It has been a good week for punk music. A small, but enthusiastic audience was at Inferno, Dec. 16 for some psychobilly and punk.
While I missed opening acts Gender Bender and Chief Mountain, I arrived in time to catch a long awaited return from Edmonton psychobilly band The Raygun Cowboys, whose crack horn section made them stand out from the crowd.
The 
last time I saw them they had a bumble bee theme happening, though not this time.
They began with “Heads Are Gong to Roll,” the title track off their latest Cd and took off from there.
The lead singer bellowed out the lyrics plucked out hit rockabilly licks and punk tinged power chords.
The upright bassist straddled his black and white cow coloured instrument and thumped away, grinning all the time. Their hipster horn section of a trumpeter, a trombonist and saxophonist danced in place, stepping up for solos or to shout out background vocals.
The horn section wandered through the audience playing as the saxophonist jumped on the bar to solo for a song then returned to the stage. The horns took a break during the more straight ahead melodic punk of “Joey Ramone Street” but returned for the rest of the set including for some classic rockabilly of “Daddy Ya” which had a handful of rockabilly girls dancing.
They played much of the new CD bust also delved back into their back catalogue for crowd favourites like an emotional rendition of “Break These Chains.” The frontman howled like Bran Setzer's bastard child. Things got a little meaner with “Sideburns and Switchblades,” but the band brought a lot of good vibes, addictive horn licks and hot guitar picking backed by that bone shuddering upright bass and a relentless rhythm from the drummer.
They had the audience properly pumped up for Montreal trio The Gutter Demons.
The Gutter Demons started with a few slow moments but quickly picked up the pace.
They sounded like Motorhead if they played rockabilly music.
So there was unstoppable intensity, guttural vocals, big rhythm, more bone shaking upright bass and foot stomping beats. Frontman Johnny Töxic leaned up to sing into his microphone while shedding on his Gretsch.
There wasn’t a lot of talk in between songs like show highlights “I Am The Wild One,” “Revenge” a
nd “After the Dark.”
