The Side Burns

Whiskey's Not So Evil

(Self-issued)

In self-penned tales of heartsickness (and in a Lee Hazlewood cover), guitarist/singer Ziad Samman laments treacherous charmers. He and collaborators Shunsuke and Paul dispatch vibrancy that, while shaded by rustic inclinations, is muscular to a beat-down degree. (They recently trod club-boards alongside Guitar Wolf; that requires formidability.) In the swaybacked-Country closer, a Wynn Stewart number, Ziad declares with finality the morbid criminality to which inconstancy has provoked him.

Recommended: "Shunsuke's Last Stand,' "Pink Fuzz Box," "Still As the Night," "Whiskey's Not So Evil," "Outlaw Hearts," "I'm Gonna Kill You"

Video: "Whiskey's Not So Evil"

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Tupelo Highshots

"Desperado Love"

(Vintjam Records)

The swinging proposition that confronts us is shot through with bucolic attitude. Selections romp in familiar and friendly fashion, kicking up heels over electrified punch. And so, the wall dividing home-folks from their metropolitan cousins crashes down.

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The Unnaturals

Sleazy Listening   digital album

(Self-issued)

The all-instrumentals Unnaturals' tagline "Definitely NOT your parents' surf band" is comfortable beneath the Truth In Labeling umbrella. Each player excels at what unspools as contemporary, rocketing dynamism Frankie and Annette could only have fantasized if hot-dogging on mile-a-minute waves of stern libation. Chords chop and notes scream as the hammer comes down. Upon their issuance, these combustable recordings enjoyed radio-play in the trio's own New Orleans. World beyond comes next.

Recommended: "The Binge," "Vice Squad," "Clambaked!," "Cowpoke," "Take the Ride," "Shafted," "Two-Beer Buzz," "Staring Proudly Off Into the Sunset," "One Last Wave"

Videos: "The Binge"    live in 2022 (13:15)

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Back In the Day, 1997

Larry Bright

Shake That Thing!

(Del-Fi Records)

Music historians recall that Larry, who befriended Elvis for many years, yearned for (but never attained) Chitlin' Circuit stardom. But at least the white boy who on record was sometimes mistaken for black did sit in with Bo Diddley for a New Orleans jam session.

His early '60s Swamp-Blues waxings swelled with six-string licks splashed up on the bayou's dirt banks; generously sweeping organ; 'ah-ooing' go-go girls choruses; and all the handclaps, finger-pops, and hip shakes required to transmogrify mundane circumstances into anything-goes soirees.

Posturing atop that virtual streamer-strewn Bourbon Street float were irrepressible vocals straight out of the raw zone.  

"Although Bright held a reputation as a hot performer and a musician's musician, he remains an unknown due to disastrous business deals, legal problems, and alcohol-fueled madness. He trusted everyone, drank a lot, and signed everything," reads an online account by Klaus Kettner with Tony Wilkinson.

Recommended: "Bacon Fat," "Shake That Thing," "Got My Mojo Working," "Surfin' Queen," "One Ugly Child," "MoJo Workout," "Bloodhound," "Do the Thing"

Videos: "Shake That Thing"    "MoJo Workout"   "One Ugly Child"

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Jerry Lee Lewis

Killer In Stereo: Good Rockin' Tonight

(Sun Records)

While the Killer hurls his own takes on tracks identified with Elvis, Little Richard, Gene Vincent, and Chuck Berry, it's on other numbers that he flares most lustrously. His tossed-off Louisiana drawl and battering of innocent ivories was nonpareil. The world will never see his like again, but at least we had him for a while. And one day, we will know him anew.

Recommended: "High-Powered Woman," "Hello Josephine," "Just Who Is To Blame," "When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again," "When I Get Paid," "Save the Last Dance For Me"

Videos: "High-Powered Woman"   "Just Who Is To Blame"   "When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again"   "Save the Last Dance For Me"

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The Mopar Cams

Munchin'

(Self-issued)

Surf-Punk stylin' Rockabilly chrome. The instrumental line-up is a traditional, rock-ribbed one led by assertive guitar, and fluctuation ensures appreciators remain agog; adventurousness inspires mercurial song advance.

Recommended: "Oak Noir," "Salsa Verde," "Thumper," "Rage Against the Sex Machine," "Ole Mole," "1955"

Videos: "Salsa Verde"   "Ole Mole"

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Deezer

canto torto

um outro olhar

(Self-issued)

From snarling grooves, accellerated Punk/Psycho chords maraud as back-alley malefactors. Joining them in jaw-jutted confederacy are snare-smackdowns and vocals that resound with 'you talkin' to me?' pugnaciousness. Nary a lull within view.

Recommended: "Psicótica," "Dedo Médio," "Tiro no Pé"

Video: "Tiro no Pé" (Official clip)

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V/A

Tin Roof: Small Town Country Music

(Sun Records)

In 1971, at 12 years old, I spent a weekend with a paternal uncle and his family. They lived in one of Iowa's tiny rural towns.

I was from a city. So, for me, country life was a different reality. Sunday meant all-day fundamentalist church, punctuated at noon by a houseful gathering. A table was loaded down with hot dogs, cold meats, breads, pop, and potato salad. A spirited throng gathered, dressed in church-going finery.

Roaming the rooms, I found a black-and-white 8x10 stashed on a bookshelf. It was a posed publicity shot, and depicted a Country Western combo complete with stand up bass, drums,  acoustic, electric, and steel guitars. They sported de rigueur cowboy attire: big hats, neckerchiefs, boots.

I didn't know the photo's vintage, nor did I recognize anyone featured. (Some distant family members, perhaps -- ones who'd once dreamed vainly of celebrity?)

In future years, though, I came to understand that authentic Country and Rock'n'Roll sprang from the same real-folks well.

(The foregoing was excerpted from my Flesh Made Music, published in 2016 by Retro Riff Books)

Sam Phillips knew what I later grasped, of course, back when these real Country tracks were put to wax. He had for decades rubbed shoulders with the regular folks who'd ambled into his crackerbox Memphis studio and recorded sounds that would electrify generations and tear up the extant popular-music blueprint.

Presented are some 50 minutes of home-folks America. Tracks capture quintessential Country -- unpretentious picking, steel-guitar sways, resolute beats, and affable drawls -- as well as the healthy nationalistic pride too many today wrongly think malign.

Also humbly offered are the playful whimsicality later spotlighted on Hee Haw and misty recollections of earlier, simpler times and much-loved elders who'd gone to rewards.

Some songs are so backwoods-lively as to wreath faces in open grins while prompting couples' whirling. More sedate others invite listeners to ponder plain-spoken narraratives and perhaps even gaze inward. 

All will gratify.

Recommended: "Troublesome Creek" (Ben Story), "Tin Roof" (Jimmy Louis), "Don't Bite the Hand That's Feeding You" (Leroy Van Dyke), "Mule Skinner Blues" (Dennis Roberts), "Howard Hughes Is Alive and Well" (Sonny Hall), "Ants In My Plants" (Wanda Birdsong), "My Own Native Land" (Johnny Freedom), "If I Could Get One More Hit" (James O'Gwynn), "Granny's Patches" (Ben Story), "Shade Tree Fix-It Man" (James O'Gwynn)

Video: "Don't Bite the Hand That's Feeding You"   "Howard Hughes Is Alive and Well"   "My Own Native Land"

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Pete Berwick

That's What I Think

(Shotgun Records)

It's surely a struggle, having an intellect as broad as one's heart is full. Pete was blessed with bardic capacity with which he dissects emotional turmoils with analytical exactitude. Surging acoustic strings, world-weary drawl, and plaintive harmonica prove sufficient for compelling portrayals. There's a heartsore grappler in each passage.

Recommended: "Here On My Shelf," "That's What I Think," "Trolls," "Now That Danny Don't Come Around," "I'm Tired," "Memphis Took My Son From Me," "Love Hurts," "Is That What You Want"

Videos: "Now That Danny Don't Come Around"   "Memphis Took My Son From Me"   

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Stompin' Riffraffs

"Horror Show" b/w "Parabellum"   7" vinyl

(Time Bomb Records)

When the party swings this madly, nobody cares what decade it is. '50s Rockabilly strut and runaway '60s Garage whimsy meld and exult in symbiotic revelry. Fun shimmies in the middle of the floor.

Time Bomb advises just 500 copies of this single were pressed. (It was first issued by Miz Liz in 2010).

Videos: "Horror Show"   live (34:14)

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Cherry Auction

California Psychobilly   digital EP

(Sleepy Ghost Records)

Monsters tantalize. Just as rugged rampaging turns up here, so, too, do teasingly drip-drip-drip sinister movements. Like Horror authors and filmmakers, Cherry Auction understands suspense yields reward; the combo cleverly exploits same. The cumulative experience is jaggedly haunting. 

Recommended: "Bloodslide," "Surfin' On Elm Street," "Dead Ex-Lover," "The Manor," "Zoltan"

Videos: "Bloodslide"   "Zoltan"  (live)

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Haystacks Calhoon

"Tachi Ai"   digital single

(Self-issued)

Tautness is constant. Spider-crawls and treble shards cede real-estate to regimented chord pacing. Exhortative vocals entrance, in moments bolting upward on falsetto mission. Live-wire tension on the precipice's edge.

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Dee Dee Ramone

Live At the Spa Club   cassette

(Tapehead City)

Preserved are nine numbers from one of Dee Dee's final spectacles. Absent is the Ramones' characteristic discipline (attributed to drill sergeant Johnny). In its stead, near-shambolism recalling the Thunder Syringe-Mates splashes wall-to-wall. Start-stop-starts are not uncommon. But once the players lock into sustained formation, they throw out all the smash-up belligerance Punk promised at CBGB's circa '77. This scribe ranks Dee Dee as perhaps the subgenre's foremost songcrafter (equalled only by Dictator Adny Shernoff). In grained tones, the storied back-alley celebrity issues hipness that can only be birthright. 

Recommended: "Beat On the Brat," "Please Mr. Postman," "Born To Lose," "Chinese Rock," "I Wanna Be Sedated," "Horror Hotel," "Locomotion"

Videos: entire show

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The Biscats

Best 2019-2024

(ROCK'A BEAT TOKYO)

Mere days prior to this writing,  Japan's Biscats trod an Aichi Prefecture stage, in a multi-band event headlined by Levi Dexter & the Rockabilly Specials. They earned lofty status with buoyant, fun romps aburst with hepcat elan. Rockabilly's classic twang and vigor veer down the line, grinning through the miles.

Recommended: "Haatonoeesu," "Take Away," "Kowaaserazu," "Teddy Boy," "Sweet Jukebbox," "Hajikechatte!Summertime," "My Hometown," "Dilemma," "NottekeSunday," "Anatae," "Junai Crazy," "Goody Goody Girl," "Casino Royale"

Videos: "Goody Goody Girl"   "Anatae"   "Sweet Jukebox"

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Stray Bolts

A Moth In the Glue

(Bolts Records)

Across 10 cuts, three Chicagoans with Blues bearing prove understatement's benefit. They convey redoubtable aptitudes without once raising voices or amplification. In calmness, messages can enjoy particular impact, and instrumental adeptness rise for recognition. Quietude has special potency.

This 2024 release differs from the preceding 2023 version, in that it features nonidentical cover art and offers the same tracks, but varyingly ordered.

Recommended: "A Moth In the Glue," "Get Along," "Three Flat Acres," "When I See Her," "Six Days On the Road," "Sweet Sweet Loretta"

Video: "Sweet Sweet Loretta"

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Ike Turner

I'm Gonna Forget About You

(Sun)

Rocks

(Bear Family)

While the fabled Memphis imprint retrieved 11 invaluable tapes from its own shelf, Germany's Bear Family swept up 33 killer cuts hailing from a host of names like Chess, Federal, and Cobra. Anyone yet unfamiliar with Izear Luster Turner's dazzling string-command -- in which both sittin'-down-hard Blues orations and go-for-broke R&B sprees delight -- is in for all-night celebration. Ike's soloing wasted no time on indulgence. It was razor-edged, vigorous, and each note was needed. Some maintain Ike was among burgeoning Rock'n'Roll's audacious sires. That contention won't be disputed in this precinct.

Recommended, Sun: "I'm Gonna Forget About You," "You Can't Be the One For Me," "Love Is a Gamble" (feat. Bonnie Turner), "How Long Will It Last," "Crying In the Courthouse" (feat. Houston Bonies and Little Milton), "Get It Over Baby"

Recommended, Bear Family: "Just One More Time" (feat. Billy Gayles), "Much Later" (feat. Jackie Brenston), "Hey Hey" (as Icky Renrut), "Sad As a Man Can Be" (feat. Billy Gayles), "The Groove," "(I Know) you Don't Love Me," "The Rooster," "Rocket 88" (feat. Jackie Brenston), "Early Times" (w/Dennis Binder and his Orchestra), "Hoo-Doo Say," "Peg Leg Woman" (feat. Willie King), "I'm Tore Up," "Steel Guitar Rag (Square Dance)," "She Made My Blood Run Cold," "Ho-Ho," "Gonna Wait For My Chance," "Do Right Baby"

Videos: "Crying In the Courthouse"   "Steel Guitar Rag (Square Dance)"      "Ho-Ho"

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The Suicide Drifters

Death Curse   EP

(Self-issued)

Growls, yelps, Lux Interior-hiccups, and full-on thunderings are dramatically loosed atop wall-flattening rampages that draw from Rockabilly's cockiness and Punk's contemptuous disregard for rectitude. Formidable muscle is exercised in every slamming chord and skin smashing, as apparent as ear-ringings resulting from no-turning-back exposure.

Recommended: "Love Machine," "Scars Of Armel," "Demoness," "Up'd 'n' Gone," "None Will Stay," "One Night With Tamara"

Video: "Demoness" (live)

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J.S. & the Lockerbillies

Tales From the Town

(Self-issued)

Before us is a sterling instance of rock-ribbed musicality within whose assertiveness pulses red-blooded passion. Early Rebel Music's hoarse-throated declaimers surely feared what unsuppressed emotion would do to social mores as much as they did the imminent deflowering of the Hit Parade. Gritty Blues struts shoulder-to-shoulder with fierce Rock'n'Roll in no-bullshit tracks.

Recommended: "Bad News," "The Snake Rattle," "Doctor For the Dead," "Attracting Flies," "Joy"

Video: "Joy" (BOPFLIX sessions)

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the alley-oops

s/t   EP

(Self-issued)

Spartan instrumentals range from Surf to Spy, and Rockabilly to swinging soirees. Alex traverses the fretboard like home turf. He can muse at leisure, his enunciations enabled by wide knowledge, but also tear through gymnastic runs that snatch breath. Involved ornamentation is absent. That benefits, as basicness facilitates flight.

Recommended: "Progabilly," "Hang Ten," "Private Eye," "Blue's Polka," "The Alley-Oops Rag"

Videos: "The Alley-Oops Rag"   "Blue's Polka"

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John Mercy and Pedro Renato

The Immigrant & the Vagabond

(Lux Records)

Between them, the craftsmen whose names loom on the marquee manipulate nearly as many instruments as there are stars illuminating inkiness. Inspiration for desolate common-man tableaus arrived via Chaplin classics dating from 1916 and 1917. Fittingly, musics of that era unfold and sprawl. In some moments, banjo plunking, Glockenspiel, and pianny make comfortably unpretentious accompaniment for bleak poetry. Elsewhere, electronic tools including Wurlitzer, dynamic guitar, and Fender Rhodes Mark 1 animate more contemporary passages. Weathered, profound vocals redouble tales' accessibility. An ambitious undertaking, well realized.

Recommended: "Gambling Man," "Immigrant Song," "She's Dead and Gone," "Bottom Of the Well," "Back There," "Hoodoo Man," "Lost Girl," "Washed-Up Bird," "The Guilt Of a Thousand Years," "There's a Devil In the Woods," "Those Cruel Words," "The Road Ahead"

Video: "Gambling Man"   "The Road Ahead"

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Ray Black & the Flying Carpets

Downtown Ride

(Rhythm Bomb Records)

Swingin' like a gate, from the Land of Chocolate. Sign on the door: No Squares Allowed. Straight from the fridge, they clearly learned to move their bones at the Gene S. Institute. Now givin' out licks that cram hardwood.

From DJ Wildgoner's liner notes: "To simply call them a Rockabilly band wouldn't do them justice, as they also draw their musical influences from 1950s Rock'n'Roll, early 1960s Garage/R&B, and early 1960s Country."

Recommended: "Downtown Ride," "Hornet Bop," "That's What I'd Do," "Speed King," "Big Ol' Spark," "Rockin' In Baghdad," "When the Sun Comes Up," "Burning Lips," "I Never Felt This Way"

Video: "Speed King"

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Joe Flip

Home Sweet Home

(New Folk Records)

Many are those of the pick who have studied venerable Blues masters and can not only replicate their gestures, but do so with spiritual fraternity. Know that slide-artisan Joe ranks among them. But he is no soulless emulator; whether plugged in and loosing passion's flames or hefting a gut-box to touch off silken passages with deft digits, he laces each outing with distinctiveness. 

A $10 package (reduced from $25) includes the Home Sweet Home CD, autographed album art, digital download, and sticker. It can be ordered directly. See below.

Recommended: "Home Sweet Home," "Just Friends," "Mississippi Country Road," "Jimi Swing," "Toxic" (feat. Swanny Rose), "Anna Lee," "Mess Around," "Whipping Post," "4th Street Alley," "Lenny" (live), "Invictus"

Videos: "Home Sweet Home"   "Whipping Post"

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Louvin Brothers

Satan Is Real   LP

(Bad Billy Records)

Bad Billy offers this 1959 classic on red vinyl; copies are limited to 300 units.Veteran critic John Morthland (whose early 1970s Creem writings impressed) observed professional songcraftsmen penned some tracks, here. (One of several exceptions being the title cut, written by the crooning brothers). I don't know whether 'just a job' insincerity was implied. And accounts of mandolin-picking Ira's addictions and combustability also suggest conflict. But just as he and Charlie are now hailed as among vocal-duo elites for their stratospheric, high lonesome stylings, wooden pews once teemed with country folk for whom Divine spirit embodied each tranquil passage. And for those good souls, that meant everything.

Recommended: "Satan Is Real," "There's a Higher Power," "The Christian Life," "The River Of Jordan," "The Kneeling Drunkard's Plea," "Are You Afraid To Die," "He Can Be Found," "The Drunkard's Doom," "Satan's Jeweled Crown," "The Angels Rejoiced Last Night"

Videos: "Satan Is Real,"   "The Kneeling Drunkard's Plea" (This standout song was written by Mother Maybelle Carter and several of her daughters, of the storied Carter Family.)

Bad Billy

Rick Larson: Greatness at the margin

A guitar is buried in Marshalltown, Iowa. This is why:

A flash point is possible in live music. An organic, vital moment in which emotional and sensory phenomena coalesce in a connected soloist's muse articulation. The spark surges through the crowd, electrifying the atmosphere and leaving listeners viscerally touched.

Skin crawls. Grins erupt. Shouts ring out. And all is right with the world -- at least for that moment.

Marshalltown, Iowa's Rick Larson found his way into that magical moment of greatness -- more than once, if truth be told -- as had so many unsung beat champions before him.

My brother, he knew his life's purpose from an early age. He got his first guitar when 12 and devoted himself to single-minded pursuit of earthly calling.

Stevie Ray Vaughn, Keith Richard, Chuck Berry, Buddy Guy, Joe Strummer, Pete Townsend - these were his influences. He played the music that spoke to him, and it became important to his audiences.

No prisoner of stylistic convention, he was as likely to rock the house as finesse a melody. He made all the right stops, from red-hot jumpin' to cool-blue orating. His intoxicating soloing interpreted heartache, passion, and kick-out-the-jams exuberance. Lesser players were made conscious of their limitations.

The demands of post-teen life typically compel young players to eventually pursue day jobs, relegating live music to weekend hobby status, if even that. 

But Rick never stopped. Because he and music were of a piece. And to him, no other pursuits mattered.

He never cut an album, shot a video or graced a magazine cover. What he did was infinitely more important. A veteran of America's bar-band culture, he helped keep Blues and Rock'n'Roll alive before average people every night.

For them, plagued by trials throughout the work week, the release and revelry offered by live bands is salvational. A person can be put down by a boss during the day, but be ten feet tall on the midnight dance floor.

Songs to which grassroots blue-collar crowds today shout and thrill have roots in America's rich cultural mosaic and wonderfully diverse heritage. Tempos, melodic inclinations, and engaging rhythms from a score of shores met here and became new and as one.

American songs derive from the Appalachian Mountain country and humming streets of Chicago. They hail from the highways that crisscross the nation and from the farmlands. From the cities, swamps, and suburbs. And they are born from common experiences, telling of human struggles, aspirations, pains, and triumphs.

It is through the efforts of anonymous players that folk stories and voices survive from generation to generation. A country's music serves as both popular record and expression of national character.

Rick was professionally active in central Iowa from the seventies through the mid-nineties. Indeed, the area live-music circuit was richer for his indefatigable participation.

He co-founded numerous central Iowa groups: Amo, Armed and Dangerous, Party House, Ice Age, the Vipers, Commotion. And too many more to mention. Singer/harp player Mark Goodman and drummer Frank McDowell were usually in the mix. Accompanying players included keyboardist Doc Lawson and guitarist/vocalist Dave Taylor.

Sometimes, formal band names or line-ups were not even needed. If a sudden gig opened up or a last-minute party jam presented itself, Rick would be there. Guitar in hand, amplifier on.

He had something crucial to worthwhile musicianship: an absolute and unfeigned direct line between his heart and his art. He believed in each note he touched.

True, a few of the better chart songs sometimes crept into the late- night sets. But only the better ones. For Rick, ignoring his instincts and selling out his musical integrity were simply not options. The gold ring mattered less than the music. The moment.

Devoted rank-and-file bar musicians like Rick who keep music alive -- who realize that all-important moment -- are infinitely more significant to real world listeners than is the trendy WRIT LARGE corporate music-product industry that takes listeners for granted.

For every transient and fabricated chart sensation, there are innumerable unsung authentics. And greatness belongs to them, too. Probably most of all.

For it is indeed possible to reach greatness in isolation from the "big picture," without the whole world's being aware.

Rick did.

His guitar fell silent in 1998. We laid to earth with him the cherry wood-grain, Gibson SG Standard that had been his earliest performing guitar. It was only right that they remain together into perpetuity. Together, they had realized the moment.

That is how I know that greatness can flourish at the margin.

And that is why a guitar is buried in Marshalltown, Iowa.

The foregoing essay was excerpted from my 2017 book, Flesh Made Music (Retro Riff).

Rick and longtime singer Mark Goodman.