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Monday, December 23, 2019

Los Straitjackets
the utterly fantastic and totally unbelievable sound of Los Straitjackets
¡Viva!
(Yeproc Records)






To mark their 25-year recording anniversary, the daredevils of the strings re-released their two earliest discs. If you don't already own these, or at least intend to, why the Devil not? 

Recommended (The Utterly...): "fury," "g-man" "straitjacket," jetty motel," "carhop," "tailspin," "itchy chicken, " "calhoun surf," "rampage."

Recommended (¡Viva!): "Cavalcade," The Casbah," "Lonely Apache," "Outta Gear," "Pacifica," "Espionage,'' "Lurking In the Shadows," "Brains and Eggs," "Venturing Out," "Tsunami!," "Nightmare In Monte Cristo."

Band site

Facebook page


Yeproc page



The Joeys
Phantom Bride of 13 Curves
single (self)




Though a danger zone ride on the rock and roll roadway turns to demolition tragedy, headlong intensity and bash-crash dispatch persist without pause. A big beat accident report.

Video: "Phantom Bride of 13 Curves"


Band Facebook page

Band Twitter account


CDBaby ordering page

Spotify audio page

Deezer page


The Royal Flush
All Night Long b/w Running Square
(Migraine Records)



You'd already had a lowdown work week. Then she left. Then you were evicted. Then pigeons found your hot rod. You need the escapist uplift only music can provide. This.

OR:

You'd had a great work week. Then she entered your life. Then you found a place. Then you bought a hot rod. The uplift music offers would crown it all. This.

Video: All Night Long / Running Square teaser


Band site

Band Facebook page

Migraine Records page


Marcel Bontempi
No Club Lone Wolf  b/w Wolf Call
(Migraine Records)




The union of Elvis-styled vocals and bare-bones rockabilly sounds right because it is. Add latent menace into the bargain.

Video: No club lone wolf


Marcel's Facebook page

Migraine Records page (incl. audio clips)



Thursday, December 19, 2019

Everglades Rhythm
Sawgrass Boogie 2019 single
Run Rudolph Run 2018 single
Brook Side Road Vol. 1 2018 full length
(Airtime Inc / Clarke Lane Music)









Suits on coasts can keep their mega-dollar studio stuntery. American roots musics need no tech gimmicks. Even words aren't necessary, as these comfortably unpretentious efforts smoothly assert, 

Recommended: "Sawgrass Boogie," "Run Rudolph Run," "Plantation Boogie," "Alligator Run," "Mystery Train" (feat. James Burton), "Red River," "Gainesville Nights," "Link Country," "Roadhouse Rockin'," "Morgan," "All For You," "Palmetto Drive."

Videos: "Sawgrass Boogie"
             "Run Rudolph Run"
             "Plantation Boogie"
             "All For You" 
                    "Palmetto Drive"


Band site

Facebook page


CD Baby ("Sawgrass Boogie")

CD Baby ("Run Rudolph Run")

CD Baby (Brookside Road, Vol. 1)


Bandcamp

Spotify



The Nightshift Crew
Before the Dawn
(Future House Music)




WARNING: Have doctor standing by, when listening to this. It really is that pernicious.

Recommended: "Riding the Wind," "The Nightshift Crew," "The Fear," "On Pale Horse He Rides," "Midnight Stomp" "Return of the Dead," "Creatures of Night," "The Engine Keeps Roaring."

Video: "Riding the Wind"
           "On Pale Horse He Rides"
           "The Engine Keeps Roaring"

CD Baby 

Band Facebook page

Band Hear Now page



Boone Howlers
Listen Fast
(Christopher Demoss / 
West Central Records)



The sort of country-grounded rockabilly that once delighted backwoods porch and joint dancers across the land. But it is of this time -- so a cell phone receives mention. 

Recommended: "Sack Full of Dice," "Learn To Be Nice," "Crooked Mile," "Short and Sweet."

Video: "Sack Full of Dice"
           "Short and Sweet"


Band Facebook page

CD Baby ordering


Zumbis Do Espaço
Monstros Dominantes
(Thirteen Records)




Their metallic steeds raced in crazed zig-zag through the cursed forest. The riders' lips were pulled tight in fierce smiles that bespoke febrile determination. And in the twilight that surrounded, creatures frolicked in manners curious.

Recommended: "Monstros Dominantes," "O Lobisomem Que Eu Sou," "Morto ao Amenhecar (O Velho Marinheiro)," "Abominável Mundo Monstro," "Hey Juiz," "Evidências de Prociação Consanguínea," "Zumbis do Espaço," "Alma Envenenada," "Eu Penso em Vampiras."

Video: "Monstros Dominantes"
            "O Lobisomem Que Eu Sou"
            "Hey Juiz"
            "Eu Penso em Vampiras"



Facebook (Band)

Facebook (Label)

CD Baby (Ordering)

Amazon (Ordering)

Spotify 



Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Tiger Army
Retrofuture
(Rise Records)



A festival of influences through '50s / '60s prisms. Energetic singularity that mesmerizes as it cascades.

Recommended: "Mi Amor La Luna," "Eyes of the Night," "The Past Will Always Be," "Prelude: Tercio De Muerte," "Last Ride," "Valentina," "Night Flower,""Death Card," "Beyond the Veil."

Video: "Mi Amor La Luna"
           "Last Ride"
           "Night Flower"


Band Facebook page


Jimmy Dale
Dallas Barbershop Sessions 
(Fun-Guy Records)



The leisurely and stalwart "Don't Come" plows dirt similar to "Blues Stay Away From Me." The late, great Nick Curran added impeccable lead. And yes, "Three Alley Cats" is a cover of Roy Hall, illustrating these authentic rockabillies sat at front-row desks in the School of Rock and Roll.  

Recommended: "Don't Come Back Knockin',"  "Riverside Jump," "Diggin' the Boogie," "Three Alley Cats," "Go Go Go," "Love Me."

Video: "Don't Come Back Knockin;"
"Riverside Jump"
"Three Alley Cats"


Fun-Guy Records

CD Baby ordering


Empires
Swingin' Rhymes and Skylines
(Malleycat)





Tastefully cool and swinging stylings that accentuate robust undertone. Features Intelligents members Mick Colley and Alan O'Donnell, John O'Malley of the Nitros and Good Rockin' Tonight, and Peter Cook from the Rhythm Riot house band.

Recommended: "Innamorata," "Jackpot," "Where You At," "Pied Piper," "That's How Much I Love You," "Rock and Roll Lullaby."

Video: "Innamorata"


CD Baby ordering

Amazon ordering
Dead Radio
Taking Back Our Lives
(Dead Radio / Aragon Records)





Pop-punk confection with driven guitars, smooth vocals. Studiedly cohesive, in a way that belies generally buoyant vibe.

Recommended: "Out of Time," "Paranoid," "Diana," "I'm Gone," "Harbor Blvd," "Dickweed."


CD Baby ordering

Amazon ordering


Spotify audio


Sunday, December 15, 2019

The Dicatators
Greatest Hits - Live
American Radio Broadcast
(Grace Recordings)



The front cover notwithstanding, this sounds like the Manifest Destiny-era band. The magic then was apparent to a select few.

Recommended: "Science Gone Too Far," "The Next Big Thing," "Young, Fast, Scientific,"  "Hey Boys," "Steppin' Out," "Disease," "Search and Destroy, "Two Tub Man."

Video: "Science Gone Too Far," "Young, Fast, Scientific,"  
"Steppin' Out."





The Dictators
Live Rochester, NY '77
(Import)




This was issued back in 2015. I haven't access to a review copy. But it's likely the same as the 2019 Grace Recordings disc listed above, as the set lists are identical and both were radio broadcasts. This one says it was performed live in the studio of Rochester's WCMF-FM, in the summer of '77. What a CBGB/Max's vinyl year that was.

Recommended::"Science Gone Too Far," "The Next Big Thing," "Disease," "Search and Destroy," "Two Tub Man."


The Dictators
Faster - Louder:
The Dictators' Best 1975 - 2001
(Raven Records)



Australian specialty label Raven Records issued this compilation of tracks from the Bronx group's four studio LPs. Their debut came a year before the Ramones'. A unique melange of guitar-centered, primordial punk, pop cult grounding, and wiseass voicings. Power chords with punchlines. Smarter than so many.

(Trivia note: The cover photo depicts drummer Mel Anderson, second from right. He filled in, between Stu Boy King and Richie Teeter. He doesn't play on any tracks - I'm unsure why he made the cover.)




Recommended: "The Next Big Thing," "Master Race Rock," "California Sun," "Two Tub Man ," "Weekend," "(I Live For) Cars and Girls," "Exposed," "Science Gone Too Far," "Young, Fast, Scientific," "Search and Destroy," "Faster and Louder," "Baby Let's Twist," "The Minnesota Strip," "Stay With Me," "Slow Death," "Who Will Save Rock and Roll," "I Am Right," "Moronic Inferno," "The Savage Beat," "Burn Baby Burn."

Video: "The Next Big Thing,": "Exposed," "Faster and Louder," "I Am Right."



Jeff Dahl
Electric Junk (self)



I never bought the line that real punk died. Sure, successive generations (with corporate assistance) groomed it into a poppish shell of its former, ripped-jeans self. But the real thing still exists. This, for example.

Recommended: "Until We Bleed," "Superstar Cafe," "I Am So Wasted," "The Wooo Girls," "Nfg."

Video : "Until We Bleed"
            "Superstar Cafe"


Jeff Dahl Facebook page


Thursday, December 12, 2019

Handsome Dick Manitoba
Born In the Bronx 
(Liberation Hall)



You know, Manitoba didn't have to do this. With his Dictators titan stature, he coulda been baskin' in the neon renown that illuminates the 1970s Punk Pantheon.

In this IPOD Era, though, the singer not only writes genuinely
recommendable songs (the material is consistently robust), but fires them off with the same degree of blast-attitude as the rope-burned, Jewfroed sparkplug who reaped CBGB subcultural back-slaps. 

The Man's as capable of relaxed, heart-deep soulfulness as the hurtling, guitar-crunching rock and roll with which he's oft identified, and of which there's a jaw-juttin' abundance here.

Collaborator Jon Tiven, besides boasting songcraft acumen, infuses flabbergasting guitar. His tenor sax, pounded keys, and backing vocals raise the sound from Big to Bigger to Biggest. 

Further asserting that this alternately detonative and finger-poppingly pacific endeavor belongs on the top shelf, is the caliber of players assembled. Among their number are Sally Tiven, Simon Kirke, Chuck Mead, and Michael Shrieve.

A personal favorite is "Big Army Brass," inspired by Ed Wood's classic "Plan 9 From Outer Space." (Future events such as these will affect you, in the future.)

Believe in HDM. This is not just a hobby for him. (Duck, but keep your ears open.) 


(In a way, Manitoba is the reason I'm "DC Larson:" 1978 brought the third Dictators LP, Bloodbrothers. I took it down from a record store rack. On the back, the singer was billed as "H.D. Manitoba." I gazed into space. 'How would that formulation work, for me? I'm David Charles Larson, so that'd make me "DC Larson."' I liked the sound of that.)

Reccommended: "Big Army Brass," "Shelley," "Callie Mae," "Eighth Avenue Serenade," "Back To My TV," "Layers Down," "Eve of Destruction," "Thicker Than Blood," "Soul Punk King of NYC," "Surfside," "Magenta Street," "Born In the Bronx," "The Cooker and the Hit."

Videos: "Callie Mae" (LIve at Bowery Electric, 2018, with the Wanderers)



HDM Fan Facebook site (Personalized, autographed CDs available.)

Amazon ordering



Robert Gordon and Chris Spedding
Tear up the house (Sunset Blvd)




Collected on these 2 discs are 31 previously unreleased live tracks, dated from 1978 to 2008. The names on the CD are enough to make one withdraw one's wallet.


Scandalously electric rock'n'roll was never the 'passing craze' 1950s detractors assailed it as being. Of racially and experientially blended character, the defiantly upstart style was much more powerful than the milquetoastian polite society strictures it flattened.

In its fecund youth, rock'n'roll spoke to and for entire swaths of under-celebrated America: the poor, blue collar workers, blacks, teenagers. Anyone who dwelt 'outside,' and intuited that the mannerly crooners blaring from 'Your Hit Parade' broadcasts weren't 'of' them, and didn't care to be. Those powdered songbirds would probably shrink from the egalitarian prospect.

During the 1970s, punk savages essentially devised in kind. Springing up from the urban concrete, they noisily renounced the overblown and painstakingly placid 'rock product' that relentlessly streamed from corporate radio of the day. 

Throwing off status quo bondage they sifted through influences, admixing them with their own, newly coined rage. The fresh creature produced turned out to reflect the same insouciant, rudely rebellious spirit previously voiced by Elvis, Jagger, et al.

Like the sounds he so loved -- embracing, as they did, jumping rhythm and blues and swinging hillbilly country -- Robert endured through flashy, annoying trends that had nothing to do with the bop that mattered to him. His music drew heavily from predecessors' patterns but added serrated edges, interpreting them as forcibly high-spirited in contemporary context.

Possessed of a deep baritone, he commanded both audience appreciation and, doubtless, peers' envy. A technically sublime vocalist, Robert easily located notes beyond limited fellows, and sustained them with rousing potency. His powerhouse pronouncements swelled with confident authority. 

The 1980s rockabilly resurgence was in considerable part jump-started by Robert. He was and remains our era's top-most rockabilly icon, of such impressive capacity as to merit mountaintop rank. 

Storied English guitar phenomenon Chris Spedding laced Robert's already outstanding offering with stylistically multifarious, sensitively nuanced six-string articulation. In his hands, songs could storm, fly, or cruise with settled serenity.

Chris cannily intercut rockabilly, blues, and country enunciations  with telescopically sliding jazz chording and flabbergasting treble stings. One notes the unerring heed of a genuine artist evident in every purposeful stroke.

Theirs is a remarkable, decades-long partnership that has taken them to numerous recording studios and world stages. 

"We were never a 50s act," Robert once told an interviewer. "We were always a contemporary band. It was never designed to be a retro act. We just played off that rockabilly sound."

And by the doing, created something of indispensable disposition. 



Parts of the above are excerpted from the author's 2017 Flesh Made Music (Retro Riff Books).


Recommended: "Beside You," "Heart Like a Rock," "I Beg of You," "Don't Leave Me Now, "Young and Beautiful," "The Wanderer," "Devil In Disguise," "Blue Moon of Kentucky," "I Just Found Out," "I Love My Baby," "I Love You So," Gunslinger," "Walk On By."

Video: "Blue Moon Of Kentucky"
            "I Love You So"
            "Beside You"

Robert Gordon International Fan Club

Robert Gordon Worldwide Live

Chris Spedding 


Sunset Blvd. Records



Gin Gypsy
Just Like Candy (self)




Solidly packed, swinging bop that agitates jubilation in both heart and feet.

Recommended: "Bathtub Gin," "Haircut," "Night Owl," "Peaches," "Candlelight," "No Nevermind," "Ring Around Rosie."

Video: "Bathtub Gin"
                 "Haircut"


Band Facebook page

Amazon ordering



Stressor
Cannibal Fish
single (self)





Russian psycho, as alacritous as dominative. Slap bass upfront, where it rightly belongs in these works.

Video: "Cannibal Fish"

Band site

Facebook page


CD Baby samples


Saturday, September 21, 2019

Lonnie Lee
and The Leemen
Back To Base X
(Starlite Records)




Being of Golden Era rock and roll's vanguard, Australian legend Lonnie is as regardful of sensitively crafted ballads as the knock-down ravers he so adroitly dispatches.

Recommended: "Hey, Little Mama," "Goin' Jukin'," "She's My Baby," "Woman In Love," "Mona Lisa," "I Got A Woman," "Back Door Sally," "Are You Lonesome, Tonight," "Living In A Fantasy," "Ready Steady."

Video: "Hey, Little Mama"
            Live, Feb. 2019 (performance excerpts) 
            "Mona Lisa" (live)
            "Are You Lonesome, Tonight?" (live)


Lonnie Lee website

Lonnie Lee and The Leemen Facebook page

Starlite Records page






1963
Raw Dogs
Feel the Disease
(Self)



Creeping beneath brutality is purposefulness that lifts and separates red-eyed abominations.

Recommended: "System Meltdown," "Toxic Wasted," "Idled Up," "Six Lines," "Bottom of the Bottle."

Video: "System Meltdown"
            "Toxic Wasted" (live)
            "Idled Up" (live)
            "Bottom of the Bottle"


Facebook page

Bandcamp page


CD Baby ordering



The Sugar Daddys
#notsorry (self)




Here's the plan, Stan: Everybody cruise their rods to the maltshop after making the family dinner table-scene. The Sugar Daddys are throwin' out the beat at the union hall, later. Straight from the fridge. Then we'll head out to the country mile and drag for pinks. Dig?

Recommended: "Goodbye To You," "Don't Really Matter," "Bring On the Pain," "#notsorry," "Let's Drink Together."

Videos: "Goodbye To You"
             "Don't Really Matter"
             "#notsorry"


Charles Daniels/Band Facebook page


Band Napster page

https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/thesugardaddys7



Atomic Megalodon
Trust No One
(self)




Demolition chording, growled expostulations, and doomsday poundings in moments surrender to understated lures, only to again crash down. Admirable constructive mindfulness.

Recommended: "I Want To Believe," "Devil's Triangle," "Lone Gunmen," "Smoking Man," "Victor Tooms."

Video: "Devil's Triangle"


Facebook

CD Baby

Bandcamp


Spotify

Amazon



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About Me

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FORMER staff writer for Rockabilly and Pin Up America magazines. FREELANCE credits include Daily Caller, American Thinker, Free Republic, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Independent Political Report, USA Today, Des Moines Register, Iowa City Press-Citizen, Waterloo Courier, Cedar Falls Times, Marshalltown Times Republican, Cincinnati.com, IndyStar, Arizona Republic, No Depression, Goldmine, Blue Suede News, Rock and Rap Confidential, Crackerjack, Blues News, Wrecking Pit, Punk Globe, Prairie Sun, Music and Sound Output, BAM, New Music, and 1980s NYC fanzines Shake, Rattle, and Roll, Rebel Rouser, and Off the Wall. AUTHOR: Shake, Rattle and Rocket!, Ghost Saucers in the Sky!, Stratosphere Boogieman!, Flesh Made Music, That a Man Can Again Stand Up: American spirit vs, sedition during the incipient Trump Revolution, and Ideas Afoot: Political observations, social commentary, and media analyses. WORKED as 2004 Iowa coordinator for Ralph Nader independent presidential campaign; co-founded Iowa Green Party, also served as statewide media coordinator; press coordinator, 2002 Jay Robinson (Green) IA gubernatorial effort. Wrote extensively re Trump campaign..