Hillbilly Moon Explosion
| The Hillbilly Moon Explosion | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| origin | Switzerland |
| Genre (s) | Rock 'n' Roll , Roots Rock , Rockabilly |
| founding | 1998 |
| Website | https://www.hillbillymoon.com/ |
| Founding members | |
| Emanuela Hutter | |
| Oliver Baroni | |
| Patt Matteo (until 1999) | |
| Aad Hollander (until 2001) | |
| Current occupation | |
| Emanuela Hutter | |
| Oliver Baroni | |
| Duncan James (until 2001) | |
| Sylvain Petite (since 2004) | |
| former members | |
| Patrick Geser (1999-2004) | |
| Luke Weyermann (2001-2012) | |
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Hillbilly Moon Explosion is a Swiss rockabilly band founded in 1998 . The group is best known for its versatile mix of styles including rock 'n' roll , jump blues , swing , sixties beat , country , roots rock , surf and a few chanson elements.
Band history
Hillbilly Moon Explosion was created in 1998 as part of the Zurich rockabilly scene. The group was founded by the native Englishman and Swiss-born Oliver Baroni (vocals, bass, guitar) and the Italian- Swiss singer Emanuela Hutter. After the breakup of his former band, the Hillbilly Headhunters, Oliver Baroni planned a formation that, according to Hutter, really "rocked". Emanuela Hutter was working on the singer-songwriter music project MD Moon at the time. The original formation was completed by the drummer Aad Hollander and the guitarist Pat Matteo, another ex-member of the Hillbilly Headhunters. The first demo tape was made in the same year. Emanuela Hutter, who at that time was still obliged to perform solo, did not join the band until the following year.
From 1999 Hillbilly Moon Explosion performed regularly. A typical feature of the group were the piece by piece changing solo vocal parts of Baroni and Hutter. The first CD was released in 2002. Introducing The Hillbilly Moon Explosion contained a band repertoire known to date, including the fast sixties pop piece Chick Habit , originally composed by Serge Gainsbourg and sung by France Gall , and Johnny Are You Gay ?, a catchy one Rock 'n' roll catchy tune and one of the group's most successful pieces. Bourgois Baby, the second album, was released in 2004. In addition to fast rock'n'roll numbers, it contained one or two slow pieces in classic country and western style and a cover version of Rosemary Clooney's 1954 hit Mambo Italiano . Bourgois Baby received mostly good reviews from the press . On their third CD, the group released no new recordings, but a compilation of older and newer live and rarity versions. Title: By Popular Demand: The Basement Tapes (1999–2005).
The published in 2006 following album All Grown Up sat with fast songs like Little Lil, the country song Brown Eyed Boy, which with Ska - rhythms -unterlegten Walk Italian and Poupée de cire, poupée de son , another France Gall hit, the known range of styles of the band. The peculiarity of enriching new releases with already introduced titles, the group repeated on the 2010 album number five - Raw Deal. Some changes had occurred in the cast of the group over the course of the 2000s. The Brit Duncan James joined Patrick Geser, who had meanwhile taken over the part of the guitar . The new drummer was Luke Weyermann from Switzerland.
In addition to tours and appearances in Switzerland, including at the Bern Gurten Festival and the Winterthur Music Festival , the band has performed a number of other European countries - including Germany , Spain , Italy , Finland , Slovenia , Croatia , Hungary , Poland and Austria . In 2010 Hillbilly Moon Explosion opened for Jeff Beck at the Olympia in Paris . In 2010, the formation attracted attention when they turned down an offer to participate in the Swiss elimination for the Eurovision Song Contest . In the spring of 2011, the sixth publication, Buy, Beg And Steal, appeared . In the song My Love For Evermore , singer Hutter played the vocal part in a duet with Mark "Sparky" Phillips from the British psychobilly group Demented Are Go . The song, a country and western ballad, offers a new variant of the Bonnie and Clyde theme and was also released as a video clip in spring 2011. With Damn Right Honey! (Sings of Love, Loss, Life & Death) the seventh CD was released in March 2013. With stylistic borrowings from Cab Calloway , the singing duo Les Paul & Mary Ford and the surf sound of the early 1960s, Damn Right Honey oriented itself ! a bit more pronounced on the musical styles of the late 1940s to early 1960s.
Despite a considerable number of appearances, appreciative press reviews and a variety of styles, which is repeatedly highlighted as a unique selling point, the musicians continue to run the band part-time. Founding member Oliver Baroni is a full-time online journalist . Emanuela Hutter works as a teacher specializing in German as a second language . The members of the group live in and around Zurich.
Style and reviews
Although some media rated it as the best rockabilly formation in Switzerland, Hillbilly Moon Explosion are still an insider tip. The previous reviews were above average appreciative, and in some cases even enthusiastic. The traditional mix of styles, which transcends rockabilly, is repeatedly highlighted. The band members themselves name different music preferences on their website - Oliver Baroni, for example, blues greats like Howlin 'Wolf , Lightnin' Hopkins and the singer-songwriter Steve Earle , Emanuela Hutter, on the other hand, some metal bands and the singers Patsy Cline , Irma Thomas , Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington .
The online music portal schallplattenmann.de described the style of the group on the occasion of a review by Bourgeois Baby as follows: “The bass pogt, the drums clatter, the guitars twang and shredded and the singing is sometimes wild, sometimes erotic. The Swiss Hillbilly Moon Explosion are a wonderful rockabilly discovery alongside the Peacocks . Not quite as straight and impulsive as their Schaffhausen colleagues, the Hillbillys rummage through neighboring areas with songs like 'Mambo Italiano' and deliver an intro for 'Dead Cat Boogie' that could also come from the blues band and fake for 'Many Tears' Ago 'a little jazz . ” A reviewer from Buy, Beg Or Steal formulated a rather mixed assessment on the music and lifestyle website pressuremagazin.de: “ Oliver Baroni, who is also the bassist of the formation, takes on the male vocals . Musically, the entire album is a mixture of rockabilly and rock 'n' roll and with titles like 'Buy Beg Or Steal', 'She Kicked Me To The Curb' or 'Rock' n 'Roll Girl' you know how to convince. Many of the tracks are slow, calm songs that Emanuela's voice makes them come across well, but in the long run they get a bit boring. "
The Neue Zürcher Zeitung also rated Hillbilly Moon Explosion as an unusual band with a varied repertoire: “The new album explodes on the dark side of the moon: the band gives their mélange of boogie, country and rock a psychedelic note. Particularly appealing when she flirts with the Italian-American swing of Louis Prima or Renato Carosone and makes the winking inversion of having a woman sing the heartbreak ballad 'Natascia' - to the address of a woman. Such ironic breaks have always set the group apart from the lack of humor of reactionary rockabilly purists. ”The Swiss weekly magazine Facts gave a similar verdict in 2002 : “ The songs are short and sweet, the sound simple, direct, groovy and shabby. Nevertheless: if this were pure nostalgia, it would be unbearable. But the band and guests not only do justice to the spirit of the 1950s , they also ironize it lovingly; add a pinch of punk to the rockabilly , put a petticoat on tracks by Serge Gainsbourg and Steve Earle and adapt elements of the evergreen ' The Leader of the Pack ' to 'Johnny Are You Gay?' "
Discography
Albums
| year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
 CH
|
|||
| 2011 | Buy, Beg or Steal |
CH94 (1 week) CH |
more publishments
- 2002: Introducing The Hillbilly Moon Explosion
- 2004: Bourgeois Baby
- 2005: By Popular Demand: The Basement Tapes (1999-2005)
- 2006: All Grown Up
- 2010: Raw Deal
- 2013: Damn Right Honey!
- 2016: With Monsters And Gods
- 2019: The Sparky Sessions
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Meet The Band ( Memento from August 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), introduction of the band members and band history on the band's website, accessed on January 11, 2012 (English)
- ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Hillbilly Moon Explosion , band biography on rock 'n' roll music site tockin-rollin.de, accessed on January 12, 2012.
- ↑ News And Gigs ( Memento of the original from December 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Band diary 2006–2011 on the band's website, accessed on January 11, 2012 (English)
- ↑ Hillbilly Moon Explosion Consolidate Status , 20 minutes (online edition) , April 11, 2011
- ↑ a b Committed to the lifestyle of young rock'n'roll , Bänz Friedli, NZZ on Sunday , March 20, 2011.
- ^ The Hillbilly Moon Explosion: "Bourgeois Baby" , review on schallplattenmann.de, July 26, 2004
- ↑ CD review: The Hillbilly Moon Explosion - Buy Beg Or Steal ( Memento from February 11, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), Florian Puschke, music website pressuremagazin.de, August 16, 2011
- ↑ Press ( Memento of September 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), compilation of the press reviews on the band's website, accessed on January 11, 2012
- ↑ CH
