The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster - the Band
Created | Updated May 31, 2013
The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster (EMBD) are named after a car once driven by Winston Churchill. They are an intense, loud and powerful band that exploded out of Brighton, UK, in early 2002. They rapidly gathered attention with their first single 'Morning Has Broken' - a concoction of psycho-billy punk, thrash, 'Elvis-from-hell' vocals and their own brand of weirdness.
Three of the band are Buddhists and have a strong belief in psychosis as a positive force. They own a dragster that is also called The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster.
After a series of short and chaotic live performances, they released a second single, 'Celebrate your Mother', an even faster and louder song than their debut.
In December 2002, their debut album, Horse of the Dog, was released. This album has highly original blasts of noise and genuine anger intersected with seemingly random playing that lacks any form or structure. This added a whole new dimension to their songs.
In early January their third single 'Psychosis Safari' came out, arguably the best, and most commercial song on the album.
The Band
The EMBD are:
- Guy McKnight - Vocals
- Andy Huxley - Lead Guitar
- Marc Norris - Rhythm Guitar
- Sym Gharial - Bass
- Tom Diamantopoulo - Drums
Horse of the Dog
Tracks
The tracks in order they appear on the album are:
'Celebrate your Mother' - A propulsive bassline, a wail of feedback, and the debut album by the EMBD begins. It's about incest; loving someone's mother. A speedy attack with flying guitar solos follows until the guitar-and-snare middle eight cuts in and holds for almost a minute. A barrage of sound then begins and a huge crash carries it through to the end.
'Chicken' - A rocking horse rhythm takes this song through dark musical waters.
'Whack of S**t' - A slow grind with an extremely loud chorus, and Guy McKnight claiming himself to be 'just a man'.
'Psychosis Safari' - Arguably the best song on the album, 'Psychosis Safari' sees the EMBD thrashing through their guitars until they are completely wrecked. The solo near the end sounds like the last gasp of the instrument before it completely overloads.
'Giant Bones' - The most chaotic song on the album randomly thrashes about until everything stops, starts again, gets faster, repeats, then ends before the two- minute line.
'Fishfingers' - At this point, you would think that the EMBD would offer some respite, but instead they knock out the fastest song on the album, with Guy at one point screaming 'I am the son of God!'.
'Charge the Guns' - A song about war and death that lasts less than a minute and a half.
'Morning Has Broken' - A song about Jesus, with a screechy intro and distorted vocals leading you to believe that this will be the loudest song on the album, which it almost is. The lyric 'I wanna live my life making love' lightens the mood slightly.
'Team Meat' - This song pokes fun at rich people who take pride in their wealth.
'Presidential Wave' - The longest, loudest song of the lot with a creepy vocal middle eight, a strange guitar intro and a constant sense of impending doom.
Videos
Celebrate your Mother - A straightforward band-plays-to-rabid-crowd set up, the difference being that the crowd are transvestites.
Psychosis Safari - An extremely strange and unusual video where ghosts and various other creatures spin around the EMBD who are driving the EMBD. This is interspersed with shots of them playing on a yellow background while it appears that they are on a 3D screen, and the viewer puts on 3D glasses. In the finale the car goes so fast that the band burn up in a blast of flames.
