a buddy of mine sent this to me and i thought some of you may be interested
Big John Bates
Battle at Sea
Echo
$5 VFW
Friday December 2nd
THE STORY: it might be only rock’n'roll - infused with blues and
powered by a punkabilly beat - but both BJB CDs - Flamethrower (2001)
and Mystiki (2003) - are into multiple pressings around the world.
Mystiki cruised the top 50 college charts for six consecutive weeks,
lead by the swinging toms of “Bad Girls Go to Hell� and the title track
“Mystiki�. Its jazzy embers burn for the torchy “Take it Off� and
scorch during a killer version of “Tainted Love�. It’s all part of what
has brought the crowd re-discovering the primitive, raw sounds of
rock’n'roll to party with Big John Bates.
You can identify people into Bates’ style with one phrase - cutting
edge. Greasers into blues, punks into the 50’s and rockers that like to
cross genres with a kickass band. They draw heavily from college-age
crowds but have fans of all ages. This has helped lead Gretsch guitars
to give Big John top honours, their New Artist Spotlight in 2005 at
www.gretschguitars.com and Jagermeister has also become a sponsor of
BJB.
Big John Bates & the Voodoo Dollz’ live show has become a rock’n'roll
event in the group’s many circuits. Not content to simply pump out raw
rock’in tunes, they created their own burlesque troope, the Voodoo
Dollz, in 2001. Choreographed to John’s pulp fiction-style lyrics,
their neo-burlesque show has helped bring BJB attention everywhere from
coffee table books such as Burlesque - The New Bump and Grind (2004)
from Speck Press in the USA to a sordid write-up in L.A.’s
fetish-oriented Nugget magazine (2003) and even a cover mention and
story in the UK’s Bizarre magazine (2005).
J.Earl Miller
Jesco Productions
Photographer/Promoter
