THE SHEEP RECORDS STORY #17: LOS BANDITOS "FUZZBALL" (2000)

Sheep Records was a Swiss underground label specialized in Garage-Rock, Surf, Lounge and other Rock'n'Roll oddities. Run by Christian Müller from Zürich, along with friends Andi Frick and Andreas Egi, it was active from 1996 to 2004 and published about 30 releases, mostly on 7" vinyl singles.



In october 2006, after about two years of hiatus, all the contents of the now defunct Sheep Records website were deleted from the Internet, and replaced with a blank page announcing that "Der Kebab ist gegessen" ("The kebab is eaten"), a last goodbye and a reference to the label's cataloguing system that included the prefix "kebab" for vinyl releases and "gigot" for CD releases.



The seventeenth Sheep Records release was an EP by German band Los Banditos. This 7" is limited to 300 copies on blue vinyl and 200 copies on black vinyl, for a total of 500 copies; it was released in October 2000.

The short Sheep Records press-release presents the record with these words: «Los Banditos come with their very own style of East German 60's surf, lounge, and rock'n'roll music. Four amazing songs about the new girl in the club, electronically stirred cranes and Detective X.»...

Side A begins with the lively "Fuzzball", which includes a recurring German speech of unknown origin, and ends with "Die Neue vom Club" (The New One In the Club), a track that trickles Rockabilly from every pore.

On the second side we find "Kommissar X" (Commissioner X), obviously inpired by the series of crime novels and movies of the same name, and the enigmatic "Elektronisch gesteuerte Laufkräne" (Electronically Controlled Cranes, or something very similar), which is my favourite Los Banditos track so far.





Here's the track list and the personnel/credits list for this 7" EP as they appear on the back cover:

01. Fuzzball (3:08)
02. Die Neue vom Club (2:32)
03. Kommissar X (2:37)
04. Elektronisch gesteuerte Laufkräne (3:31)

Django B.B. Silbermann: bass
Mr. 2000 Volt: guitar
Jiri Buschnik: drums
C. Rodriguez Flamingo: organ, electric piano
Superjoe Paco Louise: DJ and special effects

All tracks composed and arranged by Los Banditos.
Artwork by Rolf Keller.

All tracks were remastered from vinyl in June 2015 and are available in FLAC lossless format or high-quality 320 Kbps MP3 files; both formats include scans of the complete original artwork.

Please have a look at the comments for the download links.

Here's a Los Banditos biography as found here:

In 1996 the band was founded as a trio in Jena, Germany. The Banditos first specialized in Surf, but soon enough line up and musical competence were steadily broadened, so that four years later we're facing a five-headed gang that is still celebrating its music on a solid Surf base and is unmistakeably inspired by the East-German "Big Beat" bands of the early Sixties (yes, this term did exist already 40 years ago), but is integrating the sexy groove of the Sixties/Seventies Soul into its music, performing classical R'n'B vocal pieces and with the help of the DJ, who is a regular band member, creates an own version of Post Easy Listening Pop. This mixture is produced on original vintage GDR-equipment: Musima de Luxe guitar, Musima Billant 76 bass and Weltmeister T/O 200.5 organ.

The Banditos' live gigs turn out to be a challenge for your dancing as well as for your laughing abilities. Glamour is served in family packs and the prescribed combination of musical drugs, namely Sixties Beat, Surf, sound tracks of spy thrillers, Spaghetti Westerns and blue movies, Black Soul, Las Vegas Glamour, Shadows melodies and brave postmodern Pop makes even the death move. At the latest with their interpretations of "Je t’aime… moi non plus" and "Oh Tannenbaum" (whose melody is also the state hymn of Maryland) every hall goes wild.

But of course the Banditos are not only game for popular party tunes. In the first place elegance and understatement are dominant. In an adequate atmosphere it is not unlikely that an Los Banditos concert takes up to three hours. And there's not one moment of boredom included. Their own compositions, titled "Fremder Planet" (Unknown Planet), "Porno Uschi" (Porn Uschi), "Unbekannte wilde Frau" (Unknown Wild Woman) or "Zwischenfall im Orbit" (Incident In Space) don't have to hide behind their versions of classics or obscurities.

Self evidently, the Banditos are now all year around on tour, not only at home, but also in Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, The Netherlands, Belgium and Danmark. Their divine "Sex" video clip ran several times on Viva; Arte broadcasted a complete concert and they have been hired to write the music for Karen Finleys thestre play "The Theory of Total Blame". Of course they appear also frequently in the radio, in fanzines and the press. Some samples? Spex: "Best Surf/Instrumental record of approximately the last 18 month." Flying Revolverblatt: "Fantastic Instrumental sound between Surf &Easy Listening." Ox: "The heroes of Trash Surf Beat… were the only ones who managed to make the 700 lethargic bastards move."

Los Banditos as a (temporarily) four-piece band sometimes in the 00s

The following clips offer a preview of the remastered single, enjoy "Fuzzball" and "Elektronisch gesteuerte Laufkräne"!

More information about Sheep Records and Los Banditos is available here:

http://www.surfnroll.de/interviews/sheep/sheep.html

http://www.losbanditos.de

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Los-Banditos/116466851763320

http://www.discogs.com/artist/362031-Los-Banditos

https://myspace.com/banditen/photos

http://www.schuette-raibach.de/seiten/mitglieder/oliver_jahn/los_banditos.html

The Sheep Records story will continue in the next months. All your inputs are more than welcome, if you want to get in touch please write to stereocandies [at] hotmail [dot] com or leave a comment in the box below, thank you!