Ratchet Blade Records has put up a killer deal on a Mau Maus Lp and Cd ebay bundle, to get both the Mau Maus lp and cd (w/ a 20 page full color booklet on the Mau Maus notorious history) and 3 free fliers from the collection of lead singer Rick Wilder for one low price. Take advantage now and get this vital piece of Los Angeles punk rock history. Click HERE to check it out.
Here is an excerpt from the CD booklet biography:
“The Mau Maus have a reputation as one of the baddest of Hollywood’s bad-boy bands- and it’s no hype. Leader Rick Wilder, a local underground legend sings (and looks) like a Mick Jagger-Johnny Rotten clone created by some mad punk scientist. And like the New York Dolls (another Mau Maus influence), the band has a reputation for showing up in dubious playing condition, arriving late on stage and sometimes falling apart during it’s sets.
So it came as no surprise that the quartet, headlining a four-band bill at the Cathay De Grande Tuesday, had to wait on stage about 15 minutes before Wilder appeared. But once the band unleashed its classic raunch ‘n’ roll, the only question about the Mau Maus was why it isn’t a bigger success.” Craig Lee, Los Angeles Times 1/20/1983
Why indeed. The Mau Maus were the most notorious of the original 1970’s Hollywood punk rock bands, and there was no shortage of praise for their hellacious sound & fury. But they were also the band that had a street hustler’s stubborn suspicion of every opportunity, not looking but kicking the gift horse in the mouth, thus resisting management, agents and even record labels. And they rode that fuck-‘em-all locomotive right off the tracks and into the woods.
Volatile as a den of thieves, with members being fired and rehired at the blink of a bloodshot eye, you never knew if they would show up, but goddamn it, you knew when they showed up.
