DC Larson's JUKEBOX JURY: July 2025

Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Hotrod Hillbillies

"Disrespectful and Mean" digital single

(Self-issued)

Somebody hurry up and pin a medal on Xavier Ortiz. Since his 2000 founding of Texas Cowpunk juggernaut Hotrod Hillibillies, the indefatigable guitar-slinger/vocalist has distinguished himself with contributions far above and beyond the call of Rockabilly rowdiness. He and roughneck compadre Andy Morris - whose own gifts ravage - let go with a Rebel Sound as big as Dallas and twice as dangerous. Their freshest track lunges in gravel-throwing tradition, while sporting cool, crazy, and always-in-style glad rags.

Don't mess with Hotrod Hillbillies.

Videos promo live (Detroit) 25th Anniversary DVD teaser

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Jorma Lover & the Others

"Cry No More" single

(Self-issued)

Masterly picker Jorma and collected Finnish sidemen dig that, once one has survived the tortures that befall flames forsaken, a shiny vista promising crisp enchantments beckons. Amid gleefully-romping, Country-marrowed Rockabilly, Jorma kicks out a declaration of intent to explore wonders that sizzle before the newly fancy-free. And more than once, he races up and down the fretboard like a man giddy with appreciation of arousals potential.

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Real Gone

That's a Pop Song!

(Self-issued)

Assuming praise characteristic of Sam Phillips as its title, the twelve-episode disc before appreciators is wholly composed of classic cut reiterations. These are dispatched avidly, and as gestures of appreciation rendered by cats possessed of their own goodly chops. Ace action all around.

Recommended: "Maybelline," "Hound Dog," "Dixie Fried," "Be-Bop-A-Lula," "Buckaroo," "Race with the Devil," "Lawdy Miss Clawdy," "Act Naturally"

Video (Somerville Porchfest, 5/11/2024)

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Rockin' Paradise

At Somerville Porchfest, 2025

The Rhythm Shakers

The Fire of Love double 45

(Wild Records)

"I would love to watch a stripper dance to this song," once purred Marlene Perez of "The Fire of Love." And that boom-ba-ba-boom invitation to salaciousness is indeed suited to slinkery. At it and in more agitated turns, here, players' aggressions combine in the rambunctiousness that drove fogies to distraction when finned land-yachts coursed interstates. With that jacked up into contemporary hullabaloo, and Marlene loosing robust exhortations felt even in back rows - while whipping frank carnality into mouth-watering spectacle - fun girls of the runway and assorted knuckle-crackers relish the long and felicitous night ahead.

Recommended: "Fire of Love," "That's Alright," "I Don't Need No Doctor," "Calm the Fire"

Videos: "Fire of Love" (live) "That's Alright" (Live, Rockin' Race Jamboree, Spain) "I Don't Need No Doctor" (live, Viva Las Vegas 28) "Calm the Fire" (live snippet)

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Wild Records (Europe)

Sleazy Records

Bear Family Records

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Rockin' All Night Long

iMusic

Sunday, July 27, 2025

V/A

Tav Falco's Wonderful World of Musical and Exotic Obscurities

(Stag-O-Lee)

Subterranean groove-exemplar Tav - storied in some precincts as Panther Burns' ringmaster - here upturns a great, big box of magnificence. The Rockabilly Tav has long embraced turns up, as do Blues manuevers. But select Tangos and Orchestral passages of dignity and depth also unfurl their grandeur. Some of us appreciate that rigid genre-snobs only hurt themselves by being insular. A shrewd adage raises its hand: 'There are only two kinds of songs - good ones and bad ones.'

Recommended: "Train Kept A-Rollin'" (Johnny Burnette and the Rock'n'Roll Trio), "It's All Your Fault" (Bobby Lee Trammel), "She's the One That's Got It" (Allen Page), "I'm Gonna Dig Myself a Hole" (Arthur Crudup), "Where the Rio De Rosa Flows" (Jimmy Lloyd), "Donauwellen" (Alexander Princes), "La Cumparsita" (Orquesta Bianco Bachicha), "The Third Man" (Anton Karas), "Romance de Barrio" (Los Indios Tacuanau), "Milonga vieja milonga" (Juan D'arienzo), "The Sky is Crying" (Elmore James), "Who Will the Next Fool Be?" (Bobby Bland), "Lotus Blossom" (Tav Falco & Panther Burns), "Bangkok" (Alex Chilton), "Real Cool Trash" (Tav Falco and His Unapproachable Panther Burns)

Videos: "Train Kept A-Rollin'" (feat. Bettie Page) "She's the One That's Got It" "Donauwellen" "La cumparsita" "Bangkok"

Orquesta Bianco Bachicha

Connie Darko

"Boom!" single

(Self-issued)

Despite never having witnessed a runaway rocketship demolishing an atomic streamliner, this reviewer feels safe in speculating the impact might well be similar - with the added lure of audio hellaciousness that pretty much rips away ears. The cursed wretches who've assembled about baleful empress Connie raise up Psycho that compels tattooed cretins to epileptic allegiance. But, of course, it is she who stands most imposing.

Video

JD Wilkes

The ShackJackets digital album

(Spinout)

On the outskirts of the bad side of town stands a joint where painted women frolic and fiery liquids abound. And this jump-down, turn-around Blues testifying - its gloriously uncultured essence announced mightily by harp ejaculations, drop-dead pummelings of skins receptive to wee-hours wild-siding, and guitars just down from Rock'n'Roll town - threatens to bring rafters crashing onto the heads of revelers so damn happy/sloppy drunk they probably wouldn't even notice.

(And, as readers likely ascertained from the band-name, this raw power project resulted from the early 2000s Legendary Shack Shakers/Los Straightjackets smash-up.)

Recommended: "The Devil's Prayerbook," "Chimpanzee Rock," "Curtains For the DA," "Jungle Bop"

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Sidewinders

Sidewinder Frenzy

(JANGR)

Streaming athwart late-night boulevards in the wake of Punk's much-needed knee-capping of self-indulgent corporate Rock product, the Sidewinders epitomized England's early 1980s Psychobilly moment. Everything rattled and shook with wonderful amateurishness, breathlessly obsessed with headlong trajectory. Roughness was a magnet. Momentum flew unstoppably. The nervy message was that anyone could grab up an instrument, pull a face, and shake it down. Confronted by plugged-in teen turbulence, legions of yobs took razors to their heads and swarmed into pits.

Per LW shop: Limited to 200 vinyl copies: 50 black, 50 orange-black splatter, 50 white, 50 purple.

Recommended: "sidwinder frenzy," "baby gone left," "whistle bait," "rockabilly slob" (No other tracks were available for estimation.)

Video: LP excerpts

Bandcamp (promo)

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Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Skeets McDonald

Rock It, But Don't Wreck It: Singles As and Bs 1956 - 1962

(Jasmine)

It's to be expected that a 'best of' collection of works forged by a man whose career loped through decades would number many tracks. And that such would attest to his prowess.

Those who termed Skeets a "bridge between Country and Rock'n'Roll" were solidly in the money. While the rustic gut-box great generally ambled down Honky Tonk backroads, his open face and unpretentious bearing marking him as just plain home-folks, he sporadically busted out with het-up foot-stampers easily the equals of feral tunes being thrown out by incoming cats.

Some tracks were put to tape at Owen Bradley's historic 'Quonset Hut.' Among those accompanying Skeets in imbuing common-man life-spark into songs of unpolished excellence were Buddy Harmon, the Jordanaires, Grady Martin, and Floyd Cramer. (Two Rockabilly ravers - "Heartbreakin' Mama" and "You Oughtta See Grandma Rock" were lent the distinction of Eddie Cochran's fret-rushings.)

When Skeets sang of heart-soreness enflamed by bouffanted, good-time angels, it was with a drawled profundity that communicated he'd worn those brogans, and had weathered the torture mascaraed jezebels wreak.

(It may be so, that answers to life's abuses aren't found at the bottom of a bottle. But a legion of songs so real they damn near tear you all to hell reside exactly there.)

Bill Anderson later sang that "Honky tonks were made for men with women on their minds." It's certain that jukes in those much-prized dives were stocked with Skeets.

Recommended: "Gotta Get You From That Crowd," "Everglades," "Cheek to Cheek with the Blues," "You're Not Wicked, You're Just Weak," "You Warned Me," "What a Lonesome Life It's Been," "Baby Wait," "What I Know About Her," "Welcome Home," "Keep Her Off Your Mind," "Don't Push Me Too Far," "You Gotta Be My Baby," Heartbreakin' Mama," "You Oughtta See Grandma Rock"

Videos: "Gotta Get You From That Crowd" "Cheek to Cheek with the Blues" "Baby Wait" "Keep Her Off Your Mind" "Heartbreakin' Mama" "You Oughtta See Grandma Rock"

Facebook (fan site)

Skeets with Joe Maphis

Ten Pin Rattlers

Beggars and Thieves

(Screaming Hyena Records)

Substantially weightier than spartan combos (whose starkness is its own merit), Ten Pin Rattlers don't only come to the table, but knock its legs flat away. Traditional Rockabilly and Rock'n'Roll aspects are amped up to perilous extremes. (Rarely do guitars leap with such sweet savagery.) Take your mug to a good time that guarantees innocence will be jettisoned, and don't be surprised if neighbors pound on your walls. Like we'd care.

Recommended: "Freeborn Man" (feat. Justin Pacy and Buddy Sullivan), "Pray" (feat. Billy Ferraro and Buddy Sullivan), "Caroline" (feat. Tommy Gaudette and Matt St. Jean), "Radio:The Tommy Song" (feat. Tommy Gaudette), "Rockshow" (feat. Chris CC Newell), "Write This Down" (feat. Justin Pacy and Buddy Sullivan), "Human Theatre" (feat. Tommy Gaudette and Matt St. Jean), "Rise" (feat. Dan Nutton)

Videos: "Caroline" "Rockshow" "Human Theatre" "Rise"

Death by Horse

Liminal State

(Sunny Bastards)

Thrash results from members' refusal to surrender to genre bondage. Tension tittilates. At first blush, it is face-slapping Punk that seizes ears and brains. But throughout, art-rock and indie/alternative tics are also accorded real estate. Their inclusion, and the judicious song architecture that melds components, generate a creation that gladdens just as it assumes shelf space.

Recommended: "I Can Feel Later," "Blood on My Hands," "Sleep is For the Poor," "Nightcrawler," "The Freaks," "Revolución de las Vaca," "It's Alright," "Damaged One"

Video: Teaser "It's Alright"

Back in the Day, 1980

Whirlwind

Midnight Blue 12" vinyl

(Chiswick)

Less renowned than fellows Cavan and Graham, Nigel Dixon led Whirlwind as they cheekily straight-razored a spot for themselves in England's late '70s Neo-Rockabilly underworld. At his elbow as he transferred onstage hepkid energies to previously placid studio surroundings, were mates Mick Lewis, Phil Hardy, and Chris Emo; they revved twangy dynamism and sent it flying down midnight bricks.

Like the English/American Rockats, another hot-rodding enterprise of the era (and long beyond), Whirlwind enjoyed acclaim among adherants both slicked-back and spiked. Opening slots with Blondie, the Clash, and Ian Dury's Blockheads were naturals.

Ace Rockabilly no more contains unnecessary notes than elegant charcoal renderings are cluttered with superfluous scrawls. No such excess is to be located, here. Whirlwind members maintained self-assurance, even as they cruised on wheels of ferment. Chorded and pounded jaunts more gingered up could not be blueprinted.

After Whirlwind, Nigel teamed with erstwhile Clash bass-slammer Paul Simenon and Texas-born Blues guitar star Gary Myrick, in Havana 3AM. (Sadly, the singer passed in 1993.) Mick Lewis, whose trim six-string flashings had embroidered Whirlwind's fleet constructions with distinguishment, went on to numerous musical endeavors, including Fine Print.

Recommended: "Midnight Blue," "You Got Class," "Cruisin' Around," "Stay Cool," "Running Wild," "Okie's in the Pokie," "Heaven Knows," "Big Sandy," "Such a Fool," "Nightmares," "If it's All the Same to You," "Stayin' Out All Night"

Videos: "Midnight Blue" "Okie's in the Pokie" "Such a Fool" "If it's All the Same to You" "Don't Be Crazy" (non-LP, live TV)

Saturday, July 19, 2025

Robert Gordon (with Darrel Higham)

I Sure Miss You

(Victrola)

As was evident on what sadly proved to be Robert's final tour, The Voice boomed no less commandingly than when 1970s' CBGB spotlights had illuminated the Tuff Darts. This writer cannot conceive of any reader here being unfamiliar with the stentorian-piped finger-popper, so exhaustive description will go unwritten.

This 500-unit digipack preserves 22 tracks with which Robert delighted Finns and Danes in 2020. Wildly cracking tunes from throughout his career dashed past, hip-chains swinging and roach-killers buffed to high shine.

A talent of Robert's stature demands appropriately able guitarists. And, from Jeff Salen and Link Wray, to Chris Spedding and Danny Gatton - and here, bopping maestro Darrel Higham - such have always taken Robert's side. Darrel accords each track the hot-rod treatment for which he's lauded.

Free-footed songs are all kinds of alive, and occasional, smoldering torches make indisputable The Voice's preeminence.

(A bonus is appended: Robert, when but 16, crooned James Brown's "Try Me." To quote Dave Edmunds - "From small things Mama, big things one day come.")

Recommended: "Some Day, Some Way," "Red Cadillac and a Black Mustache," "I'm Coming Home," "The Fool," "Heart Full of Soul," "Drivin' Wheel," "Hello Walls," "Walk On By," "Suspicion," "Race With the Devil," "Rockbilly Boogie," "I Sure Miss You," "Move It," "Red Hot"

Videos: "Rockbilly Boogie" "Heart Full of Soul" "Sweet Love on My Mind" (all live in 2020 Finland)

Back in the Day, 1982

Jimmy and the Mustangs

Hey Little Girl

(Vanity)

Though a dapper Rockabilly firecracker of above-usual gifts, Jimmy Silver (né Haddox) also knew well related night-joint strains of senior vintage; his exhumations of Wynonie Harris, Baker Knight, and Louis Jordan shouters attested to diverse appreciation. He had furious chops that cashed the check his hepcat finery wrote.

Fellow Californian stage-demolisher Jerry Sikorski tore at strings in spectacular manners (as he previously had with Ray Campi, and went on to do with American Patrol). Associated players stormed forward with the leanness and vigor of battle-ready recruits to a jukebox campaign.

Hey Little Girl was the group's virgin wax. Subsequent platters boasted varied personnel, and emphasized a Rockabilly/Punk amalgam.

Recommended: "Bring My Cadillac Back," "Pretty Baby," "Lovin' Machine," "I Want You to Be My Baby," "Let's Dance," "Red Hot Rockin' Blues," "You Cheated, You Lied," "Bloodshot Eyes"

Videos: "Pretty Baby" "I Want You to Be My Baby" "Let's Dance"

SecondHandSongs

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Paul Lowry

Delirium in Music

(Jungle Room Recordings / WFMU)

The musical discipline that answers to "musique concrète" originated around the 1940s' dawn. BBC radio mutineer Paul's daffy reinventions pointed up that school's laughing-gas potential. He dissected famed selections, then reassembled them with audio gags as punctuations. Gunshots, slide whistles, bells, belches, and what might best be termed the Chipmunks Dotty Choir leap in and out of sometimes-accelerated tape renderings. General scatter-brainedness turns the mind to Freddie Fisher's Schnickelfritz Band.

(The precise year these recordings were carpentered is unknown. Compounding the bafflement, some who've researched this declare "Paul Lowry" may not even be the begetter's true name.)

Recommended: "I Got Rhythm," "Sabre Dance," "William Tell Overture"

Video: "I've Got Rhythm"

WFMU

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The Crypt Daddies

Lady-Killer

(Self-issued)

The narrative spat in monotonically guttural tones is difficult to parse, but the song's title plus grim cover depiction offer necessary explanation. And that coarse lyrical spewing, hefted as it is on shoulders of damn-near murderous instrumental weaponry, originated (one speculates) in some monstrous environment untrod by the decent-hearted. Within these grooves pulsates Psychobilly satisfied in its fallen essence.

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Wednesday, July 16, 2025

The Jive Aces

Keeping the Show on the Road

(Golden Age Recordings)

"100% 'Yes!,'" enthused Simon Cowell, a 2023 Britain's Got Talent judge, at the conclusion of the ensemble's performance. Granted, that television venue is a family entertainment one, and unlikely to draw seriously hep hoppers. But the Jive Aces harbor the quality of appealing to both sedate toe-tappers and ballroom whirlygigs. (And, as Stan Getz once warbled, the piano player is "swingin' like a gate, doin' Liberace on the 88s!") Whether raising big and bracing Swing stompers or purring passion intimations (and with muscle swelled by vibrant brass), the nattily clad Jive Aces acquit themselves as mongers of tip-top cruisers not heard since our boys in uniform bird dogged Victory Rolled-tomatoes down at the USO Canteen.

Recommended: "Rockin' is Our Bizness," "Clementine," "It Don't Mean a Thing," "La Vie En Rose," "St. James Infirmary," "Baby You've Got What it Takes," "That's Amore," "Bumble Boogie," "Dark Eyes," "Keeping the Show on the Road," "Big Noise from Winnetka"

Videos: "Rockin' is Our Bizness" (live) "La Vie En Rose" "Bumble Boogie" (live at Viva Las Vegas, 2024)

Salvation Alley String Band

Waltzing Alone

(Rub Wrongways Records)

The sole reason the title cut - in whose 1:46 oom-pahs and Country swayings collude - doesn't stand out, is because it's surrounded by leather-tooled richness of equal distinction. There's home-folks gusto at hand, as well as enough sensitivity to put tears in a cowpoke's eyes.

Recommended: "Half of All Weddings," "Lie to Me," "100 Times a Day," "Earth All Along," "Waltzing Alone," "Half My Heart"

Videos: "Half of All Weddings" "Lie to Me" "100 Times a Day"

The TR5's

A Triumphant Return

(Foot Tapping)

Sparkling "Skiffle'n'Roll" airs, trim tune architecture, and properly clean production are but three qualities that will compel listeners to grab for green. Add in supercharged sanguinity and the truth that those giving rise to this are all sorts of happy. Behold the sound of fun.

At present, A Triumphant Return is available for streaming, 500 CDs can be got, and 250 vinyl units are in the pipeline.

Recommended: "Showdown at the Ace Cafe," "Just Like That," "Until the Dance is Over," "Two Faces of Love," "Take Control," "Please Yourself"

Videos: "Showdown at the Ace Cafe" (live) "Just Like That" "Until the Dance is Over"

Foot Tapping (Music King)

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Apple

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Ro and the Skullboys

Razas De Noche

(Sunny Bastards)

This is the stuff - Psycho en Espanol that wallows exultantly in its 1990s aspect, while throwing freshness at your head. Directed through perpetrations by a toothsome vamp, whose sirenings overwhelm with barbed allure, is a three-warrior wrecking machine as fearsome as it is tightly wound. Most likely to be located either beckoning wayward club patrons, or doing Tasmanian crash/bounces in marble-orchard rubber rooms.

Recommended: "Santa Carla," "Bloody," "Demonio Nekrofago," "Nekromantikos"

Videos: "Santa Carla" "Bloody"

Saturday, July 12, 2025

The Brains

Crazy Monster vinyl, digital, and compact disc

(Cleopatra)

With Crazy Monster, Canadian, moon-shadowed The Brains - wreckers of stages the world 'round - assume the status of genre masters. Necromancers who are always good for a fresh round. For years, of course, they've clawed toward lofty situation. And with each successive issuance, they've ascended nearer.

Now that Rene de la Muerte and his morbid accomplices have plunged their crimson-smeared marker into that topmost plateau, one anticipates unending cursedness. Oh, happy day.

Recommended: "Evil," "One More Time," "Feel No Pain," "Crazy Monster," "Candy Apple Red," "Darkness," "Shakey Queen," "The Blood is Warm"

Videos: "Evil" "One More Time" "Feel No Pain" "Crazy Monster" "The Blood is Warm"

Plastic Section

Revenge

(Chaputa!)

Up-for-anything wild-siders raised by JDs, hunting kicks and slingshotting down highways first dug by 1950s dervishes. Amps are set to astronomical ranges, ensuring no one misses messages of heedless abandon. Club-crawling revelers are a surging expanse of pomps, quiffs, buzz-cuts, and razored neon explosions. Observers' only options are to leap aboard or dive ditchward.

Recommended: "Insane," "Party Crashers," "Din Daeng," "Breakin' Out," "Revenge," "Frenzy," "Make It Out Alive," "Deuces Wild"

Videos: "Insane" "Revenge" "Deuces Wild"

Drowned World Records

iMusic

Amazon

Forklift Assassins

Ripsnorter limited vinyl, limited CD, digital

(Self-issued)

Three jaws jutted, three brains honed. Opening moments feature sound bites from President Trump and James Stockdale, cluing jagged adherents in to the truth that, for all the brutally metallic, savage-underground lip-curling, the Forklift Assassins' world-knowledge extends beyond high-amped confrontationalism. Now, here's the turnaround: Despite that conciousness, the robust onslaught will likely hoist one aloft, deliver a sound thrashing, and leave eager victims demanding additional portions.

Recommended: "Lorem Ipsum," "Curse of the Mayans (Living on Borrowed Time)," "Brown Note," "Blink and You'll Miss It," "Something We Want," "Living on the Edge," "Wake Up (Rapid Eye Movement)"

Video: "Something We Want" / "Brown Note" (live)

Suitcase Records (May be sold out.)