DC Larson's JUKEBOX JURY: 2026

Sunday, March 8, 2026

Lee Rocker

"Jungle Rock" digital single / video

(Upright Records)

Evident at each turn is that doghouse-manhandler Mr. Rocker is having a ball, in his frolicsome reinterpretation of Mizell's 1958 safari-territory jaunt. "I was walking through the jungle just the other night / Oh well, I heard a big a'rumble and I thought it was a fight" opens the madcap tale of wildlife whooping it up in fractured abandonment. Lee quickly gets the Sock: "We stopped there to listen, I began to move my feet / It was a jungle drummer doin' a knocked-out beat!" Assisted most ably by cats who are, themselves, adept at runaway, jitter-joint romping (their combined forces total upper-tier prosecution), Lee leads the finger-popping exploratory party's stomping down underbrush, as creatures great and small do dance sensations that are sweeping the menagerie nation.

Video

Sonny West

The Shuffle CD or limited marbled vinyl

(Killertone Records)

No grooved base is left uncovered: Consider the smoothness-by-candlelight crooner "It's Gone 11," the pugnacious ex-con of danger-vibe "Diamond Tooth," and "The Shuffle" - an everybody swingalong that'll leave each square foot of nightspot dance floor occupied by happy creepers and stilettos. Nine additional jukebox options punch in, all cobbled by a Gretsch-packing, down-slung-forelock cat eminently suited to pink Cadillac sound adventures. (And fittingly, he's joined by lethal associates.)

Recommended: "It's Gone 11," "Diamond Tooth," "The Shuffle" Only these cuts were available at presstime. (The disc I purchased from Killertone hasn't yet arrived.) But their worth gives confidence disc mates also merit high regard.

Videos: "It's Gone 11" "Diamond Tooth" "The Shuffle"

The Swingin' Blackjacks

Never Tire, Never Stop

(Self-issued)

Interviewed last month by Blues.Gr, axeman/singer Matt Allen made clear a crucial truth that rigid doctinaires fail to grasp: "Blues didn’t shape Rock and Roll by itself; Jazz, Gospel, Hillbilly, and earlier 20th Century Pop music all had roles in the birth of Rock and Roll. It’s like a delicious musical stew with plenty of spice."

Revolutionary 1950s DJ Alan Freed stressed as much, in days when our music was barely out of its germinal stage. And Canadian Matt's Swingin' Blackjacks shout that verity in song after persuasively-jukin' track. Matt, drummer Adam David, and bass player/vocalist Gary Kendall maintain cool and collected Jazz poise, while perpetrating hot and cool, rockin' rhythms that goad flesh-and-blood transportation departments into fancy footwork.

Recommended: "Misery Train," "Deep in My Heart," "Heart Full of Soul," "Rock All Night," "Black Cat Blues," "Let's Pretend We're in Love"

Videos: "Misery Train" "Rock All Night" "Black Cat Blues" "Let's Pretend We're in Love"

X (Matt Allen)

Feral Housecats

Go Feral Yourself!

(Hot Boots Records)

Rock'n'Roll has become a global, multi-billion-greenback corporate behemoth, with its own mega-luminaries tarted up in pricey, designer fashions and a 'money talks' Hall of Fame that excludes actually meritorious sorts of that specified genre in favor of made-to-order Hip Hop gagmen.

Feral Housecats are an indispensible 'fuck you' to such overblown commodified/domesticated shenanigans, much as was the glorious Punk eruption of the 1970s. There are occasional, unsanded edges here. And that's entirely okay. Rock'n'Roll (as was first germinated, and remains in true believers' hearts) isn't supposed to cover its mouth when sneezing.

These guys dig to death the cool dirtiness they do. And that truth-in-tuneful-demolition is one matter that separates authentics from counterfeits. Another is outsiderness of the sort that guarantees one's John Hancock never shows up on tea-luncheon invitation scrolls.

These 11 ditties alternatively scream, lope, mesmerize, and spring forth unstoppably, with each player pounding out 110 percent. Far and away, most rock-'em-sock-'em tracks emanated from the hip pen of guitar/vocals man Greg McGill. (Rounding out this well-turned, no-garage-could-hold-'em ensemble are bassist David Evans, drummer Evan Carr, and guitarist David Auden. Some extra drumming came courtesy of Andrew Gordon.)

Now and again, gestures redolent of classical songs that once hummed from car dashboard radios while he's and she's got down to business find ways into arrangements, but always with idiosyncratic sways. Souls uncrating this thankfully ragged effort, during big-grin appraisals, will dig bits of Contours, Lux Interior and David Byrne (in vocal moments), The Forest Hills pinheads, and Fun Comes In Spurts curl-shooting that's led-wayward wigged-out kids since Roky Erickson first met the 13th Floor Elevators.

Rock'n'Roll should never be welcome in scrupulously polite environs. The humongous thing the calculator crowd has made of our music is of no interest to devotees of the real article. But never forget that all that garbage was built atop sounds rebellious, spirited, and that Feral Housecats heft high the torch.

Recommended: "Gee, I Wish I Could Paint," "I Hope," "Murder in the Basement," "Strong Bones and Sharp Teeth," "I Luv U But I Hate U2," "Something Good," "An FHc's Surfing Theme," "I Shoulda," "Sniper," "Don't Go Home with L. Cohen"

Videos: "Gee, I Wish I Could Paint" "Strong Bones and Sharp Teeth" "Sniper"

Speedy Haworth

Video: "Rockabilly Boogie"

Lovesick and Accordi Disaccordi

Video: "Sitting On Top of the Word"

Wednesday, March 4, 2026

Various

Compilado 25

(Punk Con Punk)

Anarchy en español. As is always so with voluminous band compilations, merit is inconstant. But the finest presented boast enough strength to flatten heads, and techniques honed but not la-di-da. Translators are not needed; demolition rocketeering is a universal language in our underground. Not only will Punk never strike its colors, so long as mifits with perpetual scowls and guitars in hands stalk sidewalks, but every geographic outpost has been molested by surly shouters. Which is pretty damn cool.

Recommended: "Esto Es Madrid" (The Rejects), "La Basura Que Somos" (Viejos Tiempos), "Tema De Adrián" (Fracasso Italiano), "Policía Corrupto" (Los Puta), "Don't Try This At Home" (Whatever!)), "Bhopal" (Punkonia), "Perros Plaga" (Terranos Baldíos), "Tranki" (Qué Dirán), "Alianza" (Alianza), "Alta Frecuencia Que Cura El Dolor" (Hernán Dolor)

Videos: "Esto es Madrid" "Whatever" "Tema De Adrián" "Perros Plaga"

Punk Con Punk

Bandcamp

Discogs

Texabilly Rockets

Alive and Kickin'

(PART Records)

Whoever conceived of pairing these veteran Portuguese, old-class boppers with astute producer Boz Boorer must've hot-wired a genius contraption. Since 1993, the Texabilly Rockets (initially bannered as "Texabilly Rockers") have worked up slapback song stylings that ladle lovingly from vintage Billy, Blues verities, and hillbilly hijinx. None of which would cruise so cooly, were the men at issue not all types of able to make racket that's been giving legions the Sock, since Ike put up feet on the Oval Office desk.

Recommended: "Time is Running," "Sweet Baby Blues," "I Got Lost," "Honky Tonk Feeling," "A Tale of Pain," "Whorehouse Blues"

Videos: "Time is Running" "Sweet Baby Blues" (live) "Whorehouse Blues"

Los Pontiaks

Hay un ojo en mi Martini! 12" vinyl LP

(Subterfuge Records)

"These three Prussian soldiers from the underworld emerge from their graves, when the occasion warrants, to invite us to a true hip-shattering Rock 'n' Roll bacchanal." intones their autobilling. Exotic and often instrumental rat rod treks through haunts of Surf, hacksaw rhythms, and Garage Mambo thrill without pause. Inventive songcraft dodges down unforseen novel night roads. The Lux & Ivy imprint (reflect upon title) has its way, certainly, though not with the Scumbag Alley banshee howl one might anticipate. Summoned forth are ten koo-koo treatises that, while hinting now and again at the storied CBGB's cryptkeepers, do so with the impeccable dash of 1940s John-Carradine-House-of-Dracula flowing cape. Silken finery and military helmets catch eyes, yes, but death-heads, dive-bombing chords, and final-mile drum sureness remind of cursed circumstance. (And whose hand is on your shoulder?)

Recommended: "Plato o Plomo," "Hay un ojo en mi Martini!," "Bailarina de seis brazos," "Chicas Zombies," "El Diablo," "El Atracto Perfecto," "El Indiano"

Videos: "Hay un ojo en mi Martini!" "Chicas Zombies" "El Atracto Perfecto"

T-Drifters

Life is Pretty

(Tombstone Records)

While the trio's name was abbreviated following cover art completion, the sound transmuted nar' a whit. Originals are filled to overflow with leg-shakin' jitter-bop, fit to blast today's Gone Disciples straight up to stars 'n' planets upper reaches. They'll slap skin with ghosts from some 1957 high school hop who're already makin' the scene, pickin' 'em up and puttin' em down in crazy man crazy orbit.

Recommended: "Boppin' My Life Away," "Fade Away," "Life is Pretty," "Fifteen Cats," "Liquor Blues," "Rocking Rebels Rock On," "Tennessee Boogie"

Videos: "Life is Pretty" (live) "Rocking Rebels Rock On" "Tennessee Boogie"

The Monokids

Video "My Baby Left Me"

Zombina and the Skeletones

Videos "Fiend Without a Face" "Two Scoops of Brain"

Sunday, March 1, 2026

Hola Ghost

"The End of the Road" b/w "Iron Reich" 7" vinyl

(Svart Records / Hola Pete Records)

Bone-visaged leder Peter Sandorff knows an infernal agent need not break measured pace. Hence, "End of the Road's" enigmatic narrative gains from his chilling steadiness. The one-time Necromantix guitar menace executes passages and slicing punctuations with preciseness born from a career of taboo toils. Associated scoundrels Jeppe B. Jessen and Kristian Sandorff (Psycho Mariachis from a skewed, eerie dimension) build intensity - their formidability rivets - and spicy, sombreroed accompanists the Haunted Horns augment with poltergiest harmonies from ebony ether. Flip "Iron Reich" (a "lockdown" document) appeared in different form on a previous Hola Ghost waxing; here, it assumes acoustic constitution. And Sandorff's humanity-wrenched strains are emphasized all the more by starkness.

This 7" disc portends a full-length one due later in 2026. The single was initially available as either black & white swirl or clear/black smoke. But in a January Facebook note, Svart advised "All 7” versions are sold out from Svart’s webstore, even the test pressings! Ask your local well-equipped record store if they have a copy or grab one from the band."

Videos "The End of the Road" (live) "Iron Reich"

The Monokids

s/t

(Self-issued)

Italy's Monokids are the whole package: a second skin, cat-style look; Neo-Rockabilly (plus sundry other bents) so tight and energetically tossed out that neophyte competitors likely grind molars enviously; and such apparent affection for the bop that drives cats and gators into lava-blooded paroxysms, that sound systems tremble at resultant roar.

Recommended: "Always Do the Bop," "Real Gone Daddy," "40 Days in a County Jail," "The Last Goodbye," "My Blues," "Blazing"

Videos: "Always Do the Bop" "Real Gone Daddy" (clip) "40 Days in a County Jail" (clip)

Trouble Bound

"Paranoia" digital track

(Work Whorse Records)

Rage comes via roundhouse. Knuckly chords bash away and drumsticks besiege, as amphetemine basslines ricochet off pretty much every available surface. "They want your mind they want your life they want to poison you!," Dan Szeli yowls in splenetic alarm. Hostile agents abound from inner and outer frontiers. Rather than withdrawing in defense, though, best one stand tall with fists to the fore.

Video

The Dillards

Songs That Made Charlene Cry - A Tribute

(DillardSong Records)

At 83, singer/guitarist Rodney Dillard is the final breathing member of the famed Bluegrass combo. Notable among his and fellow Dillards' accomplishments were their 1960s portrayals of deadpan boonies pickers the Darlin family boys. Those Andy Griffith Show characters livened six episodes of that immortal sitcom, with dust-raising romps.

Last summer, as Bluegrass Unlimited previewed, a contemporary Dillards iteration was slated to treat Kentucky ROMP festival attendees to old-ways musicalizing. Rodney himself joined in a Country Music Hall of Fame "featured artist exhibit." And he delivered a University of Missouri college commencement; that school also bestowed an honorary degree upon the stringin' instrument icon.

"Got time to breathe, got time for music!"

In 2026, sit back in a rough-hewn rocker (assuming you're not itchin' to caper about the cabin), close eyes, and let regular-folks melody makin' put your mind at satisfied ease. This sprightly joyfulness roused overalled generations of stump jumpers and sod busters to whoop in celebration of plain livin' joys. It's chargin' up the room and happy footin' 'cross the Robert E. Lee natural bridge.

Players pooling talents here with Rodney and wife Beverly (banjo and vocals), were Maddie Denton (fiddler from East Nash Grass) and Jarrod Walker (mandolin, also a Billy Strange sideman). Other contributors included Gary Smith, Tony Wray, Tyler Walker, and Cory Walker.

In the mind's panoramic imagery, the Darlin boys build fire 'neath the still like all get-out, whiskered pa Briscoe grabs up his jug, and blond Miss Charlene holds off heatin' up Fish Muddle to whirl skirts, a toothy grin all over her fetching features.

Andy takes up a five-stringed acoustic, lets his thumb hang free, and dives in. Barney couldn't get the grin off his face if he wanted to. And outside, even rock-heaver Ernest T. is cuttin' a mountain jig.

Recommended: "Dirty Me Dirty Me I'm Disgusted with Myself," "Don't Hit Your Gramma with a Great Big Stick," "Will You Love Me When I'm Old and Ugly," "Wet Shoes in the Sunset," "Dance 'Til Your Socks are Hot and Ravlin'," "Towsack Full of Love," "Tearin' Up Your Old Clothes for Rags," "Keep Your Money in Your Shoes and It Won't Get Wet," "Slimy River Bottom," "Briscoe's Dream," "There is a Time"

Videos: "Dirty Me Dirty Me I'm Disgusted with Myself" "Wet Shoes in the Sunset" "Dance 'Til Your Socks are Hot and Ravlin'" "Keep Your Money in Your Shoes and it Won't Get Wet" "There is a Time"

Site (Rodney Dillard)

Rodney and Beverly

Wednesday, February 25, 2026

Robert Gordon and the Di Maggio Connection

s/t

(New Shot Records)

Never again will there ring out a voice so resonant, capacious, and packed with the joys of gut-level Rock'n'Roll, as was the late Robert's. His tones filled every hall. Name any storied veteran you care to, and RG - having long ago internalized their's and fellows' iconic persuasions, imbuing them with marvelous personal aspect - merits placement in identical lofty rank.

Among axe wielders with whom he crafted swing-from-rafters boppery through shook-up decades were Link Wray, Chris Spedding, and Danny Gatton. Royalty, all. Guitars were their sceptres.

Just as Robert belongs in a relief with past masters, so Italian Marco Di Maggio could cut heads with storied predecessors. The man is that wickedly gifted, as all who've relished his own years' worth of recordings can jump up and testify. (It seems likely Marco never fudged a treble note in all his born days.)

Live album Robert Gordon and the DiMaggio Connection was recorded in 2006, at Crallo in Scandiano, Italy. Players assembled take each curve on two wheels. In addition to Marco, Connection associates included bassman Matteo Giannetti and drummer Marco Barsanti. A pair more suited to killer goneness simply doesn't draw oxygen.

No stylistic deviations appear on the songlist, which is entirely okay. Robert chose only the finest material. And one never tires of hearing his booming interpretations. Greater love for finned fracture hath no cat. Doubtlessly, his spirited exhortations cleaved pomps in back rows.

Let's all spill a bit of PBR.

Recommended: "The Way I Walk" "Lover Boy," "Look Who's Blue," "The Worryin' Kind," "Hello Walls," "Sea of Heartbreak," "I Just Found Out," "Drivin' Wheel," "Rockbilly Boogie," "Don't Be Cruel"

No videos from this gig were available, so here are others featuring Robert and Marco Di Maggio: "The Way I Walk" "Lover Boy" "I Just Found Out" "Drivin' Wheel" "Rock Billy Boogie"

Marley Bone

"Vampire Orgy" digital track

(Marleybone Records)

No one returns to the land of the living from this revelry. Intonations adorning low-gear, chunka-chunka Rockabilly nonchalance articulate a doomful scenario. Unsuspecting, flat-gone merrymakers will soon join legions of the blood-thirsting undead, like it or not. Axe strings pounce, here and again. Were instrumentation less precise in its practice - in such leanness, every note must be vital, and herein is - effectiveness would not be so utter. Beats are agile and poised. All is sinister substance. Some 3 minutes in, players shift into a Jazz-accented breakdown during which tasteful turns enchant. Bass steps nimbly. "Then he ruffles her hair, and his fangs are bare / And it's way too late to scream..." A laugh echoes, thunder rumbles, and lids are sealed against rising sun.

Video

Guitar Wolf

More Jet

(Guitar Wolf Records)

As your eyes sweep across these letters, Seiji and curled-lip collaborators Takura and Gotz are deluging New Zealand and Australia with mega-voltage thunderations of twisted Punk metal. Sparks are surely spattering that besieged landscape. Official alarms scream. Spotlights criss-cross ebony nights. Masses of tittilated adherants will be happily deaf for days.

Seven years have transpired since the leathery trio last detonated within studio confines. Those are as nothing. Personnel permutated, but one satisfiedly savors familiar blast/gash/smashes fired off with febrile relish. I have it on reliable imaginary authority that jagged-toothed Rock'n'Roll of incalculable velocity is the audio equivalent of Ponce de León's diving pool.

Recommended: "More Jet," "100m Girl," "Long Tall Sally," "Coelacanth Galaxy," "9AM Pornomag Planet," "Kung Fu Bikini," "Super Sonic ihatov"

Videos: promo :23 "Long Tall Sally" live 10:21 (New Zealand, 2025)

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Strange World Records

Rocking Horse Records

Sorcerer Records

Apple

Little Til and the Gangbusters

In a Peculiar Way

(Rocketman Records)

Attilio Malambri, aka "Little Til," responded to a recent Facebook user's lament that seemingly few 20-somethings presently populate the sideburn sect. 25 year-old Little Til - now pursuing novel adventures in Parisian climes - threw in his own perspective. He noted that at festival performances with band The Gangbusters, he's observed numerous under-30s deploying crazy feet. (Still, Attilio did concede musicians of draft age seldom embrace cool cat soundings.)

Below is consideration of Little Til and the Gangbusters' 2024 release, In a Peculiar Way:

It was with sharp discernment that Italy's Attilio Malambri selected which standards to revisit. Featured songs are cream, and these reinterpretations crackle as if the material were newly minted. In ballads, Little Til's urbanity enjoys bolstering by grand harmonies. And when stormers roll out, he pounds daylights out of ivories and exhorts insistently in fevered manner. At every turn, the formidable Gangbusters tear it up without looking back. Rocking is their business, as the Treniers once declared, and the band's virtues cannot be extolled too loudly.

Recommended: "Fools Fall In Love," "Money (That's What I Want)," "Lonely Weekends," "Lovin' Up a Storm," "Rockin' My Life Away"

Video: "Lonely Weekends"

Apple

zdigital.com.au

Sunday, February 22, 2026

The Bullets

Go Crazy! Get Wild!

(Western Star Recording Co)

Having mastered the slicked-back genre in which they specialize, Western Star's wildmen are possessed of natural feeling for it; so greatly, that their nods to Land of Dixie super-pickers Burlison and Moore are organic complements to their own flair, not sterile mimicry.

Jitter boppers schooled in Rockabilly's embryonic period will recognize various twangs, patterns, and six-stringed orations. But also awaiting appreciation in grooves is a treasure most precious: that being, the free-for-allism that explodes in the heart, the head, and the feet, whenever chords of agitation take wing.

("With This Song," the chaser to above het-up insigation, cools heels to Countrified and steel-guitared serenity. "There's a whole, wild world a-waitin,' startin' tonight" pledges a swain to his hourglassy she.)

Recommended: "The Shaker," "Back Off Baby," "Go Crazy! Go Wild!," "The Girl's on Fire," "Chicago Blue," "Breakin' All the Rules," "With This Song"

Videos: "The Shaker" "Go Crazy! Get Wild!" "The Girl's on Fire" "With This Song"