My music heart has a special place for albums where all the songs are under three minutes. The concept becomes more packed that way, and you thus avoid a lot of wasted time. No detours, so to speak. Then you also understand that Bad Bad Dog! by Bo-Dogs is one of the albums that meets this requirement and, moreover, deserves wider recognition than hitherto.
Behind Bo-Dogs hides some top-notch Swedish musicians: Nisse Hellberg (Wilmer X/solo artist), Chips Kiesbye (who from 2005 has produced a lot of albums for Wilmer X and Nisse Hellberg) and Kent Norberg, these two later both band members in Sator. Bo-Dogs is complemented by drummer Patrik Herrström (from Road Ratt and Me And My Army).
Bad Bad Dog! reveals that for some time Nisse Hellberg had been brooding over songs that perhaps didn’t quite fit into the framework of the solo albums released during the time Wilmer X was dormant. On Bad Bad Dog!, Nisse Hellberg gets an outlet for his more unpolished and less conventional side.
The album has, in a sense, a high fun factor that at the same time shows where a large part of his sympathies lies. Among the sub-three-minute influences in terms of song structures, The Ramones and Bo Diddley (who is responsible for the album’s only cover; a condensed version of Bo Diddley’s Dog from the live album Bo Diddley’s Beach Party) are particularly noticeable. Bad Bad Dog! is sonically marinated in American 60s garage punk and occasionally has a touch of English 70s glam rock and the ideals that characterize 1960s instrumental music. Recipe for a perfect cocktail thus!
Although the album’s fourteen uncomplicated songs risk being waved away as pastiches by some, these so-called trifles in fact constitute a substantial sample map that takes a stab at classic rock and roll. With the references I mentioned earlier in mind, the musical range also becomes so large that Bad Bad Dog! is never in danger of becoming monotonous.
Hey, Mr. Oil Drop Man has a high recognition factor for Wilmer X fans – who are thus invited to the album in a straightforward way. But already the second track (She’s Got To Go) points in a partially different direction with its clear influences from The Plimsouls and The Ramones. The first album side is also varied with the help of Junk Angel which is something of a T. Rex/Badfinger hybrid. Additionally, three instrumentals help broaden the scope of Bad Bad Dog! – not even the closing Skunk Meets Dog can completely break away from the way Bo Diddley adjusted the guitar sound on his amp. This is of course only a big plus in my book.
Then you’ve understood that Bad Bad Dog! is indeed a kind of side project, but it’s not just any detour. Instead it is a full-fledged album. As if that wasn’t enough, a single was released in conjunction with the album whose B-side is a non-album song. An exemplary custom that also satisfies those listeners who can’t get enough. Shake Shake Baby is a raver in the form of an instrumental that offer fans the extra meaty bone they crave.
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