The Beat-Man Cometh
Monsters Sent to Explode Your Brain
As the eternal conflict for rock & roll primacy degrades itself to Ukrainian state-scale ineptitude, one can’t help but scan the entire woeful spectrum on a global basis, searching hither and yon for someone—anyone—meritorious enough to qualify as a force majeure. Historically, it’s been painful enough to cede credibility to British artists (let’s go with Mick Green, Marc Bolan, Lemmy, Brian James, Poly Styrene and Cliff Richard), but legitimate Continental rock & roll is a far more elusive beast.
While electrifying Parisian Johnny Hallyday was the exception who reliably proved this rule for decades, in the wake of his departure there’s scant few able to assume the position—Plastic Bertrand just ain’t gon git it. But with the case of the Bern-born badboy Beat-Man comes a notably tarnished example of a genuine misfit rocker. With a mutant physiognomy more akin to Popeye the Sailor than the beauteous Memphis Flash and a pure-D trash-o-phonic musical approach that displays all the right errors and an instinctive flair for socio-cultural transgressions, Beat-Man’s mixture of demented abandon and biting big beat delivers an admirably concocted dose of insurrectionary toxins.
Having witnessed Rev. Beat-Man (his one-man band iteration) lay thorough waste to one of my Messarounds some years ago and learning of an upcoming West coast-Mexico invasion by his venerable trauma combo the Monsters, I couldn’t resist the temptation to play adversary’s advocate and give the maniacal little bugger a platform (via email) here on ye old Substack.
See how he raves:
“My name is Beat-Man Zeller, i was born in Bern Switzerland, a Medieval town and Evil i am . . . couldn’t stand school but felt in love with the Teacher and became a rock & Sroller when i saw Motörhead and Iron Maiden on German TV in 1981 . . . as 16 years old and steeped on the streets, i bought my first electric guitar and amp i listen to Einstürzende Neubauten and just make noise in school too, i was bad but i made it as a electrician, worked mostly in the Bern red light district because my boss had the connection with them . . .”
“In 1991 i formed Lightning Beat-Man the Wrestling One-Man band . . . i had the urge to go out into the world and tour so i got hired as a driver and roadie for a concert agency, but with the condition that i could do work [open?] for the bands 10 minutes before the program... i had an acoustic guitar back then played through a distortion pedal and screamed my lungs out... and the people really liked that and after that i was able to do around the globe made between 150-200 shows a year until i lost my voice and wanted to kill myself then i saw the light and became Reverend Beat-Man with a even more nasty mission … to conquer the world with rock & roll . . . “
“Reverend Beat-Man is my Alter ego . . . i use him to create music and ideas, when i’m Reverend Beat-Man i’m in another world and i love this world . . . the Lightning Beat-Man world was scary but i like this one . . . i use my body and spirit as a tool and let myself influence by many things . . . howling wolf, hasil adkins, kraftwerk, chet baker, alan vega, venom . . . When ideas come to me, i let them flow and create my music out of them, they come at night . . . sometimes it's just scraps of lyrics or a simple guitar riff . . . i record that, listen to it and continue to create until [it] has a structure . . . then bring it to the Monsters practice room and the whole band works like a shredder, chopping up and refining everything . . . This is how a Monsters song is created . . . “
“i found out what rock & roll is . . . its not a music style . . . its a Revolution . . . it started in the USA as a Statement against racial segregation black teens wanted to make music with white teens and fuck the establishment and the conservatives . . . that made me a fighter and someone who wanted to tear down boundaries and infect everyone with this wild music . . . we want that message to explode in their brains to open up and come back to rock & roll . . . and that’s what we gonna do in the West coast this year . . . “
The Monsters, with El Colmo, DJ Pete Slovenly, at Zebulon, 2478 Fletcher Dr, Los Angeles; April 30, 8 p.m.; $22.77; (323) 663-6927, https://zebulon.la/
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"Portrait of the artist as a young jerk" hahahahahahahahaha!
OMG he sounds AWESOME! Can't wait for the ol' ZEB!!!!