White Cowbell Oklahoma

If you're like Christopher Walken, the only cure for your fever is more cowbell, and this Southern fried, chemically twisted collective aims to ease your pain. Rumour has it that they're Toronto folk, but they're never too geographically specific for fear of attracting the lawmen and bounty hunters on their trail (check their extensive rap sheets at www.whitecowbell.com). The band's debut album, Cencerro Blanco, captures what their guitarist Clem calls, "the rock'n'roll boogie woogie rhythm and blues experience," a sound that's fortified live by a flurry of sultry strippers, costumed drunkards and depraved dancers "assaulting your mind, your senses and your groin." Most shocked and awed members of the press are mighty kind to the Cowbell, but Clem's got words for the sceptics and "chin-stroking coolies" among us: "We are not an ironic band, we are not intellectualists making smarty fancy-pants music, we are 100 percent sex-mex entertainment, and if we gotta stand on a mountain with a Texas-sized bullhorn goin' 'Holy fuckin' shit, are we fuckin' great!' then that's what we're gonna do."

Lorraine Carpenter
Exclaim magazine
March 2004