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.

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)

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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

Sunday, March 30, 2025

Ali and the Hilljack Stompers

Made In Exile

(Exile East)

Ali and the Hilljack Stompers have recently enjoyed airwaves spin alongside the Chop Tops, Hot Rod Walt & the Psycho Devilles, and the Whiskey Daredevils. To rank in that fast company, a group must themselves be of eminent mettle. Ali and friends easily meet the rock-ribbed measure, but the three also embark on an intriguing trek across landscapes whose hues, textures, depths, and plateaus provoke unceasing wonderment. Creativity breathes, here.

Recommended: "The Barker At Carnivale," "Spin," "Love Song," "We Got the Beat," "Cheddar," "Sick," "Tags," "Burn," "Itsy Bitsy," "This Time"

Videos: "Spin" "Cheddar" "Burn"

Mojo Men From Mars

Seventh Son three-track EP

(Martin's Garage Records)

Officials who monitor global threats need be apprised of this Croation agitation. Given the breadth of its percussive impact, and the magnetic capacity of its metal-being-shredded-at-savage velocities guitars, countries are advised to prepare for onslaught - one their disorderly denizens will dig the most.

Recommended: "Seventh Son," "Who I Am," "Sex'n'Drugz'n'Rock'n'Roll'"

Video: "Seventh Son" "Sex'n'Drugz'n'Rock'n'Roll"

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Grippers

The Singles

(Potencial Hardcore)

"Headlong," "combative," and "menace" were my descriptions of Grippers' 2024 Complicity Is a Weapon. Those terms certainly apply to their new release, though I would now add "belligerent," "airtight," and "dizzyingly alacritous." The volcanic vocals would themselves be sufficient to knock walls flat, but they are eagerly abetted by musicians so fierce as to prompt 911 calls.

Recommended: "Spit In Your Face," "Red Wine and Roses," "Uncle Stu"

Video: "Spit In Your Face"

Patrick the Gathering

"Don't Deny" b/w "I'm On the Floor"

(Gravel Beach)

Potential for distinction is evident, but present merit bears appreciation. When working folks crowd weekend barrooms, it's music like this that they seek; hand-crafted, everyman Rock vigorous enough to satisfy visceral urges, though possessed of creative ambition and deftness at each turn. Conversational vocals remind of Lou Reed. All can find connection.

Recommended: "Don't Deny," "I'm On the Floor"

Video: "Don't Deny"

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Ramones

The 1975 Sire Demos vinyl

(Rhino)

Some kvetch songs are slower, and perhaps less emphatic, than subsequent LP incarnations. So fucking what? The moment captured was pivotal. In uncultured bursts lies portent of a then-looming Rock'n'Roll revolution of the sort sporadically needed. More than signaling the return of popular music brevity and elementary song-structuring, the demos conveyed an amphetemine bubblegum (with skewed outlook) that inspired global multitudes. And that inspiration, to say nothing of the foursomes' mayonnaise tidal wave then in its embryonic hour, led innumerable outsiders to grab up instruments and blueprint their own attacks. There will never be another Ramones.

(These tracks have seen issuance by other labels.)

Recommended: every single song

Video: l ive in Arturo Vega's loft, 1975

Discogs

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The Meteors

Only the Meteors Are Pure Psychobilly

(Wreckin' Bones)

One online commentator asserts these 1981-1988 Meteors' pit-bombardments were re-waxed by P. Paul and henchmen for Anagram's initial 1988 issuance. Vintage has not mitigated monstrousness; snarled malignity and towerblock volume fling back their cloaks. As timid masses flee, the disc-title's validity is affirmed. (Never make eye contact with P. Paul.)

Recommended: "Graveyard Stomp," "Wreckin' Crew," "Sick Things," "Mutant Rock," "The Hills Have Eyes," "Fire, Fire," "Power of Steel," "Eat the Baby," "Go Buddy Go"

Videos: "Graveyard Stomp" (live) "The Hills Have Eyes" "Go Buddy Go"

Bullet Biters

Napalm Over the Rainbow

(Bad Billy Records)

This intrepid skulls'n'creepers triad hot-wired a nitro-rocket and crashed on the spot where no one cares about anything, save for the killer-juke sounds that compel leg-shaking. Once dug into that most-prized honey-spot, who the hell would desire exit?

Limited copies in three colorations: Slime Green (80), Black (60), and napalm-red/yellow (80).

Recommended: "Reaping the Harvest," "Serial Drowner," "Napalm Over the Rainbow," "Teenage Grave Digger," "Signs of the End," "Dead Planets," "Brain Back"

Video: "Dead Planets" "Serial Drowner"

The Sinister Six

Rise of the Sinisteros

(Pigmé Records)

Emerging from shadows is ? and the Mysterians from a bad planet. (Bad, as in spurning squares' rules of propriety, and digging every single second.) While fuzzed guitar gyrates on the precipice, organ swirls majestically, and Where the Action Is hipness undulates, listeners will find themselves compelled to crack open the door marked "kicks," behind which ankle-booted Thunderbird-drivers sporting wraparound Ray-Bans do dance sensations that are sweeping the nation.

This is available as both a digital album and 12" vinyl version, limited to 500 copies.

Recommended: "Vodou Queen," "R.A.T.S.," "Frankenstein vs. Machine Gun Joe," "Blue For Number 6," "The Sorceress of Neburu," "Declaration of Incompetence," "Pretending To Be High Class," "Ode To Surf Rock," "A Message From Beyond the Walls of Time"

Video: (No video accessible)

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Sunday, March 23, 2025

Demented Are Go

"Black Valium" b/w "Spoonful" single

(Bad Billy)

Sinister "Black Valium" unfurls in slow-motion. The darkness is oppressive. Wah-wah is omnipresent, and each beat plunges into earth. Sparky of the towering quiff and his grotesquely greasepainted mates lurch in teasing psycho-method, only to suddenly tear into hastened dive formation.

DAG's reading of Howlin' Wolf's "Spoonful" is also the stuff of dark dreams. The Blues opus is recast as a stalking claw-wielder. Its pace is accelerated a bit from "Black Valium," but identical menace is projected.

It seems likely no one culpable savors sunshine.

Videos: "Black Valium" "Spoonful" (live, 2022) interview

Hired Gun Trio

"Oh No Not Again..." digital single

(Self-issued)

Four cats do not a trio make, but arithmetic is dismissed once melodious merriment commences. Gracing airwaves for 3:49 is unpretentious pleasantness likely to uplift spirits and send he-and-she pairs racing hand-in-hand toward hardwood. Gently rendered harmonies glide into sublimity.

Suck

"Gimme Gabba Gabba" EP

(La Pochette Surprise Records)

This thrill-ride-straight-to-demolishment Punk vehemence was built without brakes. Indeed, such is the neck-snapping velocity of each blazing projectile, that attempts at pause would prove futile. The group's own cheek is laced through blitzkrieg maneuvers of the class that once ricocheted between CBGB's graffitied drywalls.

Recommended: "Gimme Gabba Gabba," "Medusa," "Runnin' (Til I Die)," "Motörhead"

Videos: "Gimme Gabba Gabba" "Medusa"

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La Pochette Surprise Records

Dead Jack and his Dry Bones

E' La Dose Che Fa Il Veleno digital album

(Self-issued)

Having again donned his Dead Jack guise, the Bone Machine's Jack Cortese portrays this effort as a "soundtrack for a movie that doesn't exist." Were it corporeal, that flicker would be splashed upon the screen of a spectral drive-in, one populated by rubber-masked bugbears and pie-tin saucers. The architect's employ of suspenseful tension is clever. And, as is typical of soundtracks, mood is wholly imparted by instrumental contraptions: Clanks, rattlings, uncanny kerrangs, and percussive pulsations jump from around corners. The kaleidoscopic unsettlingness is magnetic.

(The present reviewer reflects on director Ray Dennis Steckler's 1964 cult-epic: "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.")

Recommended: "Ombre Near Sull'Asfalto," "Omicidio Al Camposanto," "La Notte Dei Serpenti," "Stati Di Allucinazione," "La Folia Ha Gli Occhi Di Vetro," "Fuga Dalla Morte," "E' La Dose Che Fa II Veleno," "L'Inferno Non Ha Fretta," "Sangue Sulla Pista Da Ballo," "Il Ritorno Del Prof. Bad Trip"

Video (none available)

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Wednesday, March 19, 2025

Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg

Punkin' Out the Classics EP

(Dog Snout Inc)

Marky's reinterpreting classics is not unlike actors desiring to play Shakespearean protagonists. Wanting to share in something special is natural. And Marky has his own specialness to add. As if his own résumé weren't impressive enough (Dust, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, the storied Bowery brudders), factor in his Energizer Bunny capacity for breath-snatching skin smashing. While it's true that material here is rather more involved than what one finds on Marky's familiar menu, he's allied himself with busting-walls players of prowess more than sufficient to the TNT task.

Recommended: "It's Not Unusual," "Keep On Dancing," "New York, New York," "Everybody Loves Somebody," "Octopus's Garden"

Video: "It's Not Unusual" "Keep On Dancing" "New York, New York"

P. Paul Fenech

"Crazy Alice" b/w "Highway Demon"

(Mutant Rock Records)

When P. Paul is not prowling stages as sordid captain of the Meteors, shrewd speculation asserts he can be located below stairs. Far below. Venturing here under his own name, the Psycho Master vents vileness while tearing from six strings lovely tones of diabolism. While only the creeping "Crazy Alice" is accessible for appraisal at this pre-April 11 release writing, it conveys cursedness in such abundance, and with such determination, as to warrant chase.

Video: "Crazy Alice"

Angry Cougars - and - Howling Commandos

Twelve Bone-Rattling Tales of Terror

(Columbus Blood Records)

Would only that I had attended the just-passed release party for this shared work, at Columbus' Rumba Cafe. Still, listening conjures imagery of wicked bacchanalia betwixt Punk groundbursts. Headlong bar-chording, abetted by equally determined fellows, rips into ears and slices cerebra. Having endured molestation, they are forever bettered.

Recommended: "So Fucking What," "Freak Show," "Casualties," "Tower" (Angry Cougars), "Last of the V8s," "East Side Scum," "O.B.T.," "Closed Casket" (Howling Commandos)

Videos: "Freak Show" (live) "East Side Scum" (live)

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Facebook Instagram (Howling Commandos)

ColumbusBloodLLC@gmail.com

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Angry Cougars

Howling Commandos

Grippers

Complicity Is a Weapon

(Potencial Hardcore)

Initially granted ink here upon its 2024 issuance, Complicity merits fresh regard. Pugilistic guitar lashes out. Verve is ubiquitous. The line-up is skeletal and sports a skewed tiara of adamant vocals. Scorched-earth strafing from which feebletons will scamper, but that will compel tattooed shavelings to bellow amidst the mayhem.

Recommended: "Defiance," "Keep On Rollin'," "Suburban Rats," "The Fool," "Never Surrender," "The Flame," "Black Tears," "The Void," "The Squad," "Broken Boots"

Videos: "Keep On Rollin'" "The Fool" "Broken Boots"

Sunday, March 16, 2025

Whiskey Daredevils

Fast and Furious

(Self-issued)

"We are America's finest Country-Punk band left standing," is their jaw-jutted proposition. Lofty claim, that; several other combos qualify for similar esteem. But Whiskey Daredevils can't reasonably be accused of over-selling themselves. Because, like a barrel bursting slats, the raucous sounds they hand tool fly in all directions, old-ways and crisp ones blurring as they sail, motivating many-a limber-limbed shit-kicker to hurl his hat skyward.

Recommended: "(Didn't Get) High With Willie Nelson," "A Forest," "Detroit Over Houston," "Further Down the Line," "California," "Nicky Done Got a Secret," "Slip Into Heaven"

Video: "(Didn't Get) High With Willie Nelson" (live) "Nicky Done Got a Secret"

The Velveteen Flowers

Cadillac Desert EP

(Newsboy Cap Records)

A Fleetwood swung to the cracked curb. From it exited a hawkshaw whose hard-knocks backstory determined his moves. Shades. Sharkskin. Roach killers. Neon flashings flickered in wee-hours puddles. And this was his chosen music: a percolated amalgam of Rock'n'Roll flares and cool-Jazz contemplations, wrought by men driven to answer the timeless call of the Hip.

Recommended: "Sleek Cat Slippy," "Bebop Baby," "Baby Goodbye," "Swing Kitten (Bad Bad Girl)," "Shoulda Stayed In"

Video: "Sleek Cat Slippy" "Baby Goodbye"

Amazon (UK)

Ghoultown

Rare and Unreleased

(Wreckin' Bones Records / Black Angel Promotions)

Ghoultown's thunderous Tales of the Crypt transmogrification of Zane Grey's slap-leather milieu has never assumed deserved position in chart highlands, illustrating again Legs McNeil's dictum that cool music seldom enjoys mass popularity. In the group's darkside rowdiness, guitars gallop and ascendant trumpet strains resound. They collude with poundings-times-ten, lending animation against which spectral host Count Lyle's dead-man's drawl etches jaggedly. Lurking here are demo and in-concert tracks from 1999 - 2008, as well as the 2012 Killer In Texas EP - long unavailable.

Recommended:"Ballad of Clarence Heckles," "Skeleton Cowboys," "Southern Witch," "After 2," "Killin's a Bitch," "Fistful of Demons," "Wicked Man," "Ten Seconds To Blood," "Death of Jonah Hex" (Alt.), "Killer In Texas," "Bury the Hatchet"

Video: "Skeleton Cowboys" "Death of Jonah Hex"

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Black Angel Promotions

The Brian Setzer Orchestra

VAVOOM!

(Deko Entertainment)

Weeks ago, Brian disclosed saddening news: “I just wanted to check in with you all,” he wrote online. “Towards the end of the last Stray Cats tour I noticed that my hands were cramping up. I’ve since discovered that I have an autoimmune disease. I cannot play guitar."

Of course, so widely (and rightly) appreciated are his masterclass adroitness and contributions to music that they require no retelling. Instead, spinning any discs that bear his name impresses satisfactorily.

2000's Vavoom! (Interscope) was the Brian Setzer Orchestra's fourth effort. Now, for the first time since that issuance, it graces shelves in limited, variously colored vinyl incarnations. From its grooves leap great-big-and-sassy sounds redolent of champagne ballrooms of Rooseveltian vintage.

Brass merriment is writ large, shoulder-to-pinstriped shoulder with fractued guitar on the footloose. Dressed to the nines, Jacks and Jills knock it out. More fun can't be had. (At least, not within statutes.)

Fashions, auto designs, and popular musics of yesteryear were superior to most contemporary strivings. Brian understands that. For, just as he'd punched-up traditional Rockabilly gestures with muscular, post-Punk ripping, the guitar maestro restores killer-diller Big Band stylings with brazen rumbustiousness.

Swinging airs long forgotten bounded back to the fore. And new generations of jits swung wings. Brian untethered hands-in-air jollification.

Prayers are advised, that he rebound and continue preaching the gospel of those straight-from-the-fridge.

Recommended: "Jumpin' East of Java," "If You Can't Rock Me," "Gettin' In the Mood," "Drive Like Lightnin' (Crash Like Thunder), "Mack the Knife," "Caravan," "The Footloose Doll," "From Here To Eternity," "That's the Kinda Sugar Papa Likes," "Jukebox," "Gloria"

Video: "If You Can't Rock Me" "Caravan" (live) "That's the Kinda Sugar Papa Likes"