TRACK #447:

Vampire Rock by Shakin’ Street

We’re goin’ a bit broader with our next addition, a song called Vampire Rock from the 1978 album also titled Vampire Rock.

It was the debut album of a French band that was originally called Speedball. Or maybe Spitball, apparently there’s some discrepancy in the oral history there. Either way, it wasn’t Shakin’ Street initially. They changed their name before the album was released to Shakin’ Street, after the MC5 song, which is a fine enough reason, I suppose. You ask me, Speedball is a much cooler name. Hell, even Spitball is better. But who am I?

Despite being French, lead singer Fabienne Shine thought English sounded more authentic, whatever that means. More authentic to sing Rock ’N Roll? Yeah, I guess that makes sense. It is a classically American style of music. She was a model and actress initially, in fact, she appeared in 1968’s Barbarella, as The Tree Woman from the planet Lythion. Here she is doing that.

Around that time, she met Led Zeppelin and, as models did, started hookin’ up with Jimmy Page. Now Jimmy’s a solid pull if you’re an aspiring songwriter and the two used to jam together in a musical context as well, and it was Jimmy who suggested she shoulder start her own rock band.

They formed in ’75 and released Vampire Rock in ’78 to some success in France. They eventually teamed up with Blue Öyster Cult producer Sandy Pearlman, who brought the band to San Francisco to record their second album.

Released in 1980, their Self-Titled follow up didn’t generate as much of a stir Stateside. They opened for Blue Öyster Cult and Black Sabbath to support the release, but they never managed to grab the wider audience needed to keep the momentum going. The band disbanded shortly thereafter. Their guitarist at the time (not the guy playing on Vampire Rock) was Ross Friedman, who went on to form Manowar after the breakup. For such a short-lived outfit, Shakin’ Street’s connections run deep.

Now, despite singing in the more authentically Rock ‘N Roll flavored English, I can’t really make out most of what Fabienne is saying here. Maybe my ears are old. I’m having trouble with a lot of the songs this year. I couldn’t find a transcription of the lyrics either, so I can’t say for sure how much of this song is about actual vampires, or even if it’s about literal vampires at all, which is most likely. She does seem to say “bite” a lot, so there’s that.

Regardless, this song rocks and rolls in a pretty authentic manner, true monster rocker or not, and it’s a nice methadone fix to get us away from Dracula and into our final Heavy Metal push toward Halloween.

Here’s Shakin’ Street serving up a little Vampire Rock for you,…just for a night.