DC Larson's JUKEBOX JURY

Capsule reviews by a jury of one: Iowa journalist/author DC Larson. Rockabilly, Psychobilly, Blues, Alternative, Western Swing, R and B, Punk, Swing, Hillbilly, Glam, Americana. DC Larson's retro science fiction writing blog, from which the Eddie Atomic Space Adventures are available, is RETRO RIFF BOOKS. And his political writings one is AMERICAN SCENE MAGAZINE. Both are also on Blogspot. All original content on these three blogs is under author copyright.

Sunday, April 27, 2025

Bang Bang Betty & the H-Bombs

"Fatal Attraction" EP

(Trickster Music)

Class to the nines. Settling in is recherché Jazz mature enough to know how most efficaciously to dispense charms, yet so audacious as to raise up bold implications. An entrée into the Make-Believe Ballroom: Glasses clink, gowns sheath, and bow-tied wolves strategize.

Recommended: "Fatal Attraction," "That Mellow Saxophone," "Swingin' With You," "The Professor"

Videos: "Fatal Attraction" "That Mellow Saxophone" "The Professor" "

Lawn Dart Massacre

"Fight For That Life" "Waste of Time" "Salt and Paper Cuts" singles

(LDM Soundworks)

Presently germinating in Indianapolis's better environs, Lawn Dart Massacre have on offer a trio of economical numbers whose jaw-thrust dispositions comprise Punk and Ska. The Ska bobs trippingly, its Pied-Piper air summoning limber legs to muster, and rumbling Punk of the '90s sort skids its evergreen appeal. Propitious outings.

Videos: "Fight For That Life" (live) "Waste of Time" (live) "Salt and Paper Cuts" (live)

Sandbox Bullies

Chicken Roast

(Loaded Bomb Records)

The present writer has always found compelling the wit and muscle a-pulse in all worthy roots-grounded adventurings. Such is the gladsome case in these studio and gig cuts. A safe wager is that windows were broken during the making of these recordings.

Bashings are relentless. The same wildspark that fires these rambunctious song-missiles enjoyed electric animation in every bygone barrelhouse, secret lair, and after-hours joint that made possible this contemporary uproar. When kicks are raging, clocks are meaningless.

Recommended: "Make You Regret," "Can't Be Your Man," "Chicken Roast," "Cadillac Smile" (live), "Rock'n'Roll Woman" (live), "Let's Go" (live) "Life of Sin" (live)

Videos: "Make You Regret" "Can't Be Your Man" "Cadillac Smile"

Sgt. Bilko's Krazy Combo

Buried In a Box of Broken Dreams

(Roobarb Records)

While the roster has seen permutations over the years, Berni Bilko was a constant sparkplug from the band's early '80s busking. During its incipient phase, English Psychobilly hurled Union Avenue shadings with boisterous Punk acculturation; the sound was spartan, and witnessing the development of something wonderfully crisp roused one to allegiance. Berni's lyrical pen sometimes ventured along idiosyncratic boulevards, but the playing was ever forcible and representative of a fashion now termed "old school."

That classification to one side, abundant merit yet resounds.

Recommended: "A Dog Chasing Its Own Tail," "Married To the Bottle," "Catch Me On a Good Day," "The Boy Who Never Was," "Sensible Shoes," "Lewinsky Lips," "Nosey Neighbors," "Double Dutch," "Buried In a Box of Broken Dreams," "Bring the Shutters Down," "Comeback Kid"

Videos: "Catch Me On a Good Day" (live, 2013) "Married To the Bottle" "Bring the Shutters Down"

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

World Famous Blue Jays

The Singles: 1987 - 1991

(Diesel Only)

The great big, grinning sound comes busting loose through swinging doors, boots stomping and guitars rip-snortingly authoritative. Birthed in NYC in the 1980s, this combo became popular fixtures in that city's Bakersfield-on-the-Bowery clubs. Apt for everyone who's ever relished what Rock'n'Roll swagger raves like when slam-drawled with swelled Country accentings.

Recommended: "Cheeseburger Deluxe," "Good Morning Mr. Trucker," "Do It For Hank," "Annie Is a Granny," "10-Pin Boogie," "Cookin' With Jay," "Motor City," "Mud-Flap Boogie," "Diesel Only Theme," "Is a Bluebird Blue?," "Blue Room"

Videos: "Do It For Hank" "10-Pin Boogie" "Mud-Flap Boogie"

Bandcamp

Discogs

Apple

The Vibro Kings

Psycho Love

(Self-issued)

The ace factor of this Punk-hip flaying is that the men know exactly what they're doing, even as telephone poles look like a picket fence. Much musical know-how kicks up heels betwixt jackhammer smackdowns. (Worth note is that wild side boisterousness is sufficiently leavened by more orthodox inclinations, thereby assuring broad accessibility.) Tuneful gestures a-plenty unspool in brash episodes. And Chris Henson's linear vocal projections make their points without undue foofaraw.

Recommended: "Psycho Love," "Amore Lane," "Rat Race," "Pariah," "Hundred Dollar Bill," "Medusa"

Videos: "Psycho Love" "Rat Race" "Pariah"

Starship Records & Tapes

Royal Blunder

only more is enough EP

(Self-issued)

The creative pen enjoys liberty and receives stimulating interpretation in these cavorters. Styles commingle in entrancing fashion: Pop, Garage, Punk, and tuneful hints of Kinks and more worthy lodestars are proclaimed by trippingly buoyant players who revel in the kicky effort. (Merrymakers must secure their own trampolines, confetti, and candy colored strobes.)

Recommended: "The Clock," "Only More Is Enough," "Sherlock Holmes," "Blink"

Video: "The Clock" (live)

Johnny Voodoo & the Graverobbers From Outerspace

Spiked Leather Jacket

(Dekonstruktion Records)

"Blacktop rips under fiery wheels / Steel beast growls, feel the thrill it reveals!" is the declaration snarled at the outset of headlong and rock-ribbed maraudings. Making sporadic appearances amidst furor are somewhat more orthodox finger-poppers, like a Catman gem; their wise inclusion lends variegation. But Psycho fierceness - its demolitions marked by remorselessly whipped snare, stern double bass negotiations, and six-string flailings - predominates and urges screaming celebration.

Recommended: "Blood To Spill," "Burning Rubber," "Sick Week," "Mile High Mohawk," "Outlaw Song," "Song Of the Siren," "Spiders In Her Hair," "Race With the Devil," "Spiked Leather Jacket" (Malice), "Ghosts Of Mississippi," "That Thing Got a Hemi," "Buried Next To the King," "Spiked Leather Jacket" (Johnny), "Cruising My Tri Five"

Video: "Blood To Spill"

Facebook (Dekonstruktion)

Bandcamp

Sunday, April 20, 2025

The Phantom A.D.

...Plays Ghoulish Rock'n'Roll

(Self-issued)

Only months ago, Isaac Rother was greeting creature cogniscenti and mongering merch at the Famous Monsters of Filmland convention in Pennsylvania. That costumed spectacle befit a man whose prodigious lurkings through midnight spook-show environs feature catchy songs suited variously to mausoleum exhumations, TV cathode rays, and beach party bingo. Isaac answers Kim Nekroman's question: "What do monsters do, when they're not on the film set?"

Recommended: "MK Ultra Rock," "I Go Where the Party Takes Me," "The Brain That Wouldn't Die," "Ric Flair Rock," "Dark Eyes" (live), "Ghoulruption," "Bad Girls Only," "Gloomy Sunday"

Video: live (42:45) "Dark Eyes" (live)

Ezra Lee & His Boogie Woogie Band

Live and Rockin'

(Self-issued)

"Channeling the spirit of legends like Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Ray Charles and Little Richard, Ezra's performances are a whirlwind of explosive energy, pounding rhythms, and fiery licks," was the admiring portrait offered by Australia's Stars and Bars festival website.

All of that is captured on this disc, which demands maximum volume. Drop the stylus and dive into the swinging shindig. Ezra proves himself a master of ceremonies in the carbonated, carefree manner of a rocker who's seen a million stages and besplintered each and every one.

Fittingly, his accompanists tear into the proceedings with free-of-leash relish, affording their leader a foundation from which he launches rollicking broadsides.

When Ezra prefaces "Rocket 88" with the appeal "Can we get all the women up here?," it's clear he knows what Rock'n'Roll is all about.

Recommended: "Put Your Cat Clothes On," "Wow Wow," "Motor Head Baby," "Boogie Woogie Boogie," "Volcanic Boogie," "Rockabilly Beatin' Boogie Band," "Down the Road Apiece," "Rock'n'Roll Piano Man," "My Baby Wants To Rock'n'Roll All Night," "Rocket 88," "Roberta," "House Of Blue Lights," "Red Light," "Rocket In My Pocket"

Video: "Motor Head Baby" "Volcanic Boogie" (live)

The Peawees

One Ride

(Wild Honey)

Caring about naught but good-times soundtracking (a fine ambition), these graduates of garageland craft Pop-Punk mini-classics that put in mind the swingingly educative Pebbles vinyl series. "Whoa-woah" background harmonies endemic to joy-ringing 1960s transistor grooves like the Turtles (and resuscitated by Joey R.) are buoyed by ebullient guitars. Even an Everlys shard skims past. Rhythms spur kicks, as shimmers frolic under cascading fun-falls.

Recommended: "Banana Tree," "Drive," "Plastic Bullets," "The Wolf," "Lost In the Middle," "She Cries As She Kills," "Who's the Enemy?," "Spell On Me," "Before I Die," "One Ride," "You'll Never Be Mine Again"

Video: "Drive" "Plastic Bullets" (live) "The Wolf"

Wasted Strike

Civil War digital album / cassette

(Self-issued)

Hardcore verging on violence. Given uniformly blistering perpetration - no respite is at hand - browsers might think all ripsaw-gone-lunatic cuts indistinguishable. But when immersed, one discerns peculiarities.

Recommended: "False Crack," "Vengeance," "Compassion Fatigue," "P.O.A.," "Life Sentence," "Heavy Metal"

Video: (live 2:58)

Bandcamp

Wednesday, April 16, 2025

Derek Nash and Dominic Ashworth

Rockabilly Bops

(Soho)

Fabled Jazz dreadnoughts turn their hands to instrumental endeavors more plebeian, the product proving both merry and bracing. A host of happy portraits pass the imagination: crew cuts and pony-tails rollicking 'round a Seeburg; two straws in a chocolate malted; switchblade mumblety peg; and steamed-up jalopies parked 'neath stars. Efficient production that performs its proper function, otherwise remaining scarce, aids musical elegance.

All assembled are first-chair. Too, cognoscenti will savour the one-bloodedness that arrives via brim-tips to Johnny Otis, Stray Cats, and the crackerjack Munsters Theme.

Recommended: "High School Summer," "Jitterbug Jive," "Tears In My Heart," "Rockabilly Bop," "Cool Cats Strut," "Halloween Hop," "Jukebox Rock," "Rock'n'Roll Party," "Country Highway," "Jamming and Jiving," "Happy Hour," "Feeling Bluesy," "Boogie Woogie Brothers"

Video: "Jitterbug Jive" "Tears In My Heart" "Jamming and Jiving"

Site (Derek)

Derek Nash

Dominic Ashworth

Dudley Taft

The Speed of Life

(Self-issued)

Next month, overseas ears will receive pretty much the most blood-and-guts lesson in Blues rockin' accessible without handcuffs being involved. Dudley's bottled-in-bond technique incorporates celebrated genre masters' moves, adding autonomously minted and direct punches. Each time one feels they've heard the utmost, up jump additional dazzlings as real as the rings glasses leave on battered bars.

Recommended: "Wanted Man," "Miles and Miles To Go," "Work It Out," "Burn It Down," "Set Me On Fire," "Pretty Little Thing," "Same Mistakes," "No Yesterdays," "No Time Left"

Video: "Burn It Down" 2025 promo

Reverend Anarchy

"Freddy's Night" single

(Self-issued)

"Don't fall asleep, 'cause he's comin' for you!," is the alarm hurled in this mid-paced Psycho batterer. That and the title are overt nods to the Nightmare On Elm Street hellspawn. They are laced here into far cooler music than was pushed on 1980s theater patrons: Crunched six-string seethings and treble swipes that brandish Rockabilly bravado even the razor-fingered one would dig.

Video

Kid Dynamo

Shake, Rattle, and Rot! EP

(Self-issued)

Johnny Ramone famously remarked that if a young rocker waited to play out until they were "good enough" (by orthodox metrics), they'd be too old.

This work is uneven, crudely rendered, and undeveloped. As accurate as those judgements are (and as much as they are similarly so of one-lung monster flickers inspirational, here), they are positive charms to junk-culture mavens like the present author. Earnestness won't (and shouldn't) wait for sophistication. Fun is most honestly exclaimed when hot. And Kid's brainsick fuzz guitar lends backbone.

Recommended: "Sooprize Package For Mr. Mineo," "The Headless Horseman Stomp," Wolfman Plays the Organ"

Video: None available

Bandcamp

Sunday, April 13, 2025

Pontus J Back

Faith You Have, Believe You Do

(Talking Music)

Sweden's Rock Pastor succeeds to lofty degree, and that doesn't surprise for three reasons: 1) He's already acclaimed as remarkably gifted. 2) Gathered with him in high-stepping Rockabilly celebration are talents Johnny Hatton, Elna Romberg, Rodger Carter, Mikko Rintanen, and Janne Hyöty. 3) Pontus and associates enjoy the most exalted inspiration from which men can benefit. And that bestowed grace vivifies all touched notes and downbeats.

Recommended: "Faith You Have," "Hope in the light of the Son," "Pray pray pray," "In His light we are saved," "Heaven's race," "Walk the Jesus walk," "Jesus is the light," "Free from fear and pain," "God's love," "Jesus loves Rock'n'Roll," "A mission from God," "Dark side grace"

Videos: Album promo "Jesus Loves Rock'n'Roll" promo 2025 European tour promo

12 Step Rebels

The Darkness Calls Us All

(Self-issued)

They acquit themselves sternly through groundbursts and rampaging. At play in these tracks is free-swinging songcraft in which passages jet off in arresting directions. It may be that Jakob Insane swallowed a flamethrower, though he also evidences whole-souled depth in occasional pensive turns. Singly, each fractured thresher would threaten public welfare; their amassed powers rate Category Five. Turn way up and stand clear.

Recommended: "The Gravestone," "The Darkness," "It Was You," "Eternal Tomorrow," "'til Death Do Us Part???," "Guilty Until Proven Innocent," "Calling," "Shadow People," "On the Day She Arrived," "The Bell"

Videos: "The Gravestone" "'til Death Do Us Part"

Los Pistoleros

"Flowers By My Grave" single

(Self-issued)

So brawny are these minutes of freneticism that they warrant likening to tectonic convulsion. The players are ace disruptors. They do pause thundering for momentary quietude, only to loose further fleet bombardments. Too damn good to be missed.

Promo Video

The Bank Robbers

"I Fooled the Devil" b/w "Knockin' At Your Door"

(Sleazy Records)

Two magnetic specimens of the sprightliness Rockabilly extends. Such up-spiritedness gladdens all Smooth Sams and Dubble Bubbles on scene. This writer's counsel is to grab up dancing shoes and hasten to hardwood - the School of Rock'n'Roll is now in session.

Videos: "I Fooled the Devil" "Knockin' At Your Door"

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"