Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg

"Blowin' in the Wind"   "Time Won't Let Me"   singles

(Dog Snout Inc.)

Draping Dylan's soggy plaint in leather was a lost cause (G. Bailey was wrong - not all lost causes are worth fighting for). The Outsiders' 1966 "Time Won't Let Me" was a much superior choice for kamikaze reinvention (organ intact). Kingpin Marky and band drive fists through graffitied wall.

Video: "Time Won't Let Me"

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The Darts (US)

Halloween Love Songs

(Adrenalin Fix Music)

Singer/keyboardist Nicole Laurenne: "During a 2024 interview with Rock n Folk magazine in Paris, I jokingly mentioned that the world needed some new Halloween songs...So I got to work..."

The result? When the mystery hearse smashed into the joint, assorted kicks-junkies dropped glasses to the floor. And when the ebony corpsemobile plowed into the blinking juke, and sounds at once ghastly and seductive roared forth, all surrendered to magnetism of unknown birth... 

Back to Nicole (who also wields a glockenspiel): "So, side A is chock full of tasty, candy-colored Halloween kitsch, to be played while trick-or-treating as the sun sets...But side B is for after dark, when the bonfire is raging. It's for sweaty, middle-of-the-night dancing, making out on a bed of empty candy wrappers, and spinning through an all-nighter apocalypse."

Recommended: "Midnight Creep," "Zombies on the Metro," "Blood Run Cold," "Dream Ghost," "Every Night is Halloween," "Apocalypse," "Darkness," "Shadow," "Late Drive"

Videos: "Midnight Creep" (official video)   "Zombies on the Metro" (Now Dig This TV performance)   "Every Night is Halloween" (lyric video)   "Apocalypse"

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Los Psychotrópicos

Expulsado de los Cielos   EP

(Self-issued)

The taboo pleasures of Medellin's wee-hours Rock'n'Roll scene are never trumpeted in promotional travel pamphlets, but are surely treasured by revelers. And the three men who compose Los Psychotropics give them what they crave: Psychobilly with zero accoutrements. The songs they unleash are rapid, robust, and hurtle in skeletal splendor. Cooking with nitro. And on behalf of males the globe over, I'd like to extend gratitude to the combo for employing a naughty nurse for onstage exhibition.

Recommended: "Expulsado de los Cielos," "Largas Piernas," "Aquí Te Espero," "Destrucción"

Videos: "Expulsado de los Cielos"   "Aquí Te Espero"   "Largas Piernas" (lyric video)   "Destruccion"

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Kafadan Kontak Records

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Back in the Day, 2017

Hillbilly Hellcats

s/t   digital

(Audiosparx / Rosenklang)

32 slices from past platters. Some smooth, others serrated. Most were culled from Rev It Up with Taz (1996) and Our Brand (1998). In addition to cut-above wittiness that is at turns self-deprecating - and the ten-miles-high musical chops of Chuck Hughes, Lance Bakemeyer, and Taz Bentley - this compilation offers salvation to those previously denied admittance to creepered Mystic Order of the Ostinato swing society meetings for not having purchased songs when first dealt to vendors.

Recommended: "Road Rage," "White Trash," "Leavin' Colorado," "Hippie Dance," "Tom Grey's Dream," "Everybody There Was Drinkin' Martinis but Me," "Crazy Little Baby," "Hillbillies on Speed," "Havin' it All," "Hillbilly Love," "I Wanna Be a Rockabilly Rebel," "Cats Like Us," "My Baby Moved," "Better Be Some Drinkin'," "Over and Over," "Train to Nowhere," "I Dig Jazz," "A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action," "I Never Thought"

Videos: "Everybody There Was Drinkin' Martinis but Me"   "Crazy Little Baby"   "I Wanna Be a Rockabilly Rebel"   "Better Be Some Drinkin'"   "I Dig Jazz"   "I Never Thought"   

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Jake Vaadeland

Whatever the Canadian equivalent of Americana might be, otherwise-Rockabilly Jake breathes it deeply. His tale of great-grandparents' journey from Norway to establish family province in Saskatchewan is one only he and thoughtful acoustic could relate.

Video: "The Homesteader's Song"

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Levi Dexter

And so it was that revered crooner Levi dropped down from the pantheon, assumed Gretsch Brothers array's fore position, and seared to wax irresistability that had he-and-she pairings doing the Solar Swivel up to the bright and twinklings. Per the man himself on Facebook: "You've Got What I Like" remains unreleased, save for a Japanese promo issuance.

Video: "You've Got What I Like"

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Robert Lowery: From Arkansas to eternity

Robert passed in 2016, at the age of 85. The storied Delta Blues guitarman and story singer conveyed a traditional, down-low sound with roots in an America that is today but a dim memory. His plain and expressive voice, though, bears no expiration date. It shouts with eternally coursing blood. 

The success of 2003's Hold Your Head High (Freepott) was shared between Robert and longtime collaborator Virgil Thrasher; Mr. Thrasher's intuitive, adroit accenting imbued wholly American passages with meatiness. 

According to area player and engineer Mark MacDonald, most of the the disc's 14 cuts were minted in the moment; sublimity does not require retakes.

"Robert and Virgil did almost all the songs in one take together," Mark once emailed me. "We miked a plywood piece on the floor under Bob's foot for beat...I could tell Bob was making a lot up. Virgil was hearing it for the first time, and just playing along like he knew the song."

Birthed in 1931 Arkansas, Robert received his first guitar from his father, also a blues guitarist. That gift would prove consequential. 

By the 1960s, Robert was backing legendary shouter Big Mama Thornton. She doubtless recognized in his playing the natural life-spark and bold assertiveness that carried him far.

After backing Thornton, Robert took his acoustic Delta Blues to far-flung audiences. He appeared at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the San Francisco Blues Festival (for three years), Philadelphia Blues Festival, Arkansas' Eureka Springs Festival, Italy's San Remo Blues Festival, and the Netherlands' Northsea Jazz Festival.

"The thing about Lowery is his amazing agility and finesse as a guitarist," CountryBlues.com would later declare. "He can slide and fingerpick, and for anyone who wants to hear the truehearted, gritty, authentic old Blues, Lowery is an incomparable treat. He sings in a rich tenor, and accompanies himself in the typical Delta guitar style, rhythmic, deep roots sound, gritty and rough, but sweet."

Freepott Records: "Bob plays a custom-made steel guitar with a single cone National Resonator. It has a sound as unique and appropriate for the Blues as his inimitable playing style. A lifetime of playing has taken him all over the world, and acquainted him with the better-known Blues statesmen of the world -- which he rightly deserves a place amongst."

Over the decades, Robert trod stages with Taj Mahal, Albert Collins, Buddy Guy, Jimmy Rodgers, Honeymouth Edwards, and Gatemouth Brown. 

Appreciators were to a man struck by his stylistic heritage.

Living Blues writer Tom Mazzolini observed that Lowery's "vocal and guitar intonations are remarkably close to Robert Johnson's. And if one should happen to close one's eyes, the feeling could be that Robert Johnson is performing."

Pulse reviewer Michael Point wrote that, "If anyone doubts the existence of credible modern purveyors of Johnson-influenced music, they haven't heard longtime West Coast Bluesman Robert Lowery."

Lowery's unpretentious, gutbucket-on-the-front-porch sound was "in the tradition of Lightnin' Hopkins and Robert Johnson," said All Music's Thom Owens. "He weaves stories and plays deceptively complex rhythms."

Again, sadly, Lowery passed in 2016. Stroke. 

Here is the depressing yet uplifting manner in which significant art endures: as Golden Era icons pass from currency, their contributions find eager reflection by incoming generations. Acolytes craft their own works, in their unique tongues, availing themselves of predecessors' creations as era-grounded foundations.

Robert Lowery made authentic music. And that is the highest recommendation any player can receive.

Videos: "Hold Up Your Head"   "Lowery's #2 Boogie"   "Trouble No More"

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