The brainchild of Oleg Gitarkin/Guitaracula of St. Petersburg, Russia, Messer Chups was conceived in 1998 as a side project to his prime output Ein Messer Für Frau Müller. A guitarist extraordinare, he took his love of 50’s rockabilly and 60’s surf, wrapped it up in the sounds of the all-night inner-city grind-house and added the trashiest ingredient to the mix – himself. The Chups got into full swing with arrival of Zombierella – a bass player with the looks of a vintage pin-up model. The duo became the core of a band that, through various incarnations, would welcome many other talented collaborators. The group’s albums never fail to amuse, oozing musical cocktails that range from the electronic exotica of the band’s early work, Miss Libido and Crazy Price ( Ipecac), to the exotic surf of Hyena Safari and Zombie Shopping. The fact that they are the hottest band around is beside the point. Live they are simply beautiful: guitars drenched in reverb, snippets of horror movies and burlesque acts on the screen, bass and drums pumping a steady backbeat to their nocturnal emission…MC and their fans had their heads shrunk by late-night b-movies. Take any good old Dracula, throw in some Orgy of the Dead and Dance of the Damned, blend it with the surf beats of The Ventures and the like and you are not even close, but you are on your way. This is the sort of music you would expect to hear coming from a car abandoned in a graveyard at midnight during a real-life Twighlight Zone.
