DC Larson's JUKEBOX JURY: April 2025

Wednesday, April 9, 2025

Voodoo Tones

Livin' Ain't Easy 4-track EP

(Cleopatra)

This troupe of heroic bearing hefted a pair of Creedence Clearwater Revival and Doors classics to fresh high station. And into the endeavor, they wrought two self-penned stunners of smack-down vivacity. To listen is to be absorbed. No volume is too high.

Lest readers suspect hyperbole, consider those responsible: CM Wolf, Djordje Stijipovic, Danny B. Harvey, and Slim Jim Phantom. Each is a master whose brilliance flares.

Woe be to any who face off with Rock'n'Roll.

Recommended: "Livin' Ain't Easy," "Break On Through (To the Other Side)," "Come On (Let's Dance)," "Sinister Purpose"

Videos: "Livin' Ain't Easy" "Come On (Let's Dance)"

CM Wolf and Danny B. Harvey

Robert Connely Farr

Live At Green Auto

(Self-issued)

"We're gonna take ya'll down South," singer/guitarman Robert drawls at the outset. A sweet journey ensues.

He augments beloved heritage with crisp flair and the on-fire passion of a hard-knocks proselytizer. The absence of polish is appreciated; in plainness, honesty proclaims its compelling case. At Robert's elbow is confederate Jay Bundy Johnson, who surely has yet to meet a drum he didn't show who's boss - on into wee hours.

Offered are 11 slices of genuine down-home Blues, wrung from workaday life that can too often be arduous, both physically and emotionally. But moments can be found that make a man keep on keepin' on.

The pace is unhurried. Deliberate. And exquisitely so, in an each-note-exactly-right way that engenders belly-rubbing night spot couples revolving glacially.

It's sad but so: The Industry too often neuters Blues, sanding away rough edges and rendering it antiseptic in grasping covet of refined markets. Just so, Rockabilly was commodified into inocuousness and, much later, Punk was emasculated into New Wave. Interchangeable Industry operatives despoil every music they touch. The bastards create nothing.

Fortunately, they'll never get a hold on Robert and Jay.

Recommended: "Train Train," "Cadillac Problems," "Just Jive," "Gettin' Tired of Gettin' Old," "Jackson Town," "Mississippi Mud," "Train I Ride," "Po' Black Mattie," "Gasoline"

Video: "Train Train" (live) "Gettin' Tired of Gettin' Old"

Piss Poor

Bad Words EP

(DieHipster!Records)

Easily among the more volcanic works this reviewer has assayed of late. Even during sporadic measured moments, Molotov-cocktail formidability is so threateningly implied as to send cautious sorts dashing for shelter. And when all hell does bust wide, when ears spurt crimson, the four culprits survey the surrounding wreckage and sneer their disdain.

(One notes approvingly that singer Freddy Automatic sometimes vents histrionic caterwauling once the emblem of Johnny Rotten.)

Recommended: "Raw Meat," "Hallow Eyes," "Couldn't Find You"

Videos: "Raw Meat" "Couldn't Find You"

Die Hipster!

Bandcamp

Back In the Day, 1961

Roy Lanham

The Most Exciting Guitar vinyl

(Dolton Records)

Suitable for nightspot long-leggers and others desirous of astral projection. By the 1959 recording of this masterwork (which went unreleased for two years), Roy had already amassed credits with icons including the Delmore Brothers, Roy Rogers, Jimmy Patton, and Hank Penny. (Later confreres included the Burnette brothers - separately - Johnny Horton, and Jim Reeves.) Bassist Red Wooten and drummer Earl Palmer (himself since of legendary status) fell in with Roy to produce this wondrous document - eminently polished, dirt-road and Jazz-mannered musings in which slyly darting string-touches and lush passages fly adherents to the stars.

This was reissued in 1981 by Bear Family.

Recommended: "Lost Weekend," "Where Or When," "Body and Soul," "Song of India," "A Smooth One," "These Foolish Things," "Steel Guitar Rag," "Lover Come Back To Me," "As Time Goes By," "Wildwood Flower," "Kerry Dance," "Old Joe Clark"

Video: "Where Or When" "A Smooth One" "Steel Guitar Rag" "Wildwood Flower"

Sunday, April 6, 2025

Koffin Kats

Higher Lows

(Self-issued)

Detroit's seasoned Kats evince the rumbustiousness of first-timers, though aerodynamics are tempered by ace craftsmen's knacks. Mongers acidic, sometimes witty observations in lieu of the monsterism often prevalent in Psycho. (No negative note in either direction, that; each offers peculiar bounty.)

Recommended: "Happy Hour," "Higher Lows," "From the Light," "Black Box," "Tuning In," "Way Out There," "Ride Like Hell"

Videos: "Way Out There" "Higher Lows" live at Camp Punksylvania, 2024

The Rumjacks

Dead Anthems

Danny Boy three-track EP

(FOUR FOUR)

In two 2025 releases, and to the surprise of no one (but the elation of all), the Rumjacks persevere down prized path, locating and holding up the commonality of airs ancestral and others roaringly crisp. Every sudsy mug is waved aloft, and hearty shouts are belted lustily, as fellowship is rejoiced in and life's vexations are kicked the hell out back.

And that is sufficient to accrue lofty recommendation. But, as acolytes understand, there is much more than compelling musics to be got from Rumjacks' works. Massive heart enriches, and world-taught wisdom bears heed.

Recommended, Dead Anthems: "Come Hell Or High Water," "Smash Them Bottles," "Cold Like This" (feat. Ken Casey of Dropkick Murphys), "October," "Father's Fight," "Eye For An Eye," "Some Legends Never Die"

Recommended, Danny Boy: "Danny Boy," "Face the World," "Were You Waiting"

Videos: "Come Hell Or High Water" "Cold Like This" "Eye For An Eye" "Danny Boy"

Screamin' Sins

Living Nightmares

(Self-issued)

It's gratifying that the three perpetrators under consideration chose to continue in the vein of their 2024 Haven For the Damned; bluntly muscular and limber-limbed spectacle, leavened by macabre cultivation. Rugged deploy is enveloped in ghostly echo, further conveying sepulchral aspect. Creep beneath the shelter of this ghastly crazy quilt, constructed as it is from shreds of Psycho, Goth, Swamp Blues, and Punk detritus, and know that spleneticism and desolateness lurk, maws adrip.

In the marble orchard, soil is upheaved.

Recommended: "The Hills Have Eyes," "Living Dead," "Love You To Death," "Nightmare," "Haunted Dreams," "Curse On You"

Video: Living Nightmares promo "Six Feet Under" (from Haven For the Damned)

Killer Tone Jones

"Godzilla Rocks" single

(Planet X)

Killer Tone offers a paean to titanic Kaiju creatures whose clashes are escapist-film manna. Of course, the radioactive reptile swipes his tail at center stage. Treble strings whirl in Far East-wonder, as fuzzed riffing is joined by appropriately elementary drums to effectuate relentlessness. KT projects lyrics with guttural curtness.

Video

Wednesday, April 2, 2025

Haymaker

Live Over Germany

(KB Records)

For the uninitiated: One account holds that the skinhead movement was birthed decades ago, when ska-nodding Jamaican Rude Boys immigrated to England and blended with Rock'n'Roll-loving white working-class youth. The multi-racial, populist upswell was later hijacked by racists, and often falsely depicted by lazy corporate media as institutionally reflective of hateful and malicious imbecility.

Haymaker are apolitical descendents of original skinheads. But, angry products of this crisper time, they bludgeon with two-fisted Punk that evidences zero remorselessness. This is a rallying whistle to boots-and-braces unity, and a brazen appeal to upholding unique cultural identity. ("You're a working man and you are proud of it / You get blamed for whatever, but you don't give a shit!," declares Tim Steinfort in a robust reading of Bohse Onkelz's 1986 "Stolz"/"Pride.") These 17 firebombs will doubtless engender boulevard-marching scalped choruses with fists thrust aloft. One hears a stomp battalion nearing.

"Why do I have to put 'I hate racism' on my jacket," Steinfort asks. "Every normal human being is against racism. I think also everybody knows that I'm not a racist...I say to left-wing extremists: 'Fuck you!' Because, of course I hate Nazis, but I hate left-wing extremists as well. And maybe more. And do you know why? Because, constantly you're accusing me of being a racist. Well, you know, I'm not. Instead of standing up, saying 'I know Tim, you can say what you want, but he's definitely not a racist.' Instead of that, you stay away from me, because of what other people think. Well, fuck you...

"Of course, when people wear Swastikas or 'White Power,' okay - get 'em the fuck outta here!"

Recommended: "We Are Haymaker," "Skinhead," "Skintro," "Skinhead Rock'n'Roll," "Bootboys Don't Give a Fuck," "Corrupted Government," "Working Class," "Apologies To Nobody," "Stolz/Proud," "Skinhead For Life"

Videos: "Bootboys Don't Give a Fuck" (live) "Stolz"/"Proud"

(official video) "Fabi's Song"

The Lab Ratz

"Headless Body In a Topless Bar" b/w "Regular Day"

(Self-issued)

As is the fashion of sternly caned Psycho, flight has its equal in robustness. Stentorian exhortations batter paint from back walls. Pummeled skins and double-bass jeopardizings maintain skeletal frame, within which trebly strings fire off sparks.

Recommended: "Headless Body In a Topless Bar," "Regular Day"

Videos: "Headless Body In a Topless Bar" (live)

Facebook

Bandcamp

Gumption

Twang with a Bang

(Good Day Records)

Dr. Elephant and his lab-coated colleagues were perplexed. Having subjected Twang with a Bang to every manner of inspection known to science, they still could not explain its congenital goneness. Elements were isolated and analyzed individually: Hiccuping. Six-string flailings. Snapped-tight snare. Confident bass rumblings were assessed. Even frantic postures and themes were microscoped. But no solution presented itself.

Intending to serve the braniacs coffee, housekeeper Eulabelle inadvertantly jostles the examination slides into one rave-up amalgam. And the puzzle is solved.

Recommended: "Blood Sucker," "Johnny Freefall," "Rev It Up, Baby!," "Little Doggy," "Lulu's Got a Motorbike," "Get Up & Groove," "Rockin' Rockabilly," "Shake Your Bacon," "Blow It Up!"

Videos: "Blood Sucker" "Shake Yer Bacon"

Destination Nowhere

"So Hard" (demo '25)

(2PRT4PNK Ltd.)

Nuance, implication, gentility - none reside here. Instead, all the indomitability and brick-on-shoulder bellicosity of no-shit Punk is uncapped at ear-compromising volume. Brutal bar chords chug, rope-burned vocals blast directly, and in less than three minutes, the defiant spirit fueling all important Rock'n'Roll snarls its lustiness.

Video

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