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, September 28, 2025

Los Straitjackets

Somos Los Straitjackets

(Yep Roc Records)

So conversant are they in disparate tongues, that the "Surf" adjective often cast upon them hardly suffices. The spring-heeled four are widely hailed for assurance that awes. Textbook dexterity enables them to deal out impressive constructions that are sophisticated, dashing, and, sporadically, introspective. Frankie, Annette, and Deadhead/Bonehead fell in with Wray rumblings, Montgomery Ward-transistor-to-ear musings, and movements serenely majestic, a wealth of sensuous jollities being the creation.

500 copies exist, per Yep Roc.

Recommended: "Bumper Car," "Polaris," "Genesee River Rock," "High Wire Act," "Numbskull," "Two Steps Ahead," "April Showers" (feat. guitarist Simon Heeran), "Cry For a Beatle," "Copy Cat," "Wicker Park," "Spinout"

Videos: "Polaris" (official video) "High Wire Act" (live) "Spinout" (official video)

Tom Toxic und die Poison Jerrys

Middle Fingers Up! vinyl

(KEiL-Records)

Leaping from these jagged grooves, claws at the ready and fangs a-glisten, are honey badgers who rage in perilous Neo-Rockabilly habitat. Tom Toxic/Keil's turbulent band history surely appears on widespread Deutschland police blotters. The bellicose bomb-thrower exhorts via pipes that conjure smashed-glass littering bad-side-of-town boulevards, and packs a fearsome, six-string implement of destruction. He's abetted by scramblers who marshal house-afire backing. Don't cross honey badgers.

(222 units are available on poison-green wax.)

Recommended: "Freak Out!," "Thumbs Down," "I Don't Wanna," "Invisible Man," "Real Friendship," "(I Am Like a) Tardigrade," "The Other Side of the Highway"

Videos: "Freak Out!" (live at Psychobilly Kicks Back) "(I Am Like a) Tardigrade"

Anda Morts

ANS

(Phat Penguin Records)

Immediately apparent is production primitivism that puts to mind the Ramones' 1976 debut wax (which reportedly totaled just $6,400 in studio cha-ching). Playing makes its points with equal economic directness. Catalog this as unadorned indie-Pop for night people. Had Hilly's Bowery mecca been a skating rink, these organ resoundings would have laced its environment. (Young Blondie soldiered similarly.) Narration is curt and exclusively in the language of Die Leute; martial discipline is exercised by human and drum machine tempo governors; and headlong guitar churnings illustrate Johnny's enduring impact. Get-it-on-tape, fuck-ornamentation purposefulness trains listener focus on songs themselves.

Recommended: "Heute oder morgan," "Bett," "Fascho," "Freitag," "Autobahn," "Nikotin," "Kein Bock," "Kaputt und weg," "Sie," "Arbeit"

Videos: "Heute oder morgan" "Freitag" "Kein Bock" making of Anda Morts fan poster

pim.tauli.arts (poster design, illustration)

The Bank Robbers

Delinquent Rock'n'Roll Gang

(FOLC Records)

The band's stout Neo-Rockabilly is enough to prompt purchase; it rouses to a degree recalling parties that thrived despite broken windows. Eddie, Bo, and Dick Glasser touches further validate goneness. Seven slices in, the debonair "Berlin Cafe" raps its diamond-tipped walking-stick; Jazzy elan, with all the polish of a high-hat nightspot dancefloor. (Sign on the door: "No wolves allowed.") Thereafter comes bop's bold reentrance.

Recommended: "Black Sue," "Hip Hip Mama," "Knockin' At Your Door," "I Fooled the Devil," "Berlin Cafe," "Leave Me Alone," "Darling, Please"

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

Wednesday, September 24, 2025

Lords of the Highway

Songs of Death

(self-issued)

Rather than hurtle down the long, white ribbon at maniacal pace (not at all a bad thing), this barn-burning Rockabilly swaggers deliberately. It cultivates head-wrenching, big-muscled exploits at measured rates that imply storm. Many a feral pleasure can be pocketed, when charged cats with know-how stride onstage.

Recommended: "Coffin for Two," "Suicide"

Videos: "Coffin for Two" "Suicide"

Christophe Deschamps

Go Cats Go Rockabilly

(Montmorency Records)

To apply the poet's phrasing to Rockabilly, it's music that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands, and goes to work - at least, when articulated by someone sincerely possessed by its blaze. (Fracture can't be faked.) Christophe has recorded in sundry stylings, including jazzy urbanity, Soul, and '80s-fashion club inducements. (The man also played a youthful Elvis, in 2010's Adeus, Algum Dia.) He's now turned his hand to the sound that blew up in America's 1950s South and quickly rent the globe.

Were one to bet that few, if any, could hear this hep boldness without cutting to shreds the nearest rug - and find yahoos of more greenbacks than grey matter who'd take that wager - they'd head home with wallet a-bulge.

Recommended: "Just a Rose," "La Bamba" (feat. Haylen), "Drive a Cadillac," "Freedom," "Boogabilly," "Just One for the Night" (feat. Andrew Delong), "Let's Party," "Riot"

Videos: "Just a Rose" "Boogabilly" "Let's Party"

Back in the Day, 2017

Phantom Pomps

The Higher the Hair, the Closer to God

(Self-issued)

These players covered Hasil Adkins and Lorrie Collins (and did so with snarling reverence), yoking them with self-penned, chromed-jukebox rave-ups that swung elbows without regard for ambient welfare. Erstwhile Blazing Haley and Graveside Rockers drummer Chris Story (here, on guitar/lead vocals) found frantic co-conspirators in Kelli and Fuse. Having got the sock, they leaned hard into fracture. Whispered allegations that they were restricted to dives whose walls were padded was never confirmed.

"Bevare!," sputtered Prof. Gustav Klemperer, of the venerated Heidelberg Institute. "In all mine years contemplating abnormality, I haf nevah encountered such lunatic celebration! Innocent souls vill be lured from sanity by seductive Rock'n'Roll!"

Recommended: "Runaway Truck Ramp," "Psychobilly Attack," "I Forgot My Meds," "No More Hot Dogs." "Is You Is?"

Videos: "Psychobilly Attack" (live) "No More Hot Dogs" "Runaway Truck Ramp"

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Sunday, September 21, 2025

The Rockabilly Band

This Ain't the Life

(BS Productions)

"My Daddy wore his work shoes to his grave, and I wore his church shoes the day he went away / He worked hard for everything he got, and I remember him every time I put on his shoes."

This wax isn't for everyone - only those of us who celebrate just-plain-folks Rockabilly. No one on stage has anything in mind other than locating and romancing the Country/Bop gem. "Tighter'n a 10 cent top," as Sheriff Andy once remarked. The songcraft is of upper station, instrumental disposition efficacious, and - as for persons unhip - we don't want them obstructing our kicks, anyhoo.

Recommended: "This Ain't the Life," "Chasing Shadows," "Sand in Our Toes," "A Place I've Never Been," "Rockin' Nights," "I Didn't Know I Was Poor," "Makin' Memories," "My Daddy's Shoes," "Rock'n'Roll Rendezvous"

Videos: "This Ain't the Life" "Rockin' Nights" "My Daddy's Shoes"

Amazon (US)

Amazon (UK)

2025 single

Surf Cult

Cosmic Horror

(Future Light Records)

1962 drive-in trash-classic The Brain that Wouldn't Die included a misshapen man-creature, the pitiable product of a lunatic scientist's experimentation. The melted-faced, pinheaded wretch had been exiled behind a bolted lab door. If he'd had a Fender Jaguar with reverb...

This results when someone welds a whammy bar to a Lovecraft paperback edition.

Apparent from labrynthine song construction is that upper-level thinking had as great a say in these instrumental maraudings as did sparks-flinging eccentricism. Digits blur as six strings carom across territories uncanny. While "Black Hole" arrests in forbidding fashion, it is hardly alone in magnetizing listeners. Intensity abounds, cascading in foamy onrush.

And by squinting over oceanic vastness, one can glimpse bubble-headed, invading saucermen shooting curls.

(For this one-year anniversary edition, Cosmic Horror's tracks have been remixed and remastered. A bonus portion was ladled.)

Recommended: "Planet Terror," "Cosmic Horror," "Into the Abyss," "Black Hole," "Interstellar Madness"

(No videos available at presstime.}

Ward Picklesimer, Surf Cult guitarist, songwriter, and producer.

Lucky 757

"Hey" Baby two-track release

(Self-issued)

Don't be lulled by track one's gentility; though its harmonies waft on accompaniment unassuming, and abilities easily able are obvious, a jumper readies itself around the corner. "Charlene" rips aside quietude in favor of Rock'n'Roll that stomps loudly in much-prized vintage fashion. Masterfully-torn Chuck Berry licks transmogrify into back-country dirt-road anglings that scar dance floors with boot-heel cavities.

Videos: "Hey Baby" "Charlene"

Amazon (US)

Amazon (ES)

Amazon (IT)

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Spotify

Rumble Strip

Sayanara, Baby

(Martini Time Music)

Wordsmith Richard Rossi and ridiculously multi-talented Dave Nachmanoff evinced magical chemistry on 2021's Let's Roll. Comes today Sayanara Baby, ringing affirmation that when lightning strikes a second time, it can do so even more searingly. (Four tracks from the prior waxing reappear; their renewals reward.) Cherished stylings Folk, Pop, Rockabilly, and Blues are sampled in satisfying measure. Melodies frolic with the sweet spirits one would expect from veteran Al Kooper accomplice Dave. Erudite wordplay manages the seldom-realized task of suggesting both regular man and sensate versifier.

Too, remark should be made about accompanists Bart Van der Zeeuw (drums) and backing vocalist Megan Kieven; their presence is advantageous, as the two gild materially.

Recommended: "Sayanara, Baby," "It Could Always Be Worse," "Actuary of Love," "Uber Driver," "South of the Border," "He Talks to Me," "Adam West"

Videos: "It Could Always Be Worse" "Uber Driver" "Adam West"

Facebook (Dave)

Instagram

Facebook (Richard)

Bandcamp

Apple

Amazon (US)

Amazon (CA)

anghami

Soundcloud

Dave Nachmanoff

Wednesday, September 17, 2025

Tad Overbaugh

Farther From Near

(Rum Bar Records)

The wise calculation of the Sherman Brothers' "Spoonful of Sugar" applies here. The communication of accomplished lyricism is facilitated by mellifluous architecture; indeed, so sweeping is the music - Roots and Pop earnestness that reminds many of Minneapolis Punk personages the Replacements - that one's consciouness benefits, even as glasses are tipped and feets do their happy business.

Recommended: "Mended Man," "14873," "Only Happy at Happy Hour," "July"

[No Farther From Near video clips available at presstime.]

Teenage Bottlerocket

Ready to Roll vinyl and CD

(Pirates Press Records)

"You won't catch me cryin', I'm the luckiest man alive!" exults "She's the Shit's" narrator. Prominent among madmoiselle's virtues is that "she doesn't know shit about Indiana Jones or Star Wars!" Combine giddy irreverence with eardrum-smacks that've bent ripped-jean knees before the altar of the Forest Hills brudders (as worthwhile, post-CBGB Punk typically has) and you've got in one package wiseass firepower tickled as all fuck at its own capacity.

Recommended: "Ready to Roll," "She's the Shit," "Post-Mortem Depression," "I Want to Die on My Birthday," "High-Speed Yoga," "All About It," "Giant Bug," "What to Be for Halloween," "Home to You," "Afraid of the Dark"

Videos: "She's the Shit" (live) "Post-Mortem Depression" (live) "Giant Bug" "Afraid of the Dark"

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Pirates Press Records (USA / CAN pre-order)

Tygers of Wrath

"Strike" single

(Smith and Miller Records)

Aggression that knows exactly what it's doing. A major point redounding to "Strike's" advantage is that liftoff is immediate; no moments squandered on tedious prefacing. Crunched chording hurtles at highest rate attainable, bombardments are engineered by a rhythm cell intent on devastation, and rope-burnt vocals prove ace complement. May cause bleeding.

("Strike" is excerpted from forthcoming LP Get Ready, scheduled for October 10 release by Smith and Miller.)

Video

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Smith and Miller / Edition No Name

Apple

Amazon ("Strike")

Amazon (Get Ready pre-ordering)

TIDAL

Spotify

Back in the Day, 1999

Blazing Haley

Sleeper

(Self-issued)

Memory falters, but I believe it was around 2000 that I saw Blazing Haley pretty much destroy all competition on an MTV beach-shindig battle-of-bands. For the brief span of an abbreviated "Train to Nowhere," real Rock'n'Roll blared on MTV.

As tempting as some might find the proposition, Santa Barbara's brutal knuckle-poppers didn't ultimately fade because they were too too for early 2000s palates; numerous walloping peers did prosper. Perhaps the combo fell to fortune's inexplicable vagaries. But their big-shouldered perpetrations (in which Rockabilly, Punk, Country, and Psycho instincts conflagrated kick-ass firestorms somewhere betwixt fun and mayhem) are salubrious options now, when it seems Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars will never shut up.

The iron-visaged quartet did release a second platter - the equally robust Mas Chignon - before going into that good night. Various members pursued gambits including Graveside Rockers, Phantom Pomps, and Whiskey Glass Eye. Later years' reunion performances attested to enduring combustible capacity.

Though Blazing Haley placed second in that MTV battle, competition judge Busta Rhymes proclaimed "If it was my choice exclusively, it would've been Blazing Haley!"

Recommended: "Train to Nowhere," "Run Down Dive," "V-12 Ford," "Blazing Haley," "Clambake," "Back for No Good Reason," "End of the Line"

Videos: "Train to Nowhere" (live, 2018) "Back for No Good Reason" (live, 2016) "Clambake" "End of the Line"

Facebook (Drummer Chris Story)

[Contemporary information for group members Brian Lakey, Dave Kruger, and Matt Armor could not be located.]

Sunday, September 14, 2025

P. Paul Fenech

Happy Halloween X

(Mutant Rock Records)

Kim Nekroman, in discussing the Meteors' baleful lynchpin on 2006 DVD The Psychobilly Sickness, said "I don't know him. I do know he doesn't like anyone or anything." The coffin-doghouse slapper noted he'd once seen P. Paul sitting alone at a club bar. No one said as much, but it was understood P. Paul was in charge; everyone was scared to approach him.

Where matters concern P. Paul, there exist no consequence confusions. The eldritch ikon excels at dominative darkness. P. Paul's efforts all manifest his brick hammer-finesse and predilection for motifs disquieting. Here mustered are numerous essays bespeaking vileness, many first loosed upon the planet via previous Halloween collections. One welcomes their return.

Mutant Rock details various versions soon to be marketed: vinyl (in several colorations), CD, and digital. A digital package numbering all 15 of Mr. Fenech's solo discs is available, and a grim poster can also be got.

This disc's issuance is timed for the dire day, itself. When the All Hallow's Eve blood moon hangs o'erskull, the eternally blighted will visit only houses bedecked with the P. Paul poster.

Recommended: "Meet Me at the Morgue," "Witchy Witchy (Bb Halloween Mix)," "Graveyard Rock," "Night of the Blood Monster," "Murder in the Graveyard," "Haunted House," "Gimme Gimme Halloween," "All Hail the Pumpkinhead (King of Halloween)," "Jager Ya," "The 13th Chime," "Ghost Mountain," "Funeral for a Saint (Muerte en Octubre)"

[Two songs were unavailable for consideration.]

Videos: "Meet Me at the Morgue" "Graveyard Rock" "Gimme Gimme Halloween" "All Hail the Pumpkinhead (King of Halloween)" "Funeral for a Saint (Muerte en Octubre)"

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Demented Are Go

Welcome Back to Insanity Hall

(Rebellion)

"Staring at the moonlight through rusty iron bars / eyes bulge with madness, but your mind is in the stars!"

People Like You initially marketed this in 2012. As it was DAG's 8th full-length platter, the International Wrecking Crew (and its far-flung spiritual fellows) were long-since hip to the beast-pack's gore/lunacy/flat-gone rat-rod offensives. Sparky and his garish gang of miscreants riveted eyes with ripped-flesh visages, and blasted frenzied monsterisms that sawed technicolor quiffs clean off.

Rebellion now mongers Welcome in smoky vinyl, gatefold incarnation. A mere 500 units were generated.

"Climbing up the walls, clawing down the doors / There's no way out, there's no way out, there′s no way out / But the doctor's coming!"

Recommended: "Welcome Back to Insanity Hall," "Bodies in the Basement," "Retard Whore," "Engine Trouble," "Gone," "Heads on Poles," "Out in the Dark," "Lucky Charm," "The Life I Live," "Dark Angel"

Videos: "Bodies in the Basement" (live) "Retard Whore" (live) "Heads on Poles" (live)

Mad Sin

Dead Moon's Calling

(Rebellion Records)

Again populating shop bins is a 2005 People Like You release, whose echo offers something special: an opportunity to appreciate the German malcontent spectacles in early cocoon. (Sailor's Grave also once reissued this.)

In a giddily skewed, uncanny dimension, rampageous ventures are torn off by leathery quiff-topped cacodemons with sideways senses of humor. Not knowing whether to laugh, spin crazily, or scream for all of Creation to hear, savoring victims settle upon all three.

Recommended: "Point of No Return," "Fuel for Brains," "To Walk the Night," "Not Invited," "Plastic Monsters," "Dead Moon," "Radio Psycho," "Underground," "Rebels Undisguised," "2 x Love = 2 x Pain"

Videos: "Point of No Return" (live) "Fuel for Brains" (live) "Not Invited" "2 x Love = 2 x Pain"

Psycho Bats

Kuopio Goes Psycho! - Live

(Self-issued)

Finnish wreckers smash aside all impediments to their amphetemine-pumped exhibition. Adherents rave like creatures untethered. "Creepshow Carnival" is but one specimen of fervid propositions awaiting those who put stylus to grooves.

Recommended: "Nightmare," "Old Times," "Hot Rod Bats," "Creepshow Carnival," "Bats and Roll," "Conquistador," "World Wide Horror," "Twisted Truth," "Fast Bats," "Make Psychobilly Great Again"

Videos: "Nightmare" (live) "Old Times" (official live video) "Creepshow Carnival" (live) "Fast Bats" (live)

Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Black Valley Moon

We Sleep two-track digital release

(Songs From Oa)

Daring sorts who've pushed-wide oak doors of haunted Old Dark Houses during the Witching Hour, will dig the mood oozed by "We Sleep." It unfurls in creeping manner. Players collude with knowing acumen, their dark purpose to fulfill. Cobwebs are ubiquitous. "They're after me, but I ain't runnin'," intones a narrator for whom accursedness is as naught. A Danzig song, "Mother" also advances in ominous languorousness; skin-crawling essence spreads by the inch. Smiles will never gather in these shadows - at least, not innocent ones.

Videos: "We Sleep" "Mother"

Back in the Day, 1963

Etta James

...Rocks the House

(Argo Records)

The drabness of interchangeable corporate cut-outs like Nikki Minaj and Cardi B is forced into sharp relief by R&B/Soul paragon Miss Etta. This was her first live vinyl, recorded in Nashville, and her gifts were at full capacity. When she belted out, when she reared back and let fly her characteristic back-of-throat growl, every table shook. She required neither auto-tune nor recorded vocal track to which she could lip-sync whilst cavorting. No robotic dance troupe or costume changes, either; her real-world music was sufficient.

At the board with Chess Records founder Leonard Chess, she ensured her sound was portrayed with every ounce of its natural splendor.

Providing Etta with the stout platform she merited were David T. Walker (guitar), Marion Wright (bass), drummers Richard Water and Freeman Brown, Vonzell Cooper (organ), and tenor sax-man Garnell Cooper.

Re-releases have been marketed by numerous labels, in the U.S. and abroad.

Recommended: "Something's Got a Hold on Me," "Baby, What You Want Me To Do," "What'd I Say," "Money (That's What I Want)," "Seven Day Fool," "Sweet Little Angel," "Ooh Poo Pah Doo," "Woke Up This Morning," "Ain't That Loving You Baby," "All I Could Do Was Cry," "I Just Want to Make Love to You"

Videos: "Something's Got a Hold on Me" "Sweet Little Angel"

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