Brian Bell
"Tourist Seventeen" 717
(Self-issued)
Some who heft guitars ravage them until blood spurts, and their exertions elate. But Brian selects a dissimilar course. With the fingers of an assiduous jewel-cutter, he rings notes impactful for their understatement. Melody issues in graceful arcs. Elegant formidibility towers.
Artist Brian is enigmatic. He maintains no online presence other than on Bandcamp. Musical acquaintanceship, then, is the sole option available.
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Eastside Suicides
Streets Got Your Baby
(Desolate Sounds)
Recommended: "Panic In My Pants," "How Much For Nothin'," "Pink Personality," "Tell Me...I Gotta Know," "Booker T. Projects," "Eastside Suicide," "Bad News," "Don't Kiss Me...I'll Kiss You," "Center Of Destruction," "Black Leather Boots," "Tear Me Apart," "Justa Lookin'," "All Dressed Up," "Streets Got Yo Baby"
Video: "All Dressed Up"
Facebook (band)
Facebook (Desolate Sounds)
The Defiant Ones
A Sewer Full Of Phonies
(Crazy Love Records)
In furious, bare-boned bursts, these mongers of speed-bomb Neo-Rockabilly barrel lopsidedly into upper reaches. Careening instrumental proficiency proves a powerhouse, sparking helter-skelter spiral. Tilted crown is fashioned by vocals whose dizzying whoops, subterranean plunges, and general histrionics indicate teachings absorbed at the hallowed University Of Lux.
Recommended: "Sewer Full Of Phonies," "Rosemary and Sweet Whiskey," "Melancholy," "I Like the Wild Stuff," "The Cassanova In Me," "Juice Box Baby!," "Get Here Quick," "Hello Agoraphobia," "Johnny"
Video: "Juice Box Baby!"
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Fornhorst
Leben ohne Scheiss
(Self-issued)
Nietsche wrote from chaos comes order. But in this bust-down account, the two commingle productively. For all its headlong feralness, this construction embodies a preciseness that ensures each note stabs its target. Governing acuity raises assaultive agitation to high value. These men know what they are doing, and they do it well.
Recommended: "Vielen Dank für Deine Angst," "Alles so schön ruhig hier," "Juli im August," "Tommi," "Leben ohne Scheiss," "Warum du wütend bist," "Liebeslied"
Video: "Liebeslied"
Los Crujídos
"Suspiro Final" single
(Diente de León Music)
Throughout this shadow-swathed trek, expressed in mesmeric slow motion, effectiveness enthralls. A determined bassline rumbles and drums augment its authority. Hushed vocals underscore the song's dreamlike personality. Treble notes are touched off sparingly; that less-is-more wise judgement accentuates with subtle majesty.
King Size Drag
La Via Della Morte
(Self-issued)
Most songs raised up by this guitar/standup pair weave understated atmospheres in serenity, as old-ways Country slow-dances with Mexican airs. Bass-string guitar amblings and low-voiced resonance accord with purposeful doghouse. Sporadic passages in which tempos are spurred animate, but discreetly.
Recommended: "Snake Line," "The Devil's Seed," "Of Roses andd Of Wine," "I Hang My Head Down Low," "La Via Della Morte," "Lucy In Vain," "18 Wheels"
Video: "Of Roses and Of Wine"
Eat Defeat
My Money's On Me
(Uncle Style Records)
Guitars dive, drums hurtle nimbly, and harmonies swell in multi-hued Pop-Punk flower, which would suffice to earn endorsement. But artfully intriguing architecture demands recognition. Assuming song paths is impossible, so numerous are ups, downs, switches, and detours. The surest prescription for appreciation is to embrace unfolding momentum as it transmogrifies in melodic wonder.
Recommended:"Slip Through the Cracks," "Much More Than I Wanted," "Chance Could Be a Fine Thing," "Giving Up (On Giving Up)," "Gnarcolepsy," "Everything Is Broken," "My Money's On Me"
Video: "Slip Through the Cracks"
Back In the Day, 2001
Ace & the Ragers
Steal Your Girlfriend
(Pin Up Records)
A disc bursting with the spiritedness of college-age youth, one packed wall-to-wall with swinging Rock'n'Roll fun, should never be forgotten. But an online search this writer conducted prior to putting pen to paper turned up scant results; in fact, no site offers audio clips of all tracks, most of which are jubilantly boisterous to the point of jumping from their digital circumstance and enlivening listeners' own.
Fortunately, in the present author's possession is a copy purchased when crisp.
The disc raves with freshness perhaps only possible when salad days are in session. Among its attributes is communication of that freewheeling essence. And to hear is to be uplifted.
Soon, online collectors and thrift stores may be buyers' sole options.
Recommended: "Panty Raid," "Kerry," "Hey Hoochie Mama," Going Going Gone," "Go Away Girl," "Yes, Yes!," "College Girl," "Bad One," "Bombshell," "Watch That Girl," "There's a Party Goin' On"
Videos: "Bombshell", "There's a Party Goin' On" (live, 2010)
Concrete Sundays
s/t EP
(Bollmora Rekords)
A four-track rampage in which merry infectiousness is wed to blast-furnace conflagrations. Jolt upon jolt summon to mind's eye sweaty mobs shouting choruses in graffitied dives packed beyond capacity. "We like beer, pizza, and come from Stockholm," they declare online, letting mighty affronts provide further elucidation.
Recommended: "Runaway," "Holloway Road," "Losing Battle," "Concrete Sunday"
Video: "Holloway Road"
Exat
Letzke an der Bar (Last One At the Bar) two -track single
(Rock Zone Records)
Everything is louder than everything else in this brutality. Guttural call-and-response bellowings flare defiantly amid ear-splitting agitation hurtling toward exultant demolition. Stomped with pride.
Recommended: "Der Letzke an der Bar," "Der Capt'n ist an Bord"
Video: "Der Capt'n ist an Bord"
Back In the Day, 2006
Fats Waller
The Very Best Of...
(Collector's Choice)
Essential evidence that folks got natural kicks long before Rock'n'Roll. Waggish Fats' puffed-chest stride piano and the bounce of his hip sidemen sparked the ignitions of everyone from bawdy-house carousers to High Hats in their snoot suits. That the man frequently tossed off sometimes salacious lyrics with a cocked eyebrow and leer assured all they could let hair down and be as earthy as humanity urged. Muted-trumpet antics and step-lively traps maintained the hustle, to the elation of assorted wrigglers and in-corner grapplers.
How many blessed events ensued? "One never knows, do one?"
Recommended: "Handful Of Keys," "The Minor Drag," "Ain't Misbehavin'," "How Can You Face Me," "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter," "Dinah," "Truckin'," "When Somebody Thinks You're Wonderful," "I Got Rhythm," "It's a Sin To Tell a Lie," "Until the Real Thing Comes Along," "The Curse Of An Aching Heart," "Honeysuckle Rose," "Hold Tight (Want Some Seafood Mama"
Videos: "Honeysuckle Rose," "The Joint Is Jumpin'," "Your Feet's Too Big"
Louis King
Little Devil!
(Self-issued)
The joint is rocking. Instruments including rollicking ivories and horns busting wide with joy throw out the Big Beat jitterbugs crave. A burlesque teaser is swinging on the chandelier. Louis rears back and looses good-hearted celebration, his exclamations bouncing between shaking walls. Comes variegation: the surprisingly understated closer delights with smoldering potency.
Toini & Rio Bravo
"Don't Ever Leave Me Again" single
(Musikkpartner)
By advising that this swaybacked pleasantness was culled from the Patsy Cline songbook, I'll have conveyed its essence. But to that, I would add it is here rendered with due respectfulness, allure born of devotion, and brick-solid classic Country unwinding that sports Bluesy elegance. If only the Opry still maintained its Tennessee stage...
Los Pistoleros
"Home For the Heartless" digital single
(Self-issued)
Previous Los Pistoleros experience attested so vigorously to members' adroitness with ampheteminized Psycho that the measured endeavor now at hand gives pause. But intensity portrayed at a rumbling crawl, and with vocals conformative to melody's dictates, offers formidability all its own. In closing seconds, familiar rocketship velocity explodes and one is again overwhelmed by characteristic uproar.
The Ramblin' Sweethearts
"Aching For You" single
(Self-issued)
Already forming is a line of roots-music afficianados hungry for the Sweethearts' debut EP, slated for summer issuance. This rouser will tide them over. Its simplicity and exuberance serve the time-honored ambition of giving dancers abundant reason for jubilation. Rock'n'Roll will never die.
Tristan Thorndyke's Rock'n'Roll Cannibals
Carne Pleasures
(Self-issued)
Bursting from this backstreet compendium is madly dashing Rock'n'Roll for which unadorned guitar is a 'you talkin' to me?' ringleader. Every man involved flexes muscle. The absence of studio artificiality allows for Tristan's vocal acrobatics to fly unhindered. Direct and bracing. (The definition of "carne" makes clear the CD title's winked allusion.)
Recommended: "I Wanna Scream," "Distract Me," "The Hoodoo Hop," "Cadaver Dog," "1, 2,3,4," "Liquid Hate," "Shot in the Boys Room," "Space Lazer," "Terminate," "Live a Little Bit"
Video: "I Wanna Scream"
The Balboas
"Scorched" single
(Burn and Surf)
While seasoned cats skim their planks atop cresting pipelines and gremmies flounder, the Balboas throw sand to the delight of gyrating and carefree untamed youth. Laughs and whoops soar to blue skies. Forward-racing guitar licks curl and unwind like cobras hip to the tip. Sure, this Dick Dale ripper harkens back to days predating the lamentable British Invasion, but it does so with Now brashness.
The City Kids
More Filth!!!!
(Very Fried Artists)
Whether thundering in congested clubs or before arena masses, full-bore, uber-muscular metallic Rock'n'Roll so urgent grabs and transfixes. Key to mammoth chord-slabs' persuasiveness is song construction artfully mindful of proper methodology. Brawn plus brains totals potency.
Recommended: "Don't Try," "Falling Down," "You Won't Stop," "Where Were You?," "You're Not Alone," "Dead To Me" (feat. Eddie Spaghetti)
Video: "Don't Try"
Back In the day, 1991
The Monsters
The Hunch
(Voodoo Rhythm Records)
Stitched in 1986, these unnerving Swiss monstrosities turned the same soil as NYC lurchers the Cramps. Their trashy offerings were of insistent and fuzz-filled personality. Horror tropes common to cursed drive-ins lurked in assaults that reeked of 1950s swagger and 1960s Garage Punk. Also casting its shadow was primitive, burgeoning Psychobilly so blunt as to bash skulls bloody.
The Hunch was the second of seven Monsters LPs. Initially issued on green vinyl, it was rereleased as a CD in 2013.
Recommended: "The Creature From the Black Lagoon," "Hang On," "Sex Wax," "Drug Train," "Day Of the Triffids," "Drag Is Back," "Wicked Wanda," "Teenage Werewolf," "The Kinks," "Psycho Over Europe"
Video: "Day Of the Triffids"
Dorsey Burnette
The Rockabilly Years: The Singles & Albums Collection 1955 - 1962
(Acrobat Music)
As one-third of Johnny Burnette and the Rock'n'Roll Trio, Dorsey was a powerhouse. His doghouse negotiations lent rock-ribbed substance to the combo's abandon, which also featured Johnny's acoustic flailings and grained-throat emotings as well as Paul Burlison's influential Telecaster sparks.
Logically, then, much of the first disc offers smoldering Trio waxings. But once Dorsey had departed the group and musical fashions changed -- wildcat Rockabilly was replaced by smooth, commodified sounds that featured satiny backing choruses and sterile strings -- many of his efforts seemed placid.
(Identical defanging was witnessed in the late 1970s and 1980s. Grassroots-generated Punk -- a surly rejection of corporate-processed Rock product in which interminable opuses included meandering guitar noodling and boring drum solos -- was reinvented by major record companies as fun-for-the-whole-family New Wave.)
To be sure, Dorsey was possessed of a full and booming voice that commanded center spotlight on even listless material. And there certainly are remarkable moments among his post-Trio endeavors. One hears Country Music evolution, and sometimes quite clever songcraft.
Burnette completists who don't already harbor these sides will pursue purchase. But those interested in Rockabilly's gestational period, when primitive Hillbilly and uptempo Blues found one another on nighttime stages and tore the roof off the joint, are advised to concentrate attentions on the Trio.
Recommended, disc one: "You're Undecided," "Go Mule Go," "Tear It Up," "Midnight Train," "Oh Baby Babe," "Train Kept A-Rollin'," "Honey Hush," "Let's Fall In Love," "Lonesome Train (On a Lonesome Track)," "I Just Found Out," "At a Distance," "Eager Beaver Baby," "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee," "Rock Billy Boogie," "Til the Law Says Stop," "Misery," "Way In the Middle Of the Night," "Your Love," "Blues Stay Away From Me," "House With a Tin Roof Top," "Circle Rock"
Recommended, disc two: "(There Was a) Tall Oak Tree," "Hey Little One," "This Hotel," "Hard Rock Mine," "Great Shakin' Fever," "That's Me Without You," "Rainin' In My Heart," "Back To Nature," "The Boys Kept Hangin' Around," "Hard Working Man," "That Lucky Old Sun," "I Got the Sun In the Morning," "Don't Let Go"
Videos: "Go Mule Go," "I Got the Sun In the Morning"
The Corps
Fractured Protocol
(Thousand Islands Records)
Here circulates an example of the formidabilty that rises when smart writing cognizant of compositional Rock'n'Roll standards throws in with instrumental brawn loud enough to shatter frontal lobes. As memories of experiencing them live may blur -- given the combination of rapid-fire assaults, surrounding bacchanalian throngs, and foamy amusements -- this disc may be the most reliable opportunity for lucid recollection.
Recommended: "Tragedy," "Dog Of War," "Buried On Sunday," "Born On a Monday," "Red Horizon," "Ionized," "New Gods," "Riddle Me This"
Video: "Red Horizon"
Joe Dee and his JetTones
Blind Alley Melody
(Rebel Music Records)
Some render vintage-inflected stylings through state-of-art equipment, that their output can ease into contemporary context. But not pomped Joe and his swinging cohorts. They are of the school that holds sounds owing to yesteryear ring most worthwhile when essayed via time-tested methods. And the folly of disputing that contention becomes apparent as this just-plain-moving disc shouts its purity. Direct Rockabilly this marvelously uncluttered resounds today as vigorously as when Ike sat behind the Resolute Desk.
Recommended: "I'll Be Gone," "The Girl Never Cries," "Love My Baby," "Dreamers Like Me," "Last Train," "I'm Snowed," "Danger's In the Air," "Until My Last Day"
Video: "I'll Be Gone"
Amazon (UK)
Amazon (France)
Fast Blood
Sunny Blunts
(Sangre Rapida Records)
Hurling musical-note bricks through Newcastle plate glass are four agitators for whom bar-chords and thrashed drum-heads are tools by which fury can be raised up. They effectively flip off ponderous abstractions, instead pummeling ears with pugilism to which beer mugs can be smashed. Mick at the Just Some Punk Songs blog advises that a limited-edition vinyl version won't be available from Sangre Rapida until July. But a digital release is presently accessible on Bandcamp.
Recommended: "Sexual Healing," "Salvation," "Gone For Good," "Hold On Me," "Rum & Soda," "Eyes Wide Shut"
Video: "Sexual Healing"
Chip Hanna and the Berlin Three
Days Gone By
(Igloo Records)
Upon learning of Chip's Punk-drummer resume (U.S. Bombs, One Man Army), listeners unacquainted with his solo incarnation may anticipate Country Music ravaging. But those wise to his ways know that he comes not to destroy that rustic idiom, but to throw arms about its truest nature - while injecting amphetemine boot-juice. Barn-dance fiddle and marvelously bent-string guitars touch shoulders with loose-limbed "Yee haw" drawling and percussive exuberance to produce robust traditionalism sporting fresh glad-rags. Bopping across hardwood, you'll exult in this honesty while lamenting that, elsewhere in corporate clawed-hands, Peoples' Music has been made a eunuch.
Recommended: "Sweet Mental Revenge," "The Way We Were," "Everybody Needs a Wall," "Tossin' & Turnin'," "Anything At All," "Ten Dollar Bill," "Purgatory Breakdown," "Karianne," "The Last Cowboy Guitar," "Max Hanner"
Video: "The Way We Were"
Amazon (Japan)
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