The Anacondas “Bad Buzz–Lost in the Space Age” Surfgalactic International

So according to the owner and operator of Surfgalactic International Corp., The Anacondas happened upon the tapes made by the cast and crew of the fake space landing; not that Buzz and Neil didn’t jump around on the moon back in 1969, but NASA had sent a crew to the desert just in case they didn’t make it.  Anyway, they had nothing to do, the actor playing Buzz went nuts (the Bad Buzz of the title), and they rocked themselves stupid.  The Anacondas have lovingly recreated those tapes in glorious twenty-first century quality.

And holy shit are we all happy they did.  What we get with “Bad Buzz—Lost in the Space Age” is B-movie sci-fi surf-rock of the highest caliber.  And since we’re dealing with outerspace, or at least a desertified version of outerspace, the highest caliber is gonna be pretty damn high.  I mean, jeeeeeeeeez, man!  Guitars so dripping wet I think they’re melting in the desert sun, or flying to close to it; organ playing galore and glorious; trumpet; flute; basslines like rolling and breaking waves; drums you can set your watch to.  Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh and oh:  yeah, there’s theremin.  This is Ed Wood meets the Surfaris, Laika the space dog and the Tijuana Brass.  Bad Buzz mutters under his breath for part of the time, and when he announces at the start of “Bad Buzz Down” that “It’s not good gettin’ the bad buzz,” you totally believe him.  And then he busts out in full wackjob grumbling for “Hopped Up Rocket”, a riff on “Hopped-Up Mustang”, that will leave you happy you came along on his trip.

I’ve wandered around town listening to this album, and I rang in the new year with it cranked up to eleven with rocket boosters, and I’ve cooked Mexican food to it, and it’s worked for all three.  And now I’m packing my spacefriends into the woodpanelled station wagon and we’re firing our rockets for the moon, and this is the only damn record we’re taking with us.