The Drab Doo-Riffs

If F. Scott Fitzgerald once glumly declared that there are no second acts in American lives, Karl Steven appears to be onto his third. Plus an encore or two. The rule, I think as I watch him devour Malaysian tofu and noodles with great gusto, is obviously not universal.

The most recent act, Auckland's Drab Doo-Riffs, has just finished a nationwide tour in its own right with Liam Finn. Exuding a sort of frazzled but chatty energy, Steven is the first to admit to being "knackered".

"Once upon a time it felt like I was able to do it every night. Now, it's like my body protracts every late night and every hangover out into the next week and beyond.

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Like it's telling me: what are you doing?"

That said, he's aglow - the tour went well. Frazzled but chatty.

It wasn't always like this. Steven's best-known project, Supergroove, succumbed to touring. A death by a thousand cuts - "the Australian pub and sports club circuit killed us."

Even then, he was escaping from an environment "that had just got too f**ked to continue, had stopped being fun."

The antidote was to throw himself into books - loads of deep thought, lots of theory.

"I figured it made sense for someone looking to figure out some sort of system to understand it all with. And you can either go down the route of philosophy, where you're given the right questions you need to be asking, or religion, where you can be given all the answers."

Not someone to do things by halves, he threw himself into academia and renounced music.

He made it to Cambridge, bearing out gloomy winters and musty libraries to emerge with his doctorate in philosophy.

It is not, we agree, the most lucrative path of study ever.

"But I hate that sort of thing, the idea that the value of study is connected to its dollar earning value. That's not why I went into it at all."

And it was in the exhausting home stretches of that study that the pendulum swung back the other way. ("I guess that's what I do. I kind of get obsessed with a thing until I burn out on it.")

By his own admission, he avoided listening to music for years. And then he started making it again.

There's something refreshing about the Drab Doo-Riffs, even after some two years of raucous performances in and around Auckland. Between Marcus Joyce and Mikey Sperring, they have one of the best rhythm sections in the North Island.

Caoimhe Macfehin forms a gentler foil to Steven's kinetic yelp. Their sound flaunts the nascent sounds of surf, rhythm'n'blues, electric blues. It's rock before it fattened on extended suites and tape loops and tritones.

By his own admission, Steven isn't too big on these digressions. "I don't think I'll ever do my big psychedelic opus. I'm too much of a pop guy for that."

It's a palate cleanser - what better way for a jaded soul to return to music?

The first Drab Doo-Riffs songs got written and laid down by dictaphone over in England, but the ease with which a band coalesced around them is striking. Steven speaks affectionately of "a particular time when all the players have this extraordinary feel and care about the songs, and it's almost intangible.

The songs are hot. Even if there's a couple of flubbed notes, it feels better than something which is played perfectly but where you can hear how sick everyone is of the whole thing."

Accordingly, the band have blasted out quarter-hour EPs rather than let these songs stagnate for an album. The latest, A Fist Full Of Doo Riffs, is out this week.

The band itself is tight - sonically, but as a functioning unit of people as well.

"We turn each others weaknesses into strengths. Mikey loses shit all the time, but he likes to drive and be in control, so he'll drive the van around. Whereas Marcus is a bit more OCD about stuff. So now he keeps the keys so that Mikey can find them when he needs to drive."

Their poster art is all Joyce's lurid grimaces, the production and arrangements their own. "The industry's a very different place. Now, we can keep all of those things in-house."

And Auckland?

"Auckland," Steven says, "is a different place. I mean, my fondest memories of Supergroove are when it was small - it was just playing house parties at friends' places. There wasn't really anywhere else to go - it was the '90s, and people didn't go to see rock'n'roll shows. They all went to nightclubs, you listened to music out of PAs."

Sometimes, it's not the same when you come back - it's better.

What's In A Name?

A Drab Doo-Riffs interview in Rip It Up last year gave the game away - asked for the origin of his latest group's moniker, Karl simply said: "What do Dune, the second Lord Of The Rings movie, Star Trek: Voyager, Deadwood and Dune have in common?"

With all due respect to that venerated publication, it wasn't the irreconcilable riddle they made it out to be. 'Drab Doo-Riffs' comes from cult horror and fantasy actor Brad Dourif - he of the pallid complexion, soft tone, and chilling gaze.

Wormtongue in LOTR, Doc Cochran in Deadwood, the voice of Chucky in Child's Play. A creep for the ages.

Why Dourif? Karl picks up: "We were at this comedy gig, years ago, and we were watching this guy up on stage who was specialising in impersonations. Just a pretty stock-standard repertoire of imitating voices and tics and stuff, then a heckler yelled out 'Do Brad Dourif!' And we were just... What? He's a character actor. How do you begin to do an imitation of a character actor?" Faced with that uphill battle, the poor comic's 'drab Dourif' set the scene for the group.

In-jokeyness aside, the flippant, fun name rolls off the tongue. Steven is a fan of Nuggets, the seminal '60s compilation of garage-punk obscurities, and 'Drab Doo-Riffs' feels like a good fit alongside inscrutable titles like The Shadows Of Knight, Zakary Thaks, and The Cryan Shames. It's got to be better than just calling yourself 'Tool'.

The Drab Doo-Riffs' A Fist Full Of Doo Riffs EP is out this Friday on Liberation Music.

- Volume - nzherald.co.nz

When I first met Karl Steven, he had left his musical career behind him and was tutoring a philosophy class that I was taking. He introduced the first tutorial by running through the structure of the course and then asking if there were any questions. After half a minute of silence, finally one of the other students put up his hand. “Are you the guy from Supergroove?...”
Fast forward five years and I am meeting with Karl and two of his new bandmates – Caoimhe Macfehin (co-lead vocals and percussion) and Lucy Stewart (guitars) – to talk about their band The Drab Doo Riffs. The initial impetus for the band came to Karl while he was in Cambridge studying for his PhD in Philosophy.
“An important thing for me was to avoid just following on from Supergroove unthinkingly, which probably would’ve taken me in the direction of instrumental hip hop. Instead, I asked myself – what would I have done if Supergroove had never existed and I had just taken my own path musically? The Drab Doo Riffs is, for me, about finding that.”
The Drab Doo Riffs draw inspiration from early rock’n’roll and incorporate surf guitar riffs, blues harmonica and call-response vocals underpinned by a pounding floor tom and a gritty distorted bass. Their songs were initially just a set of minimal demos that Steven posted on MySpace then shared around to musicians he thought might be interested.
Marcus Joyce (bass) of The Demi-Whores, the Bloody Souls and the Boxcar Guitars was the first to sign up. Next up was Lucy Stewart, who was an early member of the Vietnam War, as well as being involved in low-key folk-driven projects White Collar Hollar and The Sleepless Nights. She says she’d come to the point where she felt like a change.
“I was sick of playing an acoustic guitar. I have always been a fan of surf music and I did play electric guitar before I got into playing folk, so it was good to get back to it.”
Lucy points to local band Don Julio and the Hispanic Mechanic as driving her ongoing interest in surf guitar. Fitting then, that the next member to join the Drab Doo Riffs was Don Julio’s drummer Mikey Sperring. Caoimhe Macfehin was the last to join and the only one without previous band experience.
“It’s great starting out with a band that is so great and experienced, because it means you can trust them completely. There’s a lot of license to learn as you go. I remember the first shows, I stood in front of the microphone and tried to pretend I was dancing. Then as I got more confident and relaxed, I started to loosen up and have a ball. Since then I’ve been doing a lot more singing – I’ve been doing backing vocals for Tourettes and singing in Blues-set with Karl and Kristal.”
From the start, Steven was determined that the Drab Doo Riffs would take a measured approach to their career.
“I wanted a band that was focused on having fun and tried to avoid the lame stuff that bands get caught up in. The whole Supergroove thing was obviously very important to me and wonderful in many respects and I’m lucky to still be able to work with those guys, but there was a lot of bad stuff about that experience for all of us. So the Drab Doo Riffs is not a band that has lawyers and accountants and has lots of meetings. My favourite time in Supergroove was when we were playing gigs to 250 people and had ownership of everything that was happening. When it got a bit larger scale, I stopped having so much fun.”
In practical terms, this has meant the band has done less talking and a lot more playing than your average Auckland group. And while they might have a laidback approach to the music industry, this doesn’t mean that they let themselves become complacent as Macfehin explains.
“The point of being in this band is playing shows, because it’s so much fun. It’s really important to have a level of organisation and keep it simple, so that playing shows isn’t a hassle. Because so often when it’s disorganised, by the time you actually get to playing a show, it’s been such a hassle getting all the gear, organising it and talking about it, that it ends up being a drag.”
When it came to recording, they took a similarly practical approach. Steven brought a Korg digital eight-track to their practice space and each instrument was recorded in turn. To retain a live sound, the drums were recorded first, playing along with the rest of the band. Each instrument was then recorded playing through the song in one go and the vocals were tracked in the same session to ensure a coherent feel to the recording.
A key part of the Drab Doo Riffs is Steven’s harmonica playing, which is inspired directly from its original source.
“I love the early electric blues sound. All the blues musicians started moving up from the Delta and started plugging into amps and that included some great harmonica players, like James Cotton and Big Walton Horton. I put my harmonica through an acoustic guitar amp, because most valve amps, while they sound really cool, would feedback like crazy if you put a harmonica through them and turned it up. Acoustic guitar amps don’t feedback at all and they also give you a good bottom-end, but one problem with them is that they’re clean as a bean – they don’t break up at all. So you need something to add a bit of grit to them. I use a Zak Wylde Overdrive MXR pedal and a Green Bullet microphone – that means I can mix the clean tone with the distorted tone and turn it up really loud.”
Fittingly for a band with such traditional influences, their first release, I Wanna Be Spock, was put out on vinyl. They followed this with six-song EP ‘Bury Me In Drab’. The group plan a couple more EPs, as Steven explains.
“EPs are small and fast, like a meerkat. Or maybe something even faster.”
“Like a rabbit?” suggests Stewart.
“Like a mongoose?” says Macfehin.
“Well, a mongoose could kill a rabbit, so I guess we’ll go with the mongoose…”
A band that wants to be Spock and releases music as fast as a mongoose – what more could you ask for? - NZmusician

My pick for the most underutilised venue in Auckland (well, this or Point Chevalier's The Ambassador)? The Winchester is the closest you can get to a Melbournian corner pub venue here in our fair city (ie: the kind of place where all the good bands usually play), but the really memorable gigs and events where it opens its doors are few and far between.

Although the competition with the Panther And The Zoo gig at the KA the same night (oh, and apparently there's some other event of some sort happening tonight) means it's a far-from-capacity crowd, this might be another one to add to the slender tally.


First off: it's the Drabs' night - their EP release, printed up by none other than Jack White's Third Man pressing - so it makes sense that the openers are of a piece, odd curios that appear to have stepped out of some mystical New Zealand past.

We're treated to a brief but wonderful performance by a lovely older gentleman on the musical saw, for a start - then we hear from the Hollow Grinders.

For several years now, they've been one of the only peddlers of razor-sharp surf rock in Hamilton. Although I always want these bands to give vocals more of a shot (if only because D-Super remain one of my all-time faves) their chops are lean, mean and to the point. It's a privilege getting this sporadic opportunity to see them.

As for Karl Steven and Co - well, what of it? On the one hand, the DDR's live show hasn't changed a lot in the past year in terms of energy and style (or, 'you had to be there'). On the other, that's what makes them the best live prospect in Auckland.

Steven and Caoimhe Macfehin are, by now, a positively lethal call-and-response team (the mannered but exquisitely weird frontman/frontwoman antics of classic punkabilly act X come to mind).

The songs on A Fistful of Doo Riffs are still hot, as both the EP and the performances indicate, and here they're augmented by occasional trumpet and throwbacks that remind us what a good run they've had since 2009. They're unequivocally world-class nowadays. We should be so lucky to keep them in our grasp.

Who: The Drab Doo-Riffs w/ The Hollow Grinders
Where: The Winchester, Auckland
When: Friday, September 9 - nzherald.co.nz

The Drab Doo Riffs release their third EP – this time taking their space-surf-safari to the wild west; Rawhide and Bonanza and Sunday afternoon cowboy films are reminded and recalled in the opening Theme.

The Drab Doo Riffs have built their success thus far much upon their high energy live show – and so fitting then to open their latest EP proper with live-favorite I’m Depressed – a sonic veneer on mental illness reminiscent, perhaps, of a 1960s era where depression was swept under a carpet with a sweet smile and baked goods. And valium.

Latest single Juggernaut feels and sounds a dose heavier than usual Drabs -
the bass and guitar lines crunch something mean to the points of distortion. Karl’s harmonica opens the veritable stomper Lunatic Fringe – another personal live favorite – a dosey-do for the mentally unhinged. This song highlights, particularly, my favorite aspects of The Drab Doo Riffs – their irreverence, their frantic approach and the call-response excitement created between Karl and Caoimhe’s vocals. This continues into newer number Scraps.

Things get loco with a motive in Garden City Baby, before Pour Vous penultimately closes the EP – more call-responses, jump up and down, and shimmer inducements before a mariachi trumpeter and some beautiful senorita bids you adios. Till next time. - review by Andrew Tidball - cheeseontoast.co.nz

While most discussion of the Drab Doo-Riffs centres on their energetic and hyperactive live performances, when it comes to their records – they aren’t exactly slouches either. Their third EP in a short history, A Fistful of Doo-Riffs sees the quintet led by Karl Steven replicating their tried and true live tropes with fine results.

The record was pressed through Jack White’s Third Man imprint, and a sense of their retro obsession is obvious for the get-go. Like their image a mixture of musical caricature, nice suits and Twilight Zone style cultism, the Doo-Riffs sound is a tributary pastiche of influences. Their blend of nascent punk, surf and electrified blues, while by no means wholly original remains loose, simple and supremely rhythmical in the true sprit of rock n’ roll.

‘I’m Depressed’, underpinned by the wonderfully fluid rhythm section, distorted harmonica flourishes and one-two punch of Steven’s and Caoimhe Macfehin’s call and response vocals delivers an up-tempo, efficient opening number. Here, devoid of the demands of live performance, Steven’s often whisper thin voice sounds strong and healthy. His unmistakable New Zealand accent and stuttering quick-fire diction a key component of the Doo-Riffs sound, while covering well for the unimportant lyrics. On the comparatively ultra-produced radio single ‘Juggernaut’ (a huge production step from their Awesome Feeling 4 days), the rhythm section once again shines, with crisp hi-hat snaps propelling a riff worthy of the songs anthemic chorus. With ‘Scraps’, ‘Pour Vous’ and ‘Lunatic Fringe’ all negotiating the same territory, the Doo Riffs do well to remain compelling, the brevity of their songs aiding immensely. The perfect soundtrack to every b-movie ever made. - The Corner

A Fistful Of Doo-Riffs starts with one hell of a bang. It's the new record from The Drab Doo-Riffs and it is every bit as boisterous and belligerent as you could want. ‘Theme from A Fistful Of Doo-Riffs’ is a wacky snippet of Wild West rodeo which suits the album’s theme perfectly. The rest of the EP is filled with the sort of scrappy blues punk that we have come to expect from The Drab Doo-Riffs. The hard hitting songs come in thick and fast, with eight songs (including an intro and outro track) being blasted out in under 16 minutes.

Tracks like ‘I’m Depressed’ have some serious sing-along potential. I for one have never heard a song about depression sound so damned happy. ‘Juggernaut’, functioning as the EP’s “single”, is as unstoppable as the name implies but not nearly as heavy or mechanical. The beautiful soul-stirring harmonica that peppers the album is an instrument that the band employs exceptionally well. It’s a musical motif from a bygone era dragged screaming into the 21st century. ‘Lunatic Fringe’ is a song that the band has been playing live a lot this year and sounds superb here. Some of the tracks are peppy little punk numbers but are still delivered with the Doo Riffs customary sweet and sour approach to music. ‘Pour Vous’ jangles away pleasantly and Scraps sounds like The Clash but with a Pixies inspired vocal interplay. On the other hand ‘Garden City Baby’ is a ragged rockabilly song with a belly full of fire. It has that classic Johnny Cash “boom-chicka-boom” sound and some dastardly surf guitar skills on display. And just like that The Drab Doo-Riffs ride off into the sunset with a triumphant reprise of their theme song.

For anyone who has seen one of their explosive live performances, one of the best things about listening to The Drab Doo-Riffs on CD is that you can picture them playing the songs. Just try and get through this EP without imagining singer Karl Steven twitching and palpitating between lines. Their recorded work has the same unkempt energy that the band brings with them to the stage. It is not too different from their Postcards From Uranus EP but that is no bad thing. This is a classy effort all around that serves as a short but tasty snapshot of where the band are at these days. If you dig their quirky, groovy style then get your teeth into A Fistful Of Doo-Riffs.


- undertheradar.co.nz

The Drab Doo-Riffs are an unlikely 5 piece that beamed into central Auckland slightly over a year ago and have been unchaining people's buns ever since with their p'twanging guitar, boom-schmacking drums, and basically-scream-your-head-off vocals. Members Lucy Stewart (Sleepless Nights, Vietnam War), Mikey Sperring (Don Julio, Street Chant), Karl Steven (Supergroove), Caoimhe Macfehin, and M.F. Joyce (Boxcar Guitars, Demiwhores) play a carbonated toxic cocktail of surf-punk-blues type stuff that they describe as "sort of like rock and roll, only faster".

Their debut EP Bury Me In Drab has been transporting listeners to the twilight zone of dance since it's release in October 09 and you could fry eggs on the bonnet of their live shows. If you were at a party on the Starship Enterprise on its way to crash Bo Diddley's beach hop you would probably be listening to The Drab Doo-Riffs! - www.nativetongue.co.nz/the-drab-doo-riffs.html

An unlikely five piece beamed into central Auckland slightly over a year ago and set about unchaining peoples buns with their p'twanging guitar, boom-schmacking drums, and basically-scream-your-head-off vocals. THE DRAB DOO RIFFS play a carbonated toxic cocktail of surf-punk-blues that they describe as "sort of like rock and roll, only faster". Their debut EP 'Bury Me In Drab' has been transporting listeners to the twilight zone of dance since its release in October and you could fry eggs on the bonnet of their live shows. - www.undertheradar.co.nz/BigDayOutThirdAnnouncement

The Drab Doo-Riffs
Age: 1
Key Releases: Bury Me in Drab EP
Label: Unsigned
Cop This If You’re Into: Peter
Posa, Los Straight Jackets
Genre Tags: Surf, punk, blues
Web: myspace.com/thedrabdooriffs
By: Hussein Moses
Issue: March 2010


Who the f*** are The Drab Doo-Riffs?
Real Groove made the call back in November when we said that they reminded us of a “descendant of The Cramps, only catchier, hellishly sped up and not as sloppy”. If you spend any time in the usual Auckland and Wellington haunts that are host to the local music scene, then you might’ve come across these guys and girls already. The Drab Doo-Riffs have been consistently playing shows
for the better part of a year; they were recently hand-picked to support Kitty Daisy & Lewis for two sold-out shows, and in that time they’ve become one of the tightest live units that Real Groove has had the pleasure of seeing. The band is fronted by long-limbed Supergroove frontman Karl Steven and talented newcomer Caoimhe Macfehin, with the line-up completed by Lucy Stewart, Marcus Joyce and Mikey Sperring.
What to listen out for? The group take cues from early rock’n’roll, punk, garage and rockabilly – their first EP, Bury Me in Drab, has songs about Dr Spock (I Wanna be Spock) and Bruce Springsteen (E Street), and there are elements of pure raucousness that are apparent on songs likes Motorscoot Scoot (which you can download for free on the Real Groove blog) and Drive Me Crazy. Their shows are every bit as unpredictable, with Steven and Macfehin leading the band with reckless energy to burn.

The latest: The group are currently preparing a second EP that will hopefully be out not too soon after you read this. We’ve heard some of their new songs live, which include Broke it Up, Gold Coin and Lunatic Fringe, and they had the same edge that made us stand up and pay attention to them in the first place.
They say: The Drab Doo-Riffs are sort of like the first time you tried Fanta and the whole lot exploded out your nose; it’s like normal music except we’ve sped it up so we can fit in more fills, shouts, riffs, and claps and everybody can get their kicks without having to wait around.
We say: If you could use some advice on who to watch out for this year, place your bets on this lot. The last time we saw the group they were decked out in black leather, black blazers and matching tattoos – they looked like they were meant to be in a band and they sounded like they were born for it. Now somebody get these guys a deal. - www.realgroove.co.nz

Postcards From Uranus
The Drab Doo-riffs
7.5 / 10
30th August 2010
By Ryan Eyers

Drives Me Crazy -The Drab Doo-riffs

‘From the depths of space they come, across the infinite darkness…’ Complete with spooky UFO noises, such is the message that prefaces this second EP from Auckland-based The Drab Doo Riffs, Postcards From Uranus. It’s a fitting introduction for a band who, working in their self-defined genre of ‘spockabilly’, create tracks that feel like something you might hear on some interplanetary surf roadtrip to the depths of the solar system, on a clapped-out but trusty spaceship in search of that perfect break out on one of Jupiter’s outer moons.

At the helm is former Supergroover Karl Stevens, whose machine-gun vocals have never felt more at home over the top of his crew’s blend of surf punk, doo-wop and garage rock that careens along with a sense of urgency and reckless fun, complete with splashes of weirded-out sci-fi sound effects. Think the propulsity and energy of The Hives if they’d gone to the beach and stopped off at The Twilight Zone on the way, blended with The Cramps on overdrive. First song-proper ‘Hot Tanya’ swaggers into town with a silky smooth bassline before waves of woozy guitar build, crest and crash over shuffling drums and also gives us a taste of Caoimhe Macfehin ‘s sultry back-up vocals, which provide a welcome soothing tone to supplement Stevens’ anxious yelps.

From here on, it’s pretty much a ‘rinse, wash, repeat’ cycle in terms of tempo and style, but when that results in the barnstorming fuzz, sing-along chants and harmonica blasts of ‘Trouble’ or the Dr. No-theme-song-on-speed riff and Doorsian organ grabs of ‘Gold Coin’ there’s really nothing to complain about. Throughout, Stevens’ lyrics are as sharp-witted and disarmingly apt as ever, particularly on ‘Ill Equipped’ where he details the frustrations of being, well, ill equipped to deal with what life throws at him, or on ‘Broke It Up’, his lament for a first-hand broken heart. Overall, Postcards From Uranus displays a well-honed band in full control of their craft and sound, creating kooky and memorable tracks that are full of gusto, hooks and pizazz and anything but drab - www.undertheradar.co.nz

Spock, Bruce Springsteen, cars, Plan 9, squealy girls with 'tude - if you cant get off on this album (in a seriously retro, shake your whole body like you are in a skin tight leopard print anything - as long as its b-52's/Cramps-sy) then i will personally come over to your house and smack you round the side of the head. YOU OBVIOUSLY HAVE NO JOY IN YOUR LIFE - www.thekitchensink.co.nz

The Drab Doo-Riffs play hot wired garage rock that doesn't rely on fuzzy tones to pack a punch. New EP Bury Me In Drab is slinky and taut rather than sludgy with Make Up/Copter style beats and Gories girl/boy call and response. Drives Me Crazy shows off the Doo Riffs at their best, all frazzled energy and verge-of-hysteria vocals. It makes you want to get on up too - you can be sure they're wearing their dancing shoes with their straitjackets - www.artrocker.com