Mental Shakedown

"Reno Neon Lights" / "Here Comes the Sound"

(Bop 'n' Destroy)

It's likely these firecrackers Bop the Blues in their sleep. Truer passions for the steadily moving, country/blues ripsnorter adherents hail as Rockabilly cannot be located. Dedicated to late drummer Burnout Bruno, these tunes teem with revered flashes and dynamite downbeats endemic to the style, as were first wrought by names now matters of lore. The single can be bought in any of six colors, 50 of each having been rendered.

By the moment your eyes scan these words, current drummer Stephan will have played his final Mental Shakedown show, in Berlin. Future days will tell who will terrorize skins in his stead. Fieriness will be a requisite.

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Bop 'n' Destroy

Copasetic Mailorder

BeBe's Records

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The Dusty 45s

Butterflies  EP

(Sleazy Records)

Regardless of the style they take up - comfortably settled Rockabilly, het-up hijinx remindful of baggy-pants Vaudevillian carryings on, Bert Weeden's ethereal 1960 excursion, or Jazzy geniality accustomed to high-toned niteries - combo members turn hands ably. Poise walks hard and trumpet skedaddles merrily.

Recommended: "Simple Thing," "Butterflies," "Bright Lights and Blonde Haired Women"

Videos: "Simple Thing"   "Butterflies"   "Apache"   "Bright Lights and Blonde Haired Women"

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Raunchy!

"My Own Way of Rockin'"   single

Countrified Rhythm and Blues   full-length

(Sleazy Records)

In promotion of their approaching event, operators who engineer Spain's Screamin' Festival trumpet that Raunchy! offers "originals, sharp covers and a rhythm section that keeps strollers and shufflers locked in." To that sketch, I would add salt-of-earth vocals and guitar that knows well which foot-paths to take and how most entertainingly to navigate them. The Crazy Cavan cover shows precisely where members reside.

(Sharing the Screamin' bill will be the Delta Bombers, the Firebirds, Don Diego Trio, the Royal Flush, and numerous others. )

Recommended: "My Own Way of Rockin', "Big 5-0," "Flea Woman," "In Love," "Still as the Night," "I'm Walking," "Lulu"

Videos: "My Own Way of Rockin'"   "Big 5-0"   "Flea Woman"   "Lulu"

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Back in the Day, 2003

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

The Gospel of Blues

(Geffen)

Rock'n'Roll had no fixed starting point, gradually forming from disparate impulses. But resplendently enraptured Sister Rosetta was way back there: A guitar and voice so filled with Divine resonance as to shake away temporal trepidations, blending 1930s jazz, 1940s blues, and other rustic musical idioms into a new creature, delivering up a gospel-trimmed horn of plenty from which joyful belief spake. Only the faithful can rock like this.

Recommended: "This Train," "Sit Down," "Trouble in Mind," "Shout, Sister, Shout!," "God Don't Like It," "What is the Soul of Man?," "Singing in My Soul," "Strange Things Happening Every Day," "Two Little Fishes and Five Loaves of Bread," "Jonah," "Didn't It Rain," "The Natural Facts," "Down by the Riverside," "Up Above My Head I Hear Music in the Air"

Videos: "This Train"   "God Don't Like It"   "Strange Things Happening Every Day"   "Two Little Fishes and Five Loaves of Bread"   "Up Above My Head" (live)

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