Atomic-Age Tales For Monster Kids With The Exotic Ones

The E.C. Comics cover homage should hip you right away to what The Exotic Ones are all about: B-movie monster rock straight out of the local neighborhood mad scientist's laboratory played with enthusiastic garage band abandon. The Exotic Ones are a Nashville supergroup blending members from The Secret Commonwealth, The Reverbians, and Trauma Team. There is The Tartan Phantom on guitar, Mr. Ghoul on bass, Zoomga plays guitar, Space Fink pounds the drums, and The Purple Astronaut with the keys, with vocals and theremin playing by most all of them. There's also the powerful spirit of "Hollerin' Jack" Jack Hunter Daves Jr. who sadly passed away last year to help guide The Exotic Ones toward thrill club rock and roll perfection. That's him on the CD cover playing with the Frankenstein's monster model.

Atomic-Age Tales For Monster Kids is a musical teaser for a full length album to come. It was put together specially for Wonderfest, an annual horror convention in Louisville, Kentucky, and since I couldn't attend the event I was lucky to get my hands on a copy. It contains 6 original songs representing a good cross section of Exotic Ones material. There are apes gone wild, a mad horror show host (Chiller Cinema's Doctor Gangrene), zombies, werewolves, gunslingers, and the Lost In Space robot all making appearances over the course of this mini-album.


A song like "Ape Wild" which mentions Lancelot Link and Bear from B.J. And The Bear is ahead of the game to start with, but once you top it off with some infectious music you've got a potential epidemic of people making ape noises waiting to break out. Live shows usually feature middle aged zombies rushing the stage when "Dawn Of The Dead" is played and it does have a nice lifeless quality to it with what sounds like a disembodied marimba playing along. The Exotic Ones save the biggest thrill for the last with "B-9 Robot" which veers into the punk pop zone of outer space before losing contact with Alpha Command for good. It's exuberant and fun just like Lost In Space(The TV series and not the movie).

The other three cuts on the album, Chiller Cinema theme song "The Doctor Is In", "On The Prowl", and especially "Gunslinger Man" are also great tunes. It's obvious there's a lot of love for the subjects The Exotic Ones tackle. You can't fake sincerity. So if you dig 60's flavored garage tunes, if you know the Secret Chimp handshake or the individual names of the Banana Splits, if you ever wanted to live on 1313 Mockingbird Lane, have a copy of Harlan Ellison's Horn Book,

or simply love the transcendent power of rock and roll you will probably love The Exotic Ones. Don't let the horror themes scare you away. Visit The Exotic Ones website where all sorts of groovy madness can be found along with instructions on how to acquire your very own copy of Atomic-Age Tales For Monster Kids With The Exotic Ones.