‘THE RESURRECTION OF THE CRAZED’
Paul Wainwright
(Earth Island Books)
This is a fascinating book that if you were around at the time probably won’t be able to put it down. You had to be to be lucky to stumble upon fanzines like ‘The Crazed’ back in the 1980’s, especially if you weren’t getting to a lot of gigs. I discovered a few fanzines in the very late 1980’s and hoovered them up but never got to read The Crazed. If I had, I’d have loved it, I was always devouring any information I could get about bands that for someone living in Devon were just what you gleaned from the music on the records and the cover photos. There was scant interest on psychobilly in the music press which is why these DIY magazines stepped in. In this 260 page king sized paperback the author of this book and also the original ‘The Crazed’ not only reprints the magazine articles for those of us that missed them the first time around but also the story behind the interviews and each issue. It’s a unique concept that absolutely works. It’s written in very a readable style, like a mate talking to you in the pub, which for me made it a one-sitting read on a day off. It’s particularly fascinating to read the stories and opinions of various bands as they were still beginning their careers and not how they now remember those days after four decades. As the fourth and final issue of The Crazed is brought to a close in the book, we get to meet some of the current luminaries of a scene that was thought to be almost finished along with the magazine in 1988. Nobody has ever managed to drive that last nail in the coffin of psychobilly, and here we are in 2024 it’s still hammering on the lid.
Simon Nott