Los Fuckin' Surfer Smokers
LFSS digital EP
(Self-issued)
El Rayo, Davie Allan, and Ennio Morricone walked into a bar. Inside, sunglassed Columbian Beat ministers hailed them.
"I know a studio," someone said. The result is combustible (as Deutschland dynamos recently discovered.)
Recommended: "A Night in Tangier," "Yihaw!," "La criatura del Paramo," "Kumbia Surfin'"
Videos: "A Night in Tangier" "Kumbia Surfin'"
The Okay Greats
Sarcastic State of Mind
(Stephen Michael Waid)
In some concrete jungle's squared circle, the Okay Greats threw hands with title belt-aspirants. Suckers flew. Faster-and-louder Punk proclaimed senses-bludgeoning hardihood, all the way from neon-bathed Tennessee.
But that's only one facet. As a vintage lyric in the American Songbook declares "We were rough-and-ready guys, but oh how we could harmonize!"
Recommended: "I Guess I Won't," "Same Old Story," "Made in the Shade," "Know Who You Are," "One Four Five," "My Favorite Song," "Whatever There Is," "FTA"
Videos: "Same Old Story" (live) "My Favorite Song"
Night Shakes
"Right on Down" single
(Self-issued)
As these words are put to paper, All Hallow's Eve is but two moons distant. And "Right on Down," with its emphatically astir Blues starkness and Hoodoo testimony, fits like an eye-holed sheet on an itinerant Bad Seed. The narrative anticipates netherworldly fate, and is far removed from Ben Cooper plasticity and seasonal Kmart appointments. The doomed dig.
Video: "Right on Down"
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Banano & the Ape Rebellion
The Fire Burns (Arde El Fuego)
(Self-issued)
The intro tune and "Twist Rockabilly" establish roots-knowledge in ways that impel feet to zoom. Later comes "The Romantic Thing," illustrating for imagination an embracing couple revolving beneath colored lights. When that good thing ends, it's only to make space for more. Night is young and the gas tank's full...
Recommended: "Intro," "Twist Rockabilly," "The Fire Burns," "From Scratch," "The Romantic Thing is Dancing with You," "Shadows of Yesterday," "In Case You Forget About Yourself"
Videos: "Intro" "The Fire Burns (Arde El Fuego)"
Jimi Barbiani Band
"Miss the Rock and Roll" single
(Self-issued)
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"We are totally impressed to have 500, 000 visuals. That is really a lot for a Rock Blues band like the Jimi Barbiani Band," the combo's frontman told me of the video clip's popularity.
He advises that a full-length platter is slated to take up store rack occupancy next January. Up-in-arms, wee-hours party jam "Miss the Rock and Roll" will commence proceedings. (It's the kind of party whose revelers - upon cracking eyelids the following noon - won't remember how the screen door got ripped off its hinges.)
Shoes into which Jimi leapt long ago were broken in by storied plank-spankers named Hendrix, Winter, Beck, and Clapton. Not only do the chosen kicks fit Jimi snugly, but he gilds them with personal veneer. Adherents hip to the tip know the man selects only right notes. He touches them off with precision. Fleet bass negotiations by Andrea Tavian and Ian Zavan's whip-crack skins seal a deal most solid.
Author/journalist Steven J. Rosen declared that Jimi "takes the Blues-Rock vein and shoots a mellifluous form of dope into it!"
The spent needle, abandoned in one floor corner, drips trace elements of kick-out-the-jams.
Lucky Devils
Wild Cat LP
(Bad Billy Records)
Being obstreperous neo-Rockabilly that flirts overtly with Psycho scarification, this lunging tunery busts grooves without cares, save for all-kinds-of-fun indecencies. A chain-swinging lurker that perpetrates kicky wreckage everywhere its shadow falls. Exported from Macron country, this red-vinyl creature portrays walloping rhythms scandalously acquainted with nights untethered.
Recommended: "Sleepy Hollow," "Halloween Stomp," "Venus," "I Can't Believe," "Wild Cat," "Zombie," "When the Sun Goes Down," "One Way Ticket"
Videos: "Wild Cat" "Sleepy Hollow"
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Biscats
Right Now EP
(Rock'a Beat Tokyo)
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Japan's Biscats boast the chops to back up sharp glad rags. Previous disc Message featured the formula of a Poppish pleasantry, a more characteristic rocker, and instrumental iterations of the same. Right Now's titular opening rush is awash in sunny airiness. But steeliness laces its path, assuring that substance endures even as style waves happy hands. Had I a stethoscope encircling my neck, I'd prescribe "gamba rockabilly" for ennui sufferers who crave to scuff inches from crepe.
Recommended: "Right Now!!," "gamba rockabilly," voiceless versions
Videos: "Right Now!!" "gamba rockabilly"
Meltdown Kids
"Eating Memories" single
(Self-issued)
Have you ever heard a nightmare loping? During moonlit hours, a thoroughly radiated, Psychobilly odd number sporting a killer quiff haunts urban alleyways, a hot-rodded Be-Bop-A-Lula beat choreographing its prowl. Squinted eyes flash phosphorescent green danger lasers. The bonfire ablaze in its soul combines juke joint-disorder, Punk dive vulgarities, and headfirst Tasmanian Deviltry straight out of a dimension not dreamt of in Horatio's philosophy.
Video: (live)
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Jake Vaadeland
"Everybody Loves My Little Darling" single
(Self-issued)
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Even elders scramble from rocking chairs for this playful good spirit. It's packed to bursting with bounciness (animated counter to the hapless protagonist's plight amour.) Folks are swept along in a manner holding true to tradition; none of the calculated Pop feebleness presently masquerading as Country music. Rest assured, no instrument was invited in that hadn't previously caused clod-kickers to kick up Brogans.
Pete Berwick
Bedtime For Bikers
(Self / Shotgun Records)
Middle Tennessee Music's Joshua Smotherman put it definitively: “Pete Berwick is one of the best things to happen to alt-country leaning, roots and folk music since Johnny Cash made his impact on this planet."
No disputation will be heard from this quarter. (One relishes equal measures Cow and Punk.) A blue-ribbon panel of Blue Ribbon guzzlers couldn't have compiled a finer testament to Cowpunk's snarling sinew. Tracks' geneses range from 1992 to 2023. Select cuts pogo on Ramones turf; "Nuclear Boy" even includes a Joey-esque "Oh, baby" between acerbic couplets. Those wishing to raze dilapidated skyscrapers could either rent a wrecking ball or blast Bedtime For Bikers from a Mothra-sized Champ amp. Upon listening, readers will grasp why I recommend all tracks.
Recommended: "Finger Down My Throat," "Is That What You're Tellin' Me," "Must Think She Loves Me," "Vacancy in My Heart," "One Last Shot," "The Damage is Done," "Nuclear Boy," "Renegade," "You'll Get Used to It," "I Keep Waiting," "Outsider," "Can't Hide the Tears"
Videos: "Must Think She Loves Me" (live in 2002) "Nuclear Boy" "Can't Hide the Tears"
Mr. Crinkles and the Wrinkles
Slicker Than Snot
(Self / Boot Liquor Records)
Classing this simply as Rockabilly would be relating but a shard of the truth. For that Rebel Yell is here seized up and mashed all through a sort of kaleidoscopic psychosis, one in which spectral phantasms and post-Punk accentings dance the jig of the idiosyncratic. Adventurousness pays off bigly, as old/neo swivels in Hilton Sisters combination. Mr. Crinkles' throat gymnastics - gulps, gleeps, and strangled avouchments - commingle with Sam P.'s creature and off-wall persuasions, to bring memories of Suicide face Alan Vega's 1980 Jukebox Babe, and Tim Polecat's 1994 Virtual Rockabilly. (Enriched finger-popping curiosities, they winningly were.)
Recommended: "Got Me Rockin'," "Ricky Rude," "Sicky Little Butterfly," "Big Hound Dog," "Pink Lady Roll"
No video available
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Back in the Day, 1995
James Intveld
Introducing...
(Bear Family)
Bear Family had the good taste to physicalize this in 1995. And Innerworks and Molenaart returned it to racks two years later. (Songs included on different editions vary slightly.) Impeccable Rockabilly that brought along its Country blood brother - and when the two kindled together, barns blazed in orange and blue. Vocals were poised, melodious, and as firm as a common-man's handshake. James had long been appreciated out Californ-ia way; his maiden solo wax broadcast glad tidings to the world's four corners.
Recommended: "Perfect World," "Blue Blue Day," "Cryin' Over You," "Barely Hangin' On," "Standing On a Rock," "Your Lovin'," "I Love You," "You Say Goodnight, I'll Say Goodbye"
Videos: "Cryin' Over You" (live in 2011), "Barely Hangin' On" "Standing on a Rock" "Your Lovin'"
Sidebürns
"All In" single
(Self-issued)
Milquetoasts who receive the heave from the front-door bouncer aren't aware, but they owe the burly one a truckload of gratitude. Because inside, ear-splitting and velocitous Rock'n'Roll of fearsome formidibility threatens to shake witnesses to their skeletal essences. This is no place for the meek.
James Intveld
"Let's Talk it Out" single
(Mule Kick Records)
A mind's-eye image blooms from the opening strums: a lanky buck slouched on a sagging porch, barely noticing the big rigs speeding down the long white ribbon. Alone. His slowhand picking and tuneful drawl lend plain-folks ambience to the scene. The narrative he spins aches with melancholy.
(True, lovers' reunification is portrayed at the accompanying video's conclusion; would only that all such scenarios enjoyed blissful closure.)
James's authenticity came from years spent knocking around California in the right company. Names like Rosie Flores, Nick 13, Wanda Jackson, and the Blasters figure prominently in his backstory, as do the Mavericks, Dale Watson, and Dwight Yoakam. Too, it was James who contributed singing for Johnny Depp's Cry Baby.
Here rotates the culmination of numerous waxed productions and hardscrabble road-doggery. These grooves have a beating heart and dirt under their fingernails.
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Bad Sam
"Popcorn & Blood" digital single
(Property of the Lost)
Back in the Day, 1978
Whirlwind
Blowing Up a Storm
(Chiswick)
In years just prior to Psychobilly's acension as a wicked gleam in P. Paul's eye, English pomps and spikes slammed shoulders at gigs wrought by Whirlwind. On this, the combo's vinyl coming-out, traditions ring much more loudly than does modernity, but colorful crispness makes dashing declarations.
The last band's circa '77 members - Nigel Dixon, Mick Lewis, Phil Hardy, and Chris Emo - grabbed attention with jittercat rave-ups calculated to engender palladium pandemonium. The four sporadically pulled up short to render balladeering conducive to belly-rubs with baby dolls.
Follow-up Midnight Blue (see prior Juke Box Jury review) winningly dug far into like turf. Whirlwind's imprint echoed in bands who later hefted the roots banner, true, but slapping Blowing Up a Storm and Midnight Blue onto turntables produces singular kicks.
Recommended: "Boppin' High School Baby," "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It," "My Advice," "A Thousand Stars," "One More Chance," "Don't Be Crazy," "Rocking Daddy," "Slow Down," "Blue Moon of Kentucky," "Together Forever," "Who's That Knocking," "Tore Apart"
Videos: "Boppin' High School Baby / Don't Be Crazy" (1980 TV), "Who's That Knocking," Bonus clip: "I Thought it Over" (1978 live, non-LP number from Saturday Banana program. Recorded off TV by bassist Chris Emo's father)
Facebook (guitarist Mick Lewis)
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Bailey George and the Hit Paraders
s/t Two-track digital single
(Cheap Thrills Records)
Any doctor examining Bailey would faint away, upon finding back-country airs ambling amidst his red and white corpuscles. It's always prizeworthy to locate someone in whose essence lie bents seemingly germinated in countless evenings well-spent in jukes and at barn soirees. In decades past, nonchalant-but-engaging Country-folk stylings like these rang out from modest clapboard houses' wood console radios. With Hoss Logan introducing.
To paraphrase Ferlin, these sides make you feel better all over, more than anywheres else.
Recommended: "Hot as Blue Blazes," "Hello Mr. Teardrop"
Videos: New videos not available. Here are slightly previous ones: "Here, Kitty Kitty" (Bailey and the Oscillators, live) "Truth is Out There" (Bailey and the Oscillators, live) "Rock on the Moon" (Bailey plays all instruments.)
Sour Mash Cats
Greatest Hits digital album
(Self-released)
Somewhere in the mists of substance-compromised phantasmagory lies a dilapidated store-front shoppe in which unspeakable curiosities are marketed. Just in from environs mysterious is a digital compendium of tunes courtesy of Fort Wayne's Sour Mash Cats, a gang temporarily on hold. Serrated elements of Rockabilly and Punk are slapped into star-crossed union. Illuminated by a blood moon, the malformed composite transmogrifies into Psychobilly fanged, fearsome, and more fun than leathery demons can revel in, without threat of incarceration.
The Bandcamp page renders offer: "Name your price."
Tracks were culled from the group's two releases: 2012's self-titled album and 2015 EP Party Down! They refused to remain beneath sod.
Recommended: "Werewolf Olympics," "Surfin'? Word!," "Rocket to the Moon," "My Baby's (Got the Flesh Eatin' Bacteria)," "I Busted My X-Ray Spex," "Drag Strip Diablo," "Bigfoot Bop"
Videos: "Werewolf Olympics" "My Baby's (Got the Fleash Eatin' Bacteria)" (live) "I Busted My X-Ray Spex" (live)
Bandcamp (for purchase)
Angry Youth Elite
Unite & Fight EP
(Bakraufarfita Records)
Full-on pugnacity. "Unite & Fight" never specifies the object of its animus, instead pretty much inveighing against the concepts of stasis and apathy. And those are worthy foes; Ralph Nader once said the only true aging is the erosion of one's ideals. General dissatisfaction and the youthful need to smash down whatever had come before are common to furious Punk (which this sure as hell is), as well as being staples of incoming uprisers. (See Sham 69.) The have-a-go hooligans of Angry Youth Elite may be hip-deep in the age-Rubicon as we speak, though, as is hinted by "Bring Back the '90s." It happens to us all.
Of course, you could knock musings from the tabletop and just let yourself go fully wild. Punk doesn't check IDs.
Recommended: "Unite & Fight," "Love What You Do," "No More Fear"
Videos: "Unite & Fight" "Love What You Do" "No More Fear"
The Sparkles
The Complete Recordings
(El Vidocq)
These 1960s Levelland, Texas, Garage personages are prized by afficianados of that unique, gritty sound. They slouch in the rank of Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs, and Roky Erickson's 13th Floor Elevators; at least certain of the combo's cracking wax was produced by Norman Petty, he of Buddy Holly and Crickets renown. Employing two drummers, they put to vinyl some of that era's coolest racket, a truth known to owners of Pebbles, Nuggets, and other sub-genre compendiums. Included among somewhat obscure riches is "No Friend of Mine," the Sparkles' biggest triumph. (Occasional surface noise only accentuates vintage.) They are even said to have inspired the '80s Fuzztones. Indeed, that group covered several Sparkles numbers.
Previously a 2019 Jukebox Music Factory release. JMF is also the property of El Vidocq owner Laurent Laffargue.
Recommended: "The Hip," "He Can't Love You," "The U.T.," "Oh, Girls, Girls," "No Friend of Mine," "Hipsville 29 B.C. (I Need Help)," "I Want to be Free," "Something That You Said (Makes Me Cry," "Daddy Gonna Put the Hurt on You," "Jack and the Beanstalk"
Videos: "The Hip" "No Friend of Mine" "Hipsville 29 B.C. (I Need Help)" "Jack and the Beanstalk"
Anthony Gomes
Praise the Loud
(Rat Pak Records)
Blues faithful and arena headbangers now enjoy shared territory.
1970s music writers termed singers like Robert Plant and Noddy Holder "high energy," a descriptor that now applies to Anthony. His category 5 vocals surely never met an eardrum they couldn't smash unto jollification. (Such forcefulness attests to the man's piety re the Rock'n'Roll he so boldly proclaims.) Too, I'm hereby starting the rumor that police made Anthony register his Flying V as a lethal weapon; it's that formidable, screaming across the universe while giving a backhand to any feckless naysayers foolish enough to poke heads from propriety's shelter. His abilities are efficaciously showcased in material that never falters - not even a shred of a fraction.
"My whole career, people said I'd never make it 'cause I was too Rock for the Blues and too Blues for Rock'n'Roll," Anthony told one audience. "Ladies and gentlemen: Fuck those people!"
Praise the Loud is Anthony's 14th disc. His previous High Voltage Blues rose to Billboard's #1.
Recommended: "Praise the Loud," "True That," "Netflix and Chill," "Inside Out," "Meet My Maker," "Electric Blues Crusade, "Black Diamond Heavy," "Rock'n'Roll Bluesman," "Half," "Love Song Gone Wrong," "In the Name of the Blues," "Blame It on Rock'n'Roll"
Videos: "Praise the Loud" "Rock'n'Roll Bluesman" "Blame It on Rock'n'Roll"
The Rumble Men
s/t cassette and digital album
(Self-issued)
The group's chosen name prompts Wray suppositions, but no less apparent is P. Paul Fenech's shadow. Of course, both are very good things. (And each icon is covered.) The instrumental format selected by members allows for expansive articulation of mostly self-penned passions. There is nothing here that is not essential for the purpose of demolition. If you feel like wasting time, try to slip a sheet of paper between bass and cold, hard ground.
(Cassette edition is limited to 50 units.)
Recommended: "Stalk," "Raw," "Meteorito," "Run Chicken Run," "K is for Chaos," "House," "Resurface," "Sugar Boom," "Sress Total"
Videos: "Meteorito" (live 2022) "Resurface" (practice 2020)
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Pastor Chris Congregation
West Virginia Snake Handler Revival: They Shall Take Up Serpents black vinyl LP
(Sublime Frequencies)
Captured by author/producer Ian Brennan, this tumultuous service of Virginia's last standing snake-handling church was as ear-shattering as all get out, and possessed of fervency inaccessible without spiritual association. Such was the hoarse-throated, preachful thunderation that rafters surely gave up dust. Determined acolytes set Teles ablaze, whirled with scaly wickedness, and fell to their knees, beseeching Heaven for precious deliverance.
Recommended: "Jesus Has to be #1," "ADHD Meds and Starbucks," "Rock'n'Roll was Stolen from God by Satan," "Taking Up Serpents (and It's Alright)," "Don't Worry, It's Just a Snakebite (What Has Happened to This Generation?)," "Just a Few More Miles (I've Got No Reason to Quit)"
(No videos available)
Instagram (Sublime Frequencies)
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