RIFF RAFF BIOGRAPHY

LINE-UP:
Riku Kukkonen; guitar, vocals
Eski Palosaari; drums
Immu Ilmarinen; bass, vocals
Mokkeri Salonkari; guitar

+on the Give the Dead Man Some Water album;
Kessler Raatikainen played bass,
and TT Oksala played synths

Riff Raff was founded at 1979 by four root, rock and r&b music oriented guys eager to get some heavy approach to their songs with influences from the bands like AC/DC, Ted Nugent, Johnny Winter.

The band won the third prize on the national ROCK Finnish Masters contest in 1980 and impressed the audience and also the record label POKO Rekords.
The first released songs "I'll be Gone" and Rock'n Roll Star" were in the PokoRekords compilation Heavy Metal & Live vinyl album, recorded in Tampere, 1981.

On the first album "No Law and Order" the band was closer to pure rock and roll attitude with the enormous drive on their live performances. Due the usual studio issues at that time, the attidude of that era did not translate very well on this album. However it was a bunch of simple rock'n roll songs with unique vocals of the drummer Eski Palosaari. There was also one song "Gonna Make it Roll" where the vocals were performed by Immu Ilmarinen and it was also the first step towards the heavier approach on the next albums. The "No Law and Order" was released 1981 by Poko Rekords as vinyl album and music c-cassette;these Poko releases are no longer available and there are no official CD releases available.

In 1982 Riff Raff signed a deal with a small label Mirror, and they recorded their second album with engineer Hannu Karjalainen and Producer/label manager Antti Porkka. This album "Robot Stud", released 1982, was intentionally made with more heavier approach, and the vocals were performed by Immu Ilmarinen. The songs on this album were more metal oriented rock songs with tight guitar riffs and intensive vocals and solidly playing band. There were many exciting songs including the title track "Robot Stud" and "Back of the Blue Dove" that got some airplay around the globe.
The Robot Stud album has survived well in time; it is still pretty impressive packet of the early eighties metal rock.

In 1983 Mirror records licenced the new album to Polarvox Records. The band recorded their third album "Give the Dead Man Some Water" with TT Oksala. The album was thematically concerning various absurd things including it's shocking (well... at that time) cover art, which caused finnish rockzine SOUNDI to write it's review only about this cover and not a word about music.... However there was also some very powerful music inside those covers. This time Riff Raff was on the most metallic side of it's life although there was a cover version of the The Who song Baba O' Riley. The new bass player Kessler Raatikainen was also one of the songwriters on this album and it added some party attitude to this album as you can hear in songs like "Shout Out n'Loud" and "Saloon Fighters"

The vinyl versions of these records are still very sought after, so Mastervox Records decided to make CD releases of "Robot Stud" and "Give the Dead Man Some Water" albums in 2003.
The Robot Stud CD version includes bonus songs "Dreaming" and "I'll Be Gone"

DISCOGRAPHY
- Heavy Metal&Live (two songs) vinyl album PÄLP 23 Poko Records 1981
- No Law 'n Order vinyl album PÄLP 32 Poko Records 1981
- Robot Stud/Dead On My Feet vinyl single MIRS 3 Mirror Records 1982
- Robot Stud vinyl album MIR 3 Mirror Records 1982
- Dreaming / I'll Be Gone vinyl single RPS 159 Polarvox Records 1983
- Give the Dead Man Some Water vinyl album WISH 1 Polarvox Records 1983
- Robot Stud CD album MVXCD20 Mastervox Records 2003
- Give the Dead Man Some Water CD album MVXCD21 Mastervox Records 2003