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, July 6, 2025

Demented Are Go

Psychotic Mutilation

(Sunny Bastards)

Since DAG's infamy as brutalistic violators of ice- boned essence (sharing a wall with P. Paul's rancid cell) is stoutly earned, it hardly shocks that no substandard sprees loom. To a man, all songs spin, hack, hector, and guffaw maniacally. Some 14 years have transpired since Welcome Back To Insanity Hall deflowered turntables. But anyone venturing passing times may have diminished DAG's crazily hopping ferocity needs the boot. Repeatedly.

Recommended: "Black Valium," "Out of Reach," "Spoonful," "Chasing Rainbows," "Mr Pharmacist," "Cast a Lonesome Shadow," "Guillotine," "Nasty Cindy," "Don't Take Me Back," "Strange Times," "Wandering Hobo Blues," "Dismembered Hand," "Long Distance Transcontinental"

Videos: "Black Valium" "Chasing Rainbows" "Mr. Pharmacist"

Collectors Choice Music

iMusic

HHV

Amazon

Glitterfast

s/t EP

(Slovenly Recordings)

Jubilant savagery racing zig-zags in ramshackle Far East garage. Four bellicose scrappers, desperately casting about for mechanisms through which pent-up pugnacity might be made ravagingly real, snatched up Rock'n'Roll instruments. Their jet barrages seize and thrill.

Available in black-vinyl (400 copies) and digital formats.

Recommended: "Glitterfast," "GOI," "Faster Louder," "Japanpunk"

Video: "Faster Louder" (live) "Japanpunk"

Collectors Choice Music

Tower Records

Deep Discount

The Atomic Bats

Bat Attack!!! digital album

(Self-issued)

Clear from the rampageous outset is that upset calculates the course. These passional inciters forge Rock'n'Roll of corrupting ill nature, throwing out notes with recklessness and verve. New Jersey's normality is sliced into shards. And America beyond is always needful of new stalking predators rooted in Berry, but rocketing to extreme heights of detonation.

Recommended: "Psycho Carnival," "Gateway Grim Reapers," "Awoke in My Grave," "Fires Below," "Les Revenants," "The Darkness Comes"

Videos: "Psycho Carnival" live (25:15)

Back in the Day, 1982

The Bopcats

Wild Jungle Rock

(Attic)

Popular-music mavens will recount that the 1980s Rockabilly Revival had geographically scattered jitter-bop paragons. Among standouts whose eral works continue to inspire are Robert Gordon (NYC), the Rockats (US/England), the Blasters (California), and Tex Rubinowitz (Texas).

Canada's Bopcats also warrant recollection, to speak nothing of evergreen appreciation. Theirs was a fervent assault that laced belovedly familiar genre gesticulations with full-on firepower that bespoke Punk uproar. Country-tinted numbers provided oxygen between pummelings. Bopcats' drag-out fashion of bopping the Blues was fierce enough to trigger burg-wide sirens.

Following the foursome's untimely dissolution, drummer Teddy Fury cast his lot with the Crown Royals, while fretboard hitman Jack de Keyzer issued numerous Blues safaris. But Sonny Baker (vocals) and Zeke Rivers (bass) seemingly withdrew into the ether.

Recommended: "Wild Jungle Rock," "Home to Me," "Too Fast Past," "Dressed to Kill," "What Did I Do Last Night?," "Train Called Rock'n'Roll," "Lights Out"

Videos: "Wild Jungle Rock" (live) "Home to Me" "Train Called Rock'n'Roll"

Facebook (Jack de Keyzer)

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

Jared Petteys & the Headliners

Rockabillaque Two-track disc, digital or vinyl

(Rumble Road)

Alice Cooper's 1970s co-manager, Shep Gordon, once averred that Sinatra punched people "to get into the straight press, which is harder than getting into the music press."

Rockabilly enthusiasts hip to the tip already know that Jared and combo are reliable sources for house-shakin', pick-'em-up-and-put-'em down musicalizing that should only be heard at uppermost volume. Their playing fulfills the Rebel Sound's brash promise of straight-from-the-fridge styling whose very vibe induces lucky listeners to lose themselves in the finger-popping rhythm. As Cliff said: "Real Country music that just drives along."

So, how can Jared acquire the wider notice he merits? Perhaps he should punch someone.

(Mastered by Deke Dickerson. Various vinyl colorations available.)

Recommended: "Rockabillaque," "Shake a Little"

Video: "Shake a Little"

Genetic Error

Fake World

(S02 Records)

Caustic commentary astraddle a knuckly adamantium fist driven straight into the mug of The Way Things Are. Ears cannot survive unscathed by the chorded bomb-heaving, nor minds the sneered analysis. It's as if a city's entire energy supply got wise and turned on the populace. Genetic Error may not be the first to castigate artificiality, but they do so with such healthy vehemence as to render the case inarguably.

(Genetic Error's first crisp full-length issuance since '96!)

Recommended: "Fake World," "Life," "Tétanisé," "Making a Fool of Myself"

Videos: "Fake World" (Superlative animation by Above the Void) "Life"

Hipbone Slim and the Kneejerks

Kneejerk Reaction!

(Martin's Garage)

Feral guitar struts and smashes as if it mainlined Link Wray, throughout this frenetic whirl-blast of Rock'n'Roll as concocted in a no-one-emerges-unscarred Garage. Tons of fun can be had on the borderline-dangerous wild side - and that's doubly so for koo koo savages who dig boss steps. Hipbone Slim's guitar should be registered with authorities. (Fans also know him as Sir Bald; his is renown international.)

Recommended: "Cut a Rug," "Standing Rock," "You Got Nothing on Me," "Kneejerk Reaction," "Hairy Guitar," "Kneecapped," "Shipwreck Love," "Head Slapper," "Snake Hips, Rattle Snake Lips"

Videos: "Cut a Rug" "Standing Rock" "Head Slapper"

Screamin' Sins

"Love You to Death"

(Sinister Transmission Records)

This writer can't say precisely what ghouls perpetrating dirgish darkness sounds like, but suspects a choice clue can be located here. Not to posture as braggadocious, but my April estimation of the Screamin' Sins' disc from which this single was ripped was spot-on: "...bluntly muscular and limber-limbed spectacle, leavened by macabre cultivation." One might add in the likelihood that none above ground have encountered such enjoyable foulness. Until today.

(And yes, that is funereal siren Jen Blackwood, ex of Creepshow, upon whose deathless timbre you're hanging.)

Video

Friday, June 27, 2025

Hot Club of Cowtown

Limelight digital album

(Gold Strike Records)

A right wingding! Some cuts rally with the spiritedness of lanky hands and fetching home-gals ballin' it up, while others ruminate with gentility. But know that each springs from the wonderfully simplistic rustic culture in which plain folks turned hands to music-making that swelled hearts practically to bursting. Pearly guitar notes are buffed to glistening. The doghouse knows the way home with its headlamps shut. And no ankle will remain unbent when the fiddle kicks up dust. Sonorous voices from our back-country heritage are enough to make foreigners wish they called America home.

You just know Pat Buttram and Smiley Burnette would've dug this.

Recommended: "Red River Valley," "Amari Szi Amari," "Lily Dale," "Djangology," "I'm Feelin' Bad," "When the Cactus Is in Bloom," "Hoedown Lowdown," "Buffalo Gals"

Videos: "Djangology" (live) "I'm Feelin' Bad" (live) "Buffalo Gals" (live)

Amazon (IN)

Feral Housecats

An FHc's Advice 3-track digital album

(Hot Boots Records)

Robust recordings like this remind, thankfully, that six-string flamethrowing and fevered skins-pounding aren't the exclusive province of arena kahunas. Rather, they are blasted out in bars across America. Whether they constructed furnaces, packed meat, or piloted Lyfts, regular folks craving respite from workaday pressures throng to stage fronts and go wild on dance floors to passionately perpetrated Rock'n'Roll exactly like this.

Recommended: "Drop Out," "Don't Work, Be Happy" "I Shoulda Taken Drugs D.A."

Videos: "Don't Work, Be Happy" "I Shoulda Taken Drugs D.A." (live)

Back in the Day, 1990

Phantom Rockers

Kissed by a Werewolf vinyl

(Tombstone Records)

From day one, and with leader Mark Burke slashing their moonlit path, England's Phantom Rockers have flaunted macabre convictions at dangerous speeds. Quiffed cretins wallowed rabidly. To bear witness to the band's embryonic marble orchard cacophony is to be thrust into dizzying zones of fracture.

Bad Billy is now offering rare original copies recently exhumed from precincts mysterious.

Recommended: "Leather Zombie," "Killer Train," "Kissed by a Werewolf," "Valley of Kings" "Friday Night," "Living Dead," "Forget Him Baby"

Videos: "Leather Zombie" "Killer Train" "Kissed by a Werewolf" "Forget Him Baby"

Stevie Silver

Cruisin' feat. Duke Robillard

(Self-issued)

Boston's Stevie is one of us: a devotee of Sounds Cool (particularly those of Blues and vintage Rock'n'Roll classification) since way back. Here, at times hot-pickin' alone and elsewhere abetted by the storied Duke (in the Sun studio!), Stevie steamrolls through originals and chestnuts of cement-solid character. Smooth, though never to the excess that would strip tunes of crucial roughness, these interpretations skim with palpable oomph. Let every cat be aware that Rock'n'Roll runs this joint - and the house always wins.

Recommended: "Cruisin'," "Apache" (w/Duke), "Rip It Up," "Aces & Eights," "Gimmie, Gimmie," "Racing with the Devil" (w/Duke), "Sleepwalk" (w/Duke), "Wild Child" (w/Duke)

Video: "Cruisin'" "Racing with the Devil"

Stevie and Duke Robillard at Sun

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Quakes

Voice of America Red or blue vinyl reissue

(Orrexx)

Even early on, the infamy screamed. 1990 was when Paul Roman's gang waxed these idiosyncratic Psychobilly bombardments for Nervous, and this fresh reissue (which includes two additional tracks) shoots flames as if just out of the house. Muscle, smarts, and uncaring velocity in one volatile package. Felicitous collisions galore.

Included are lyrics, liner notes, and a 4x6 postcard. 500 copies now accessible - 250 red, 250 blue.

Recommended: "Puttin' Out the Flame," "One of a Kind," "Nuthin' Goin' Down," "Chick Hunt," "Stick to Your Guns," "All Messed Up," "Far Away," "Ice-Cold Baby," "Growin' Up Evil," "Strike-Out King"

Videos: Secret VOA warm-up show (June 2025) "All Messed Up" "Ice-Cold Baby" "Stick to Your Guns"

eBay (purchase page)

Kenyon Lockry

Laughrey

(Self-issued)

You've located treasure. Being in the mold of marquee Country luminaries, Kenyon presents listeners with a gladsome opportunity to whoop rejoicefully while wild-side ramblers kick like all-get-out ("Hold On," "Already Red," and "I Understand" snorting in that number). The man's possessed of a voice, a spirit, more real than any red-carpet autotuner tarted-up in funny fashion. Though major labels busy themselves contriving curiosities, the good stuff still can be found - right here.

Recommended: "Hold On," "Lawn Boy," "Please Leave," "Wrong Way," "Already Red," "Lonely, Crazy," "I Understand," "Nerve Rackin'," "Broken Heart," "Sugar Dress," "Everything," "Country Music Star," "No Reality to Arrange," "Bad Bye"

Videos: "Hold On" "Already Red" "I Understand"

The Brains

One More Time single

(Cleopatra)

Not unlike Chinese Water Torture of which we're gleeful victims, singles from forthcoming full-length Crazy Monster are being issued teasingly. Came first "Evil," a relentless promulgation of wickedness pledged amid spider-webbed dankness. Following in similarly nitro-jacked splendor was "Feel No Pain."

On newest single "One More Time," the splinters-flying Psycho for which Montreal's Brains are infamous remains no less fearsome than when the three stalked studio circumstance for those ghastly antecedents; the Category 5 bluster wreaks wreckhouse devastation. They've leapt from the "Evil" dungeon and now prowl evening city streets, hungering for rat-arsed hijinks.

Videos: "One More Time" Crazy Monster teaser

Roy Buchanan

Deluxe Edition digital album

(Alligator)

Scant fretboardists ascend to the heights conquered by Roy. Unlike friendly competitor and fellow cognescenti Danny Gatton -in whose dazzing oeuvre Rockabilly and Country negotiations romped free of tether - Roy's chosen hearth was the Blues. The tone he calculated was impeccable - half celestial harp and half earthy, wee-hours proclaimer. He was able to reach way down and communicate the aches and exultations of every man's soul.

In passages unhurried and lusty, Roy touched off stinging note-flurries none but overlords can produce. Many Buchanan LPs convey his gifts; this is emphatically among them.

A November 1980 newspaper account reported: "Roy Buchanan, in New York to record his new album, My Babe, met a mugger on his way back to his hotel room early in the morning. Apparently, the mugger didn't know that they don't call a guitar 'an ax' for nothing. He found out, however, after jumping Buchanan and being wacked a few times with the $5000 instrument. 'I've always known that the guitar can be used as a weapon,' Buchanan said. 'When that guy found out I wasn't afraid to use it as one, he split pretty fast. That old wood is pretty hard."

Recommended: "That Did It," "Chicago Smokeshop," "Blues for Jimmy Nolen," "Matthew," "Flash Chordin'," "Whiplash," "When a Guitar Plays the Blues," "Hawaiian Punch," "The Last Word"

Videos: "Chicago Smokeshop" "Matthew" "Flash Chordin'" "When a Guitar Plays the Blues" (live)

Facebook (Fan club)

Sunday, June 22, 2025

Gorgonis

Choice Paralysis digital and hot-pink cassette

(Fuzzed-Up and Astromoon Records)

Being intrepid, you've elected to venture athwart environs uncommon. A more fittingly variegated vehicle could not be located on the lot. All is motion. Tit-bits fly in all directions, scattered by gusts of creativity. That intellect grasps the whip is clear, even amidst swerving panoramas. Composer/guitarist Aaron Jay Myers assembled players of the first order to breathe animation into his productions electric.

Recommended: "Want, Need," "Choice Paralysis," "Doctor Robotnik," "Some Shit, You Just Can't Punch," "Coffee-A-Go-Go," "Arachnid"

Videos: "Want, Need" "Choice Paralysis"

Site (Aaron)

Facebook (Aaron)

Instagram

Fuzzed-Up and Astromoon

King Drapes

You Got It 3 tracks

(Musakonttori)

Since these cuts were put to tape in February, 2024, new drummer Markku Mäikkä Tuomi doesn't appear. But considering that he received the approval of stalwart personnel Sami Savolainen (guitar/vocals) and Jani Kallila (slap bass), one can be assured of his prowess.

It's heartening that the Neo-Rockabilly Big Beat they've traditionally dispatched remains their specialty. No high-gear flamboyance will be located; instead, judicious restraint ensures points be etched emphatically. 2024's Hot Rock Teds smoked down the line and this crisp platter is no less bound to gratify discerning chain-swingers, so laden is it with twanged uppercuts and knucle-crack pulsations.

Recommended: "Good Ol' Gal," "You Got It," "Raggariveljet"

Videos: "Good Ol' Gal" "Raggariveljet"

New drummer Markku Mäikkä Tuomi (ex-Buck Jones)

Deadfallen

s/t EP

(Elliot Abbott)

Sophistication is afoot, but it's not of uppity bearing. Rather, it's the sort in which knowing artistry communicates its fancies with assurance born from just plain purposefulness. Dramatic moments push out artfully. Variety looms in guitar-charged eruptions. Vocals threaten. Book passage on this adventurous journey straightaway.

Recommended: "How the West Was Lost," "Deadfallen," "Nightshade," "Cold & Black," "Gone"

Videos: "Deadfallen" "Nightshade" "Cold & Black"

Back in the Day, 2016

Benny & the Flybyniters

The Many Sides of...

(Rhythm Bomb Records)

Come in from the alley to the dancehall. He and she couplings dressed to kill are whirling with cool aplomb. The combo arrayed onstage are aces, all, pumping out raw R&B in the manner of storied icons. Edges are appropriately unsanded, for this is honking, strutting human music that has soundtracked innumerable noctunal interactions, and it should be this real.

Here compiled are swing-out blasts from earlier issuances; if they are not already in your stack, lunge for this.

Recommended: "Straighten Up Mama," "Two-Dollar Woman," "The Way You Do," "Jet-Propelled Daddy," "Benny's Bounce," "Party Like Never Before," "She Knocks Me Out," "Huckle Boogie," "Hey Now," "Tell Me Pretty Baby," "Hammerhead," "Loosen Up"

Videos: "Two-Dollar Woman" "Benny's Bounce" "Party Like Never Before"

Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Drunken Prayer

Thy Burdens

(Dial Back Sound / Well-Kept Secret)

The enriching product of Appalachian-dwelling Morgan Geer's bended-knee, musical heritage and fertile imagination. The man's past, per legend, includes regaling bikers with hymns learned from a great-grandmother. Guided here by Drive-By Trucker Matt Patton and accompanied by unassumingly adroit companions to actualize his marvelous (and broadly accessible) musings, Morgan draws from rural wellsprings. His grained throat bespeaks worldly seasoning as it rises to proclaim Divine adoration and hopes for transcendence.

Recommended: "Selfishness of Man," "Just a Closer Walk with Thee," "When They Ring Them Golden Bells," "Rock of Ages," "Bedside of a Neighbor," "Tramp on the Street," "Ezekiel Saw the Wheel," "Soldier of the Cross," "Long Ago, Far Away," "Thy Burdens Are Greater Than Mine"

Videos: "When They Ring Them Golden Bells" "Ezekiel Saw the Wheel" "Thy Burdens Are Greater Than Mine"

John Lindberg Trio

Best Friend's Girlfriend

(Cosmos)

No hardwood-gliding Big Beat rascal worth his Ricky jacket will judge this at all resistable. John and crack compatriots know well how best to free Rockabilly from leash and press it to extreme raucouness - though they ensure melodic undergirding is an influential constant. Pop the top, and watch the night go frantic.

Recommended: "Best Friend's Girlfriend," "(There's) No Getting Over Me ," "Cry Cry Cry," "Rock'n'Roll Girl," "Stand By Me"

Video: "Best Friend's Girlfriend" "Cry Cry Cry"

Bloodshot Bill

So Fed Up!

(Goner)

One-wildcat-band Bill illustrates that hep hicks from back-country juke joints can tip jugs with their calloused left hands, flay every tune tool with their rights, and make hillbillies bop like fevered bone machines. Technical trickery can stay the hell away, 'cause inimitable Human Being stylings are in hot-blooded progress.

Recommended: "Talk To You," "Kissin' Underwater," "Rule Book," "Say What You Want To Say," "It Happens," "Emilina," "Please Don't Break My Heart," "The Very Thought of You," "What She Said"

Videos: "Talk to You" "Emilina"