The Exotic Ones meet up with Genki Genki Panic
Once, long ago, in the before-time, there was no internet. There was no social media, no digital downloads or streaming services. There were no DVDs, no VHS, there wasn’t even cable television.
It was a dark time indeed for cheap entertainment, but there were a few faintly glimmering beacons of hope we common folk rallied around. There were drive-in movies, UHF television and, if you lived in a large enough city, grindhouse theaters.
While there may have been a handful of “fancy” drive-ins, most shared a common trait with other two media outlets in that they were cheap, low-budget affairs and required a steady stream of cheap, low-budget material to stay operating. Kung Fu flicks, exploitation films, bad horror and bad science-fiction all found a loving home and a receptive audience in these environments.
There may have been a few people who thought the stuff was “good,” two or three guys in Topeka, maybe, but most of us knew they were bad, loved them for their badness, and developed a weird appreciation for them that has enabled Lloyd Kaufman to stay gainfully employed.
I think many of us had aspirations (or at least daydreams) of making 8mm backyard movies with firecrackers, model rockets, and tinfoil and seeing B movies (and C, D, E and F movie) on a screen, big or little, gave us all a sense of reassurance that, “Hell, I could do THAT!”
There are a few things all of these movies had in common, no matter the genre. Bad acting, stock footage, huge tracts of land, but it’s the music that stands out in particular because, honestly, it wasn’t always that bad, and even when it was, it was memorable.
One can only surmise that with actors, directors, prop masters and puppet wranglers, you get what you pay for, but there’s always a talented musician starving to death somewhere.
And now, finally, gentle reader, we come to the lede, buried so deep that digging it back up could serve as fodder for one of those Shock Theater classics, The Exotic Ones.
Based out of Murfreesboro, The Exotic Ones are an eclectic assemblage of musicians with a penchant for classic/cheesy horror and sci-fi, '60s guitar sounds, proto-punk and rockabilly. Consisting of Messieurs Steph Infection, Tartan Phantom, The Grey Shade, Mr. Ghoul, and Zoomga, the band has been performing unlicensed brain experiments on listeners for years and famously wrote and performed, “The Doctor is In”, the theme song for Nashville cable’s long-running show, “Chiller Cinema" (a.k.a. WB's "Creature Feature”), hosted by Dr. Gangrene.
Citing influences from the Dickies to the Monkees (and picking up some Ramones and Cramps along the way,) the band consistently delivers high energy, thrashy, crunchy rock and roll with Svengoolie overtones.
I’m a fast fast thinker but a slow slow learner
I’m a bad bad boy with a Bunsen burner
I’m a vast vast voyager on a no-returner
I’m a mad mad maker and a monster-turner.
Those are the opening lines from “Venus Flytrap,” a classic boy-makes-girlfriend-who-eats-him story that delivers such subtle imagery as, “Like a naked belly-flop into bacon, she leaves me glistening with pleasure…”
Imagine that delivered at 70 mph with nasty, driving guitar hooks (I’ve met the guitar player who is quite the accomplished hooker) and you have an idea of their “real rock and roll for weirdoes” style.
It is telling, perhaps, that one of their signatures tunes is a cover of the theme from the 1968 Japanese/Italian sci-fi miss, “Green Slime.”
The best news of all about The Exotic Ones? They’re invading Chattanooga. In a pairing not seen since chocolate met peanut butter, The Exotic Ones are playing a double-header with local lords of smart weirdness Genki Genki Panic.
The combination of Chatt-town’s favorite horror surf group with The ‘Boros own mad scientists is a match made in a laboratory. The two rock and roll powerhouses will meet on October 20th at The Spot, located at 1800 E. Main, for an evening searing music sure to please any unconventional conventionist.
The show is a ways off yet, and there will be reminders before the date rolls around, but for now there’s plenty of time to hit up Bandcamp, Spotify, and the usual round of intertube locations to find why you are already a diehard fan of The Exotic Ones.