Wednesday, June 30, 2021

 Billy Lee Riley

Alternatively (El Toro)

4-song, 7-inch 45



Alternate takes of long-beloved Sun tracks. Colored vinyl. El Toro has similar Alternatively discs available of Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Gene Summers, and Warren Smith.

This is gold.

Recommended: "Rock With Me Baby," "Trouble Bound," "Red Hot," "Flying Saucers Rock 'n' Roll."


El Toro

 Lara Hope and the Ark-Tones

Here To Tell the Tale 

(Orchard Enterprises)




Rockabilly issued from Country music and owes much character to it. This fine release underscores that truth. Each player counts, and does so remarkably.

Recommended: "Let's Go," "Stop, Drop, and Roll," "Here To Tell the Tale," "Some Advice," "Whoa Is Me," "Knocked Out," "I Drink To Your Health."

Video: "Let's Go"

Website

Facebook


 Thee Flanders

Neverending Story (Halb 7 Records)




After some 10 years away, Thee Flanders have again darkened studio doors, now with vim and vigor beyond earlier efforts. Put simply: a storm formidable.

Recommended: "Shut Up World" "Blind Date Killer," "Psychocats," "Ghost Of the Dead," "Potsdam West."

Video: CD Teaser

Halb 7


 Frank Jacket

You Say Adios (Mula)

Black Hole Sun single (Mula)




Amiability and downright winsomeness, in hand-tooled styles indigenous to the U.S. southern border region. And then you read the fine print: these sprang from Chile.

Recommended (You Say Adios): "You Say Adios" (Alt version), "Two Bottles Of Cheap Beer," "When Will You Decide?," "One Last and True Goodbye," "I'm Blue and Alone," "Release Me," "Dices Adios."

Video: You Say Adios sampler

Bandcamp (Black Hole Sun)

Thursday, June 24, 2021

 The Shut Ins

3 Ring Circus (self)




Guitar-afficionados album that yields riches aplenty for all. Labrynthine, rapturous.

Recommended: "It's Time For the Show," "Whittlin'," "Lazy Stephen," "Begat the Pigat," "Ol' Stumpy Mix," "Merle's House," "Nothing But Time," "Dancing For Bobo."

Facebook (Paul Pigat)



 The Honky Tonk Pounders

Dead End Road (PART)




At the center of all great rocking is the beat. Herein, it pulses determinedly. And the feral licks overlaid atop the pounding magnetize.

Recommended: "Dead End Road," "It Must Be Love," "Straight From the Heart," "Out Of Control," "Handsome Hanna," "Walking the Floor."

Video: "Dead End Road"


Facebook

PART


 The Tin Cans

Back For More (PART)




Even in its more charged passages, there's an agreeableness to this CD. Country and blues in sublime union. A solid beat hies them along.

Recommended: "The Time Is Right," "Boppin' On," "Lost In Swamp," "Illusive Love," "Ship Of Lost Souls," "I Need To Know," "The Girl Next Door," "Please, Mr. Postman."


Facebook

PART




 Wenzdaze

Brainwashed (Wild)




Only youth could produce garage punk so guileless.

Recommended: "Brainwashed," "Without You," "My Love," "Introverted Misfit," "Creeper Stomp," "You're Dead."


Wild Records

Video: Live (1 hr) 


Wednesday, June 16, 2021

 Annie Marie Lewis and Danny B. Harvey

Americana Songbook Vol. 1 (self)



Revered treasures from our nation's cultural heritage receive majestic interpretation, from two who are at once faithful to source material and capable of unique voicing. It's impossible to envision a more elegant pairing.

Recommended: "Only A Paper Moon," "What'll I Do," "One For My Baby," "That Old Black Magic," "Ain't Misbehavin'," "Blues In the Night."


Bandcamp

Youtube


 Hillbilly Casino

Red, White, and Bruised (Hobolight Records)



A favorite of average working folks, who swarm honky tonk dance floors and throw off real-world cares. Like Hillbilly Casino, they grasp that there are only two kinds of songs - good ones and bad ones. 

"I defy you to find five other bands in the U.S. that can play Hank Sr. back-to-back with Motorhead, back-to-back with Ernest Tubb, back-to-back with Tex Ritter, back-to-back with the Ramones," slap-bassist Geoff Firebaugh once delared.

This 2017 disc is newly available on Spotify. 

Recommended: "She's Got Tricks," "How Do You Think," "Knockin' At Your Door," "Jibber Jabber," "More Blues Than Green, "Dog On A Chain," "Toss Turn and Roll," "Troubles."

Video: "She's Got Tricks"

Spotify


 Paul Pigat

The Game (Little Pig)




Acoustic country-blues guitar, accompanied only by Paul's wonderfully unvarnished vocalizing. His instrumental prowess is unhurriedly showcased. Reminds in moments of Phil Alvin's Unsung Stories.

Recommended: "Roll All Night," "The Game," "Some People's Children," "Piece Of Work," "Treat Your Papa Right," "You Gotta Use."

Website

Amazon

Apple




 The Homisides

11 (self)



Spirit of '77. There's hunger in their presentation, always a propitious token.

Tracks: "One Shot Down," "Mean Go Getter," "Snuff Me Out," "Just Head," "Worst Enemy."

Bandcamp




Monday, June 14, 2021

 Danny's Favorites

There Still Punk (Tetryon Tapes)

 Phone Jerks

Out The Gate (Resurrection Records)




The late-1970's Punk explosion was an organic moment, a turbulent lashing out at the pasteurized rock product that blighted airwaves and shop shelves.

It was also a hell of a lot of fun. An episode in which old rules were smashed, brash, red-eyed street warriors drafted new ones live on club stages, and the primeval rock'n'roll spirit was remembered. The prototypical reeled, adorned in new and thrill-laced raiment.

Danny's Favorites and the Phone Jerks are fully in the character of that era. They're exuberant, wonderfully rough. Frenetically demolition-chorded, urgently tossed off.

The DIY aura accentuates economical arrangements. Like the finest old-school Punk, each scant track careens past and skids into its successor.

Though they're too esoteric for the masses, these discs kick wide the door for a vintage Punk visitation. The hip will dig.

Recommended (Danny's Favorites): "Public Figure," "The Future Is Here," "Storage Unit," "Danny's Favorite," "One Potato, Two Potato," "The Mormon Song," "I Got A Feeling For A Feeling," "No Driver's License For the Elderly."

Facebook

Tetryon Tapes Bandcamp

Feral Kid Records

Apple


Recommended (Phone Jerks): "Out Of the Gate," "Back To Bootcamp," "Kill Kill," "Gospel," "Rubberhead"

Facebook

Bandcamp






 The Quaranteds

Over the Hills (CD Baby)




Not all will appreciate this raucous effort both rocket-fueled and gravel-throated detonative - only those who matter. All others can repair to the boring sidelines.

Recommended: "Over the Hills," "Fish Food," "Corn Dog Stomp," "Black Sky's," "Slender Man."

Facebook


V/A

 Virus Psycho Compilation Vol. 1 Side A




Multifarious incarnations and apparitions of the monster genre. Often Spanish language, always bracingly stitched.

Recommended bands: Fantastamatic, Asteroides Trio, Wild Boys, RO and the Skull Boys, Los 3 Cavalera, 13 Bats, Cadaver Army, Tres Muertes, Rotten Maniacs, Screamers and Sinners, Straight From the Grave, Evil Devil.

Video

Bandcamp

Thursday, June 10, 2021

 The Damned

Punk Oddities and Rare Tracks 1977 - 1982

(Cleopatra)




Punk of the '70s was DIY superior to the inevitable corporate domestication/commodification of it as tepid "New Wave." England's Damned were of the primordial specimen. And they've survived beyond cohorts Sex Pistols and Clash.

Recommended: "Love Song" (Demo) "Do the Blitz," "You Know" (live '77), "Idiot Box" (live '77) "Smash It Up" (live) "Thanks For the Night," "Nasty."

Facebook

Cleopatra




 Peter D. Schwotzer

Another Cemetery Walk (self)




Involved guitar instrumentals that placidly wend their ways, and consistently do so with elan.

Recommended: "Dreaming In Darkness," "Extraordinary Moments," "Old Friends Growing Older," "Another Cemetery Walk," "Mom and Dad."

Website

 The Autopsies

Post-Mortem Follies (Lycans Den)


Much rapid psycho leaps from the grooves, with nary a care for the bedlam it wreaks. Among the more auspicious of young breed.

Recommended: "Hot As Hell," "One Big Smile," "Dr. Philly P. Morgue," "Twilight On Lullaby Lane," "Small Town Murder."

Video: "Hot As Hell"

Facebook

Lycans Den


The Graveyard Bashers

Wreck 'em Dead (Lycans Den)




"Morally or otherwise, there ain't no boundaries," ("Mean Motherfucker") serves as an apt depiction of this relentlessly lurid CD. Psycho so brutish it slashes oozing gashes.

Recommended: "Psychobilly Sleazebags," "66 Cuts," "Graveyard Brothel," "Mean Motherfucker," "Mystery," "Set You On Fire."

Facebook

Bandcamp

Lycans Den






Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Video:

Alpha Rhythm Kings

feat. Miss Tammi Savoy

Choo Choo Ch' Boogie




 Iain Terry and the Smiley Jacks Band

Down In the Jungle

Rockabilly Drag Racer









 The Backyard Casanovas

Big Fat Mama




Sunday, June 6, 2021

 Dave Del Monte and                                           

the Cross Country Boys                                 

Well!! single (self)


Crash Gordon shines in this bouncy, spare rockabilly jaunt in the vintage spirit. Dave employs in his vocals the drawl, swoops, and guttural growls emblematic of storied hillbilly shouters.

"It was my first collaboration with Crash, who is an awesome guitar player," Dave emailed me. "The song was a blast to put together. The video with the record labels was my wife's idea."

Romping and stomping seem in the blood of Dave and the Cross Country Boys. We reap the finger-popping reward.

Video: "Well!!"


Facebook

Amazon Music

Apple

Spotify

Deezer

 Lee Rocker

Gather Round (Upright Records)



The moving fingers navigate and, by the doing, send all into happy orbit.

Recommended: "Gather Round," "When Nothing's Going Right" "A Dirty Martini," "Graceland Auction," "Dog House Shuffle," "Everybody Wants To Be A Cat."

Video: "A Dirty Martini"

Website


Friday, June 4, 2021

Slade
Cum On Feel the Hitz
(BMG Rights Management [UK] Ltd)



The '77 safety-pin contingent didn't start the fire. In the early 1970s, with Mott the Hoople and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Slade maintained anthemic UK glam roar before that punk explosion.


Recommended: "Come On Feel the Noize," "Get Down And Get With It," "Take Me Back 'ome," "How Does It Feel," "Look Wot You Dun."

Videos: "Come On Feel the Noize"

                   "Get Down And Get With It"



Jinx Jones
Blue Gardenia (CD Baby)




Formidable delicateness, like gentle summer rain. The rockabilly guitar master articulates jazz intonations of cool character. He illustrates the strength potential in subtlety.

Recommended: "The Tender Gender," "Ornithology," "Too High," "Blue Gardenia," "Au Privave," "A Smooth One," "Me and Mrs. Jones," "Freight Trane," "Autumn Leaves," "Crosswinds," "A Child Is Born."

            "Blue Gardenia"
                  "Crosswinds"