Psychobilly

[Jheri curl leads to hairstyle leads to quiff leads to ...]
PSYCHOBILLY is a genre of music generally described as a mix between the British punk rock of the 1970s and the American rockabilly of the 1950s. The genre is also characterized by lyrical references to horror films, violence, exploitation films, lurid sexuality and other topics generally considered taboo, sometimes presented in a comedic, tongue-in-cheek fashion. Psychobilly music is generally played with an upright bass instead of an electric bass....

The term "psychobilly" was first used by Wayne Kemp when he penned the Johnny Cash song "One Piece at a Time," a Top 10 hit in 1976, where he makes reference to a "psychobilly Cadillac", although this song has nothing musically to do with Psychobilly. It came into use as a genre a few years later, when the Cramps described their music as "psychobilly" and "voodoo rockabilly" on flyers advertising their upcoming shows. Although the Cramps rejected the idea of being a part of the psychobilly scene, they, along with artists such as Screamin' Jay Hawkins and the Stray Cats, are considered important precursors to psychobilly. Musically speaking, there are also antecedents in the garage rock scene of the 1960s and the pub rock scene of the 1970s. The very first verifiable psychobilly band is considered to be the Meteors in south London in 1980. With one member being part of the rockabilly subculture, another being part of the punk subculture, and the last being a horror movie fan, their musical ideas overlapped to begin psychobilly as it exists today. The Meteors also invented the concept of psychobilly being apolitical, by encouraging their shows to be a "politics-free" zone in order to avoid disputes among fans, as was becoming common in the punk rock scene of the time. To this day, almost no psychobilly songs are political, but turning more and more fashionable. This Subgenre is called Fashionbilly, first named in late 2004 by Kim Nekroman (Nekromantix, Horrorpops).

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