle) bar fights (Shut Yer Trap) and death wishes (Ain’t Afraid) resembling a series of late-night confessions to a drunken priest who may or may not be compos mentis.
Let it not be said though, that the Daddies aren’t socially aware. The Pennywise-esque The Dividends of Noose Manufacturing raises the age-old issue of corporations profiting from the eradication of the poor, Ashes for Bread continues along a similar theme, delivering an ode to the minimum wage worker to a rollicking ska beat, while Workplace Violence is loosely based on an apprentice mechanic who was taunted to the point of suicide by his fellow workers.
And that’s the point, isn’t it? Being that the worldview of the masses is one of shaky adversity despite the output of grit and determination, so too is The Pink Slip Daddies ethos: a world of songs stitched together with a defiant cheekiness, pushing against the odds with balls and swagger, all while feeling the music could fall apart at any given moment. This isn’t the death song, this is the sound of living.
And that double bass?
“Bigelow’s double bass athleticism is the piece de resistance, the ke-chung ke-chung that puts the psychobilly into punk rock, and despite it being an age-old gimmick in rock n’ roll, Marcus truly makes it his own. He treats that thing better than he does his wife.”
Any rock n’ roll band worth a damn leaves a trail of busted gear and tired bones behind it. This is life. Entropy and shifting energies. Noise and ritual. A literal, no bullshit approach, built from something someone else couldn’t fix, fuzzin’ and a-slappin’ and a-bangin’ to the beat of the street that often steals the song of the heart.
And if the trademark Daddies’ sound is that of the living, a dedication to all things broken and those who’ll continue to die trying, then welcome home, honey, and keep refusing to clock out. Play it loud, let it ride, and just keep going.
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