Ripple Single Premiere - punk legends Jet Black Berries releasing newly remastered single “Johnsonville”!

 

Jet Black Berries are releasing a brand new single “Johnsonville” as a harbinger to their freshly remastered reissue of their seminal 1985 album Sundown On Venus [Definitive Edition] (out Sep. 25), both out via Propeller Sound Recordings. They exist at the strange and fertile intersection of post-punk restlessness, roots-rock mythology, psychedelic revival, and science-fiction dread.

 

Sundown On Venus [Definitive Edition] is a concept album. This collection of songs is now in the order that the band originally intended (the original release was a double-album vinyl set). Primarily written by Trainer, the non-linear story contained in the songs is filled with outlaws, Venusian hideouts and mind-controlling monsters—heavily influenced by William S. Burroughs’ The Red Night Trilogy and the writings of Aleister Crowley.

 

Each song is like a little movie vignette. Throughout the album we’ll interact with a cast of characters like: gunslinger Bill Kelly, the “Masked Astronaut,” Jim Dawson and the metaphysical monsters of the Mindless Gang, Captain Mission and his crew of space pirates, a bitter priest and banker in love with the sound of gun fire… until “All is Lost” in a storm that washes everything away.

 

1985 press:

 

"Psychedelic retro-rockers, this quintet makes its debut a 'musical western about Venus,' throwing in an extra six-song EP as a bonus. Oddly charming, if rough-hewn, garage rock." - Billboard

 

"Sundown on Venus [is] surprisingly good considering the band lists among their influences ALEISTER CROWLEY, BRIAN JONES and psychotronic films. It sounds to me like they're actually influenced by DUANE EDDY, MARTY ROBBINS, THE VENTURES, ROY ORBISON, MOBY GRAPE and Invaders From Mars. This is an authentic straight-ahead rock band with good songs and no excess artisticness. They sound sort of like a fore-boding FLESHTONES. I would go to the Peppermint Lounge to see them and maybe dance. Good use of harmonica. Manly but amacho vocals. Good bopping metallic grooves in the footsteps of YARDBIRDS. Mastery of bar band facts of life so important in these days of no radio and television. Actually this is quite excellent. Better than DEL FUEGOS, the REPLACEMENTS and BIG COUNTRY all rolled into one down jacket. Better than those guys on Splash Records that are like THE EVERLY BROTHERS meet Rumble Fish. I'd love to hear this band do "North to Alaska."

- GLENN O'BRIEN / Interview Magazine

 

"Jet Black Berries has jettisoned the synths for a derivative yet original sound in the manner of, say, Dream Syndicate, drawing from the garage rock tradition but injecting their own personality. It's loose but affecting in the manner of the B-movie classics they take for inspiration. Check out the spirit of 'Sundown On Venus,' 'Bad Hombre' and 'Noon In Cairo.'" - CMJ

 

Jet Black Berries having put out 'Sundown On Venus' have caught a lazy record biz with its shorts in the laundrette... Step into the back ma'am-wallop-a sonic rubdown with 'Macumba Love.' Paint JET BLACK BERRIES on the back of your leathers why dontcha? These guys deeds are indeed a legend already. The The numbers smitten grow daily and you are on their hit list. - Lindsay Hutton / SOUNDS (UK)

 

"Sundown on Venus sounds like a spaghetti-westernish psychedelic Clash partying with the Blasters... Highlights are 'Masked Astronaut,' a little ditty about an interstellar Lone Ranger...and 'Johnsonville,' which features some vintage-sounding keyboard work. This ambitious project deserves to become a college radio staple. It's punchy and raw, but handled with finesse and style." - Music Connection

 

"[Jet Black Berries'] debut album is 'right on.' The band may have its psychological nfluences, but its sound is 'keyboards meets country' with a dash of Cramps-style sound. The music is high energy; singer Kevin Patrick is in full control and a powerful set of chords are not lost in the production mix." - The Salem, Mass, Evening News

 

"The saga of The Jet Black Berries' debut release is akin to attempting to follow an episode of 'The Wild West' while on hallucinogens at 2 in the morning." - Lisa Reynolds