At the start of the eighties only one man could button his top button and not look like a dork.

Wall of Voodoo seem even stranger now, 25 years on. Drum machines, Morricone, Johnny Cash, creepy carnivals, surf guitar, and maybe Frankie Laine on acid for good measure. Where did that combination come from? The other LA bands of that time sounded nothing like this. They didn't seem to fit in with any scene at the time, although in hindsight they're perhaps in the same sort of territory as Pere Ubu with their fractured takes on their particular slice of the American mythic landscape. Stan Ridgeway is still doing some interesting things but nothing quite as startling and fresh as he was doing here.