DC Larson's JUKEBOX JURY

Discogs

Billy Lee Riley

Sun Records Originals: Flyin' Saucers Rock & Roll

(Sun)

It matters not that Billy Lee's star never shone as brightly as some colleagues'. His popular-culture significance sings lustily in these waxings.

Recommended: "Flyin' Saucers Rock & Roll," "Red Hot," "Pearly Lee," "She's My Baby," "Baby Please Don't Go," "I Want You Baby," "Rock With Me Baby," "Betty and Dupree"

Video: "I Want You Baby"

Dave Edmunds

Repeat When Necessary

(7a Records)

In 1979, ably backed by his Rockpile confreres, Dave wrought his melange of pub rock-skirting-rockabilly and winking wit. One would be hard-pressed to cite a more potent package. 2023 import.

Recommended: "Girls Talk," "Crawling From the Wreckage," "The Creature From the Black Lagoon," "Sweet Little Lisa," "Queen of Hearts," "Home In My Hand," "Goodbye Mr. good Guy," "We Were Both Wrong," "Bad Is Bad"

Video: "Crawling From the Wreckage"

The Highliners

The Diablo Live Sessions

(Diablo)

Madcap frivolity romps within bony psycho idiom. A scant 10 pink vinyl copies were manufactured, but thrown into the purchase are a poster sleeve, unlimited streaming, and more. At presstime, only one copy remained available, though digital albums are on offer.

Recommended: "Inspector Clouseau," "Naughty Nigel," "Cheap Suit Boogie," "Frank the Quiff," "This Train"

Video: "Naughty Nigel" (live 2017)

Diablo's Bandcamp

Friday, September 29, 2023

McPherson Struts

The Gear Jammin' Door Slammin Nitro-Burnin' Genius Of...

(Rumble Road)

There come alcohol-soaked wee hours when refinement lies abandoned on wood floors and unabashed visceral declarations are exactly fitting. Add coiled-serpent riffs and natural potency, and you've a night well spent.

Recommended: "Mirrors On My Ceiling," "Wishin' Well," "Billy-Girl Blues," "Black-n-Bluegrass," "...Ain't Been Drinkin'," "Live At Five," "Truck Song," "Hotrod Karma," "The Ballad Of Red Spoon"

Video: "Black-n-Bluegrass"

Rumble Roads' Bandcamp

Derek Lee Goodreid

Struck By Lightning Again

(self-issued)

Derek assuredly unspools narratives whose personalities are of a part with architectural design. Rarely do words and music commingle so cooperatively.

Recommended: "Sinner," "Black Cat Blues," "Wants and Needs," "Struck By Lightning Again" "Gone Baby I'm Gone"

Video: "Sinner"

Samples / Purchase

Voodoo Kreepers

A Fistful of Voodoo

(self-issued)

Reissue of disc first marketed in 2007. A New Zealand combo, The Voodoo Kreepers boasted directness and unflagging vim. Merits investigation.

Recommended: "Getaway Deuce," "Baby Been Shootin'," "Lead Sled Queen," "My Broken Heart," "Blood Brothers"

Video: "Getaway Deuce" (live)

Music King / Foottapping Records

Samples / purchase

The Hicksville Bombers

Heaven in Hell

(Foottapping Records)

Powerful combo that rightly has no use for pretensions. Orthodox rockabilly should not contain superfluous gestures, any more than a drawing should feature gratuitous lines. On offer here are melodic, impellent tunes that draw listeners and maintain captivation.

Recommended: "Devil's Fight," "Don't Let Me Face the Rain," "Take A Bite," "Grease Monkey," "So Long I'm Gone," "Bottomless Pit"

Video: "Take a Bite"

Purchase

Thursday, September 28, 2023

Igor and the Red Elvises

She Works For KGB

(self-issued)

From 2017. Characteristic of the Red Elvises' oeuvre is a union of musical adventurousness and whimsies. They move masterfully between traditional airs and contemporary grooves, never allowing solemnity to becloud the hijinx. Chortling while dancing is an amusement particular.

Recommended: "She Works For KGB," "I Want My Honda Back," "Get Drunk and Funk," "My Grandma's Smoking Dope," "Everybody Twist," "Marie"

Video: "I Want My Honda Back"

Jerry Only

Anti-Hero

(Misfits)

As befits a cemetery-dwelling Misfits refugee, Jerry enshrouds himself in groteque imagery. This eponymous issue churns and pounds in unspeakable splendor. No inhibitions within light years. Real horrorshow.

Recommended: "Illuminati," "Fear the Walking Dead," "Dead Men," "Taboo," "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care," "One Cell From You," "Anti-Heroes""

Video: "Fear the Walking Dead"

Misfits Records

Mac Curtis

Rocks

(Bear Family)

For Ike-era throat Mac, the road that by the 1970s led to Ronny Weiser's Rollin' Rock began at Cincinatti's storied King label. And it's the early recordings he made that are compiled here. He took a back seat to no man when it came to hiccups and frantic yelps; he had the sock before most folks knew what it was.

Recommended: "Wake Up Rock 'n' Roll Rock-A Baby," "Real Good Itch," "What You Want," "Goosebumps," "Hard-Hearted Girl," "Little Miss Linda," "That's How Much I Love You," "That Ain't Nothin' But Right," "If I Had Me A Woman," "Just So You Call Me," "Grandaddy's Rockin'," "You Oughta See Grandma Rock," "Rockin' Mother," "No," "Good Rockin' Tomorrow," "Good Love, Sweet Love," "Flat Top Cat" (John Lewis)

Video: "Grandaddy's Rockin'"

Bear Family

Back In the Day: 1988

Roland Janes

Guitarville LP

(Bear Family)

To write that Roland witnessed the creation would be to slight his role. He was an integral component of the Sun house band, adding teeth to Jerry Lee's many remarkable waxings and firing as spark plug in Billy Lee Riley's Little Green Men. (That's Roland tearing off the wooly intro to "Flying Saucers Rock and Roll.")

In addition to those already lofty credits, he logged countless hours as producer, arranger, and engineer on numerous recordings by Sun and other labels. He was in those ways a primordial architect of the rebel sound.

But it's his stringed amazements that render this disc triumphal. In each passage, the demarcation separating prosaic and upstart is null; indeed, the two merge in natural union, the better to convey eminently American stylings.

Recommended: "Guitarville," "Patriotic Guitar," "Rolando," "Roland's Groove," "Roland Slidin' Home"

Video: "Guitarville"

Bear Family

Monday, September 11, 2023

Richie Ramone

Live To Tell

(Livewire / Cargo)

Clenched-teeth vigor accessible only to a Ramone charges the majority of these cuts; blazing guitars shred with head-banging determination. But Richie also unburdens himself of introspective emotional depth. That variegation makes for engrossment.

Recommended: "Live To Tell," "When the Night," "Who Stole My Wig," "I Sit Alone (Yeah Yeah)," "Not Afraid," "Cry Little Sister," "Suffocate," "Other Things," "Master Plan," "The Last Time"

Video: "Not Afraid"

Cargo Records

Broken Bomb

Full Mental Racket

(Katabomb)

No compromises, either musical or ideological, are to be located. Instead, as one can anticipate from a gravelly and high-octane punk diatribe, in which guitars rage and vocals exclaim, there is a cheeky obstreperousness. Madly-committed search-and-destroy missions flare all around, as fury and icy purposefulness commingle. There are no rules in the killing fields.

Recommended: "Bombs Away," "Die For A Lie," "Runaways," "Broken Bomb Squad," "Loaded To Fight," "Join the Night," "Kick Them All"

Video: "Bombs Away"

Katabomb

The Blasters

Mandatory: The Best Of...

(Liberation Hall)

In the Blasters, one perceived a marrow-deep connection to American roots musics, in their varied natures, than in the more commercially-successful Stray Cats. And it went beyond mere notes. It was apparent that there existed a spiritual bond between the band and the muses that beckoned to originators, a vital one that provoked their every gesticulation.

Recommended: "American Music," "Real Rock Drive," "Flat Top Joint," "Marie Marie," "No Other Girl," "I'm Shakin'," "Border Radio," "So Long Baby Goodbye," "Hollywood Bed," "One Bad Stud," "Jubilee Train," "Long White Cadillac," "Trouble Bound," "Samson and Delilah," "Common Man"

Video: "American Music" (Live at Farm Aid 1985)

Liberation Hall

Phil Alvin

Un "Sung Stories"

(Liberation Hall)

Back in the mid-1980s, Phil dumped his soul onto the studio floor. With most able fellowship and an ear for early American modes, he wove tales of ambitions, hardships, loves, and witty rendezvous. This significant wax resounds with the ethos of a people.

Recommended: "Someone Stole Gabriel's Horn," "Next Week Sometime," "The Ballad Of Smokey Joe," "Death In the Morning," "The Old Man Of the Mountain," "Brother Can You Spare A Dime?"

Video: "Next Week Sometime" (Art Fein's Poker Party)

Liberation Hall

Saturday, September 9, 2023

The Barnestormers

self-titled

(Bloodlines / Rhino)

Rather than expend verbiage extolling the advantages of this consistently solid disc, I'll simply list the participants: Jimmy Barnes, Slim Jim Phantom, Chris Cheney, Kevin Shirley, and Jools Holland. When the closing sounds, all that's left is smoke.

Recommended: "Sweet Love On My Mind," "Working For the Man," "Johnny's Gone," "Lonesome Train," "Thirteen Women (And Only One Man)," "Dear Dad," "Crazy Crazy Lovin'," "Sweet Nothin's," "Real Wild Child," "25 To Life"

Video: "Johnny's Gone"

Rhino

Boneshaker

Shakin' At the Moon

(self-issued)

In minimalist works such as this, the effect is messages daubed in bold relief. It is this writer's pleasure to assure all that successes here are both profound and visceral. And, best of all, the real-people grittiness holds the sophistication to a low.

Recommended: "Alone In Outerspace," "Her Kisses Kill Me," "Shaakin' At the Moon," "Getting Old," "Better Place To Go," "Break It Up," "I Hate Tomorrow"

Video: "Alone In Outerspace"

The Sharks

Bedlam Bootleg

(Western Star)

The stark, protypical Psycho for which The Sharks are rightly lauded globe 'round rings now as bug-eyed trenchant as when first stitched. Captured here in one live scene, the triad raises up tilted and ominous spectral creations, indeed.

Recommended: "Short Shark Shock," "Deathrow," "Crazy Maybe," "Morphine Daze," "Moonstomp," "Schizoid Man," "Side Show Freak," "Take A Razor To Your Head," "Hooker"

Video: "Take A Razor To Your Head"

Western Star

Ghoultown

Best Of the Dead West Volume One

(self)

Much remastered previous material plus extras, not least of which is a galloping, atmospheric new song. In a slap-leather milieu, populated by shambling and hollow-eyed hombres from below, no string goes un-thrashed and all poundings are doomsday ones.

Recommended: "Devil, Liquor, and Gunsmoke," "Southern Son," "Werewolves On Wheels," "Bullets Don't Argue," "Against A Crooked Sky," "Drink With the Living Dead," "Blood, Bullets, and Whiskey," "Evil Eye," "Under the Phantom Moon"

Video: "Devil, Liquor, and Gunssmoke"

Purchase

Thursday, September 7, 2023

Cliffie Stone

The legendary Capitol Records double bassist and more!

(Atomicat)

Cliffie may have been bad before he was good, but these hand-tooled cuts hail exclusively from the latter period. Joined by various assemblages, he plays and sings in the loose-limbed manner of a hillbilly minstrel who is of the people and wouldn't have it any other way. Six string, steel guitar, and fiddle all imprint with amiable presence.

"In comes the doctor, in comes the nurse / In comes the lady with the alligator purse."

Recommended: "Jump Rope Boogie," "Sugar Rock 'n' Roll," "Domino," "Dirty Dishes," "Tennessee Central (Number Nine," "Roly Poly," "Steel Guitar Rag" (feat. Speedy West), "Wine, Women, and Pink Elephants" (backing Jimmy Dolan), "I Like My Chicken Fryin' Size" (backing Merle Travis), "Boogie Woogie Cowboy" (backing Tex Ritter), "Scoot, Git, and Begone" (backing Skeets McDonald), "You'e A Humdinger" (backing the Farmer Boys), "Hoot Owl Boogie" (backing Sheb Wooley), "Frettin' Fingers" (feat. Jimmy Bryant and Speedy West), "I Don't Know" (backing Tennessee Ernie Ford), "Ridin' Down To Santa Fe" (backing Shug Fisher)

Video: "Jump Rope Boogie"

Linda Gail Lewis

"Diggin' My Way Out Of Hell" single

(Cleopatra)

Ably backed by a retinue that includes Danny B. Harvey and Slim Jim Phantom in its celestial number, Linda throws out good-time rock 'n' roll like the prototype she is.

Video