Is Danny Rascal New Zealand’s best kept secret? This collection set of material collected over thirty plus years suggests he may well be. And rather than attempt to ease you in gently, it’s foot to the floor from the off! They do say attack is the best form of defence and there’s a wonderfully fuzzy punk energy to the opening salvo of Monkey Puzzle’s ‘No More Talk’ and ‘Greenroom Downtime’ (both 30 years old) that would give Green Day or The Offspring a run for their money and an urgency that is all rather infectious. And that’s just for openers.
That all makes the Blind Melon vibe to ‘Ultraviolet’ all the more unexpected. It’s a cracking song and rather addictive, anchored on a bass riff that drips cool. Recorded around ’96-’97 who’d have thought that New Zealand Rocked like this and managed to keep it secret from the rest of the world!
As the CD takes an almost chronological tracklisting you can see the changes both in style and in actual bands – with three featured here – the first 10 tracks and the bulk of the album being from Monkey Puzzle.
‘Shaken Not Stirred’ has a nice change of pace and whilst the sound quality on these first tracks might not be the very best you have to remember their vintage. The song itself has a nice Iggy meets Nirvana meets The Cramps vibe which is kind of cool. Even though ‘She’s Mental’ and ‘Hellman’ might be 25 years old, they’re divergent enough to make you wonder how these guys never released anything back in the day. The former is catchy , punky and has some surprising stabs of orchestration that would have been cool as real horns. The latter is infused with that Punk go-to Reggae beat and a gentle breezy vocal before it amps up. One of my picks for sure!
‘How ‘Bout You’ might have been their most popular release and here it comes out of the gates like Men at Work – it’s a fine song that’s well worth a listen. ‘Bad Day Gets Worse’ has a cool live feel, and whilst it sound rather muddy it captures the energy in a Stiff Little Fingers kind of way. The final tracks from Monkey Puzzle date from around 2003 – just a matter of a couple of decades old, and build on what you’ve heard so far. ‘Familiar’ adds a little more dirty guitar to the Grungy sound and ‘Kai Ti’ more atmospherics. It’s the gentlest song here until of course the chorus kicks in…
Three years later Danny Rascal has a new band – ‘Faster She Said’ and the four tracks here date from 2006-09. Musically there’s a bit more Rock and Roll in the mix and whilst ‘Dirty Monsters’ rocks out Rockabilly style, ‘Redemption’ hits on the blues for the first time (I love that one!) and ‘Black Cat Voodoo’ (recorded live?) has a great Bluesy Hard Rock swagger. The final track from ‘Faster’ is ’15 Years’ and it sounds awesome – that Hard Rocking sound certainly sounds great to me – it’s my favourite period here. I’d love to hear more!
The final three tracks are attributed to ‘The Rascal Kings’ (plus the hidden 18th track if you’re paying attention). Stylistically ‘Rev it Up’ (from around 2010) is more akin to AC/DC meets vintage ‘The Cult’ than anything else here and carrying on from ‘Faster’ keeps that Bluesy Hard Rock vibe going it’s probably my (and my Editor’s) favourite here. ‘Crashdown’ keeps that vibe and as a song seems to be the link between the eras with a ‘Crazyhead meets The Cult’ vibe, in fact this style of music seems to suit Mr. Rascal’s voice to a tee. ‘Johnny’ is another great track with plenty of Hard Rocking fire in the belly and as the only non band produced track here shows I guess how they could have sounded.
All 18tracks here (one is hidden) were singles back in New Zealand but this is the first time they have all been collected together. Danny tells us that all of the tracks here received airplay in New Zealand or were included on sound tracks or videos or compilation albums or some popular extreme sports DVD’s. There was music recorded – Monkey Puzzle did two – the 1st album recorded in a day, and the 2nd album in three days. Only one track here was recorded with an outside producer – The final listed track ‘Johnny’ which led to 8 hours of vocals over an 8 hour day! It’s great to see all of that captured here.
Back in the day Monkey Puzzle did venture over the ditch to play Australia and also played the Vans Warped, toured the US for 3 months, made it to Japan and had sponsorship deals with surf and skate companies. In the end they ended up shifting over 500,000 albums… maybe the biggest band you never heard.
So if you’re the kind of Rock fan who likes discovering new stuff then you have to look no further than New Zealand’s Danny Rascal who has collected together material from three bands – Monkey Puzzle, Faster She Said and The Rascal Kings. Musically we veer from Pop Punk to Pop Rock via 80’s Hard Rock with a Bluesy tinge, so there really is something for everyone. Best off all there are some real undiscovered gems on here that really hold up. Listen to How ‘Bout You and Ultraviolet and tell me that you haven’t heard the greatest thing to come out of New Zealand since…..
Who’d have thought that New Zealand Rocked like this and managed to (almost) keep it secret from the rest of the world until now!