DC Larson's JUKEBOX JURY: 2026

Wednesday, August 19, 2026

Memphis Lightning

Personal Obsession

(Self-issued)

"Built on the Blues, wired for Rock'n'Roll" would be an irresponsibly hifalutin' claim, were it to issue from most mouths. But it only begins to capture the jump-back phenomenon now before us. Motivatin' in zeal and at high volume are robust travels in the key of damn straight. (Darren "Lil' Bluesman" Thiboutot Jr's solos will make big toes jump up in boots.) To quote the rousters themselves: "The Blues has built us into the band we are today."

"My sound is a blend of all of my heroes and influences from genre to genre, mixed together to form a sound that purely comes from my soul," Lil' Bluesman told Blues GR last April. "I write a lot of music with my old man [Grammy-nominated Big Red], and you’ll hear elements of Blues, Rock, Pop, Roots, Country and more! I write music that has meaning and feeling to me, and my songs range from rockers, to soulful ones, tear jerkers, to pure guitar pyrotechnics!"

Recommended: "Personal Obsession," "The Road is My Home," "The Rock and Roll," "Good Man," "Perfect World," "You Got Nothing," "Come Back Home," "Halloween in July," "The King of Cool"

Videos: "The Road is My Home" "You Got Nothing" "Good Man" "The King of Cool"

The Nite Howlers

Rockin' & Reelin', Pts 1 and 2 7" vinyl

(Sleazy Records)

As these singles hardly represent their first rodeo, the Nite Howlers' hard-grained know-how strides and struts. No unfamiliar postures are present here, which is indeed a gladsome note. Instead, four jumpers whose hearts are rightly placed put 110% into Rockabilly jaunts that aren't one solitary lick ashamed of their Country heritage -- a characteristic that waves howdy hi from each bent-string barn stomp.

Recommended: "Don't Be Square," "Long Tall Jeannie," "Wide River," "Longin' For Your Smile," "You Believe Everyone But Me"

Videos: "Don't Be So Square" "Long Tall Jeannie" "Longin' For Your Smile" "You Believe Everyone But Me"

Alan Vega

Deluxe Edition

(Sacred Bones Records)

Alan "Vega" Bermowitz died only months ago. His and Suicide partner Martin Rev's 1970s NYC synth/vocals/rhythm box ear-graffiti repulsed/seduced like a pile-up you could neither bear to scrutinize nor turn from. It was, in passages, that good. On his own, Alan continued to turn loose the Rockabilly gleeps and throat-catch histrionics for which he was infamous. The synth was replaced by more orthodox guitar/bass/percussion, and arrangements largely respected tradition. Still, unanniness roamed shadows.

Included are seven demo versions. Available as CD, digital, and black-splatter vinyl.

Recommended: "Jukebox Babe," "Kung Foo Cowboy," "Fireball," "Speedway," "Ice Drummer," "Bye Bye Bayou"

Videos: "Jukebox Babe" "Kung Foo Cowboy" "Ice Drummer" "Bye Bye Bayou" live (1:01:39 London 1986)

The Coffin Fits

There's a Snake in My Boot(leg) Digital

(Self-issued)

Cooked up in an Enzed Garage, spookiness rides the wild surf. Triple-time snare hustles, while ominous acoustic negotiations explore long-desolate and spider-webbed manses. Voices suddenly pounce; the lead is surly, the chorus ones, spectral.

Recommended: "Crankenstein," "Baby I've Changed," "Werewolf Island," "Poltergassed," "Mortal Acoustic"

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Nine Lives

"Tomorrow's a better day!" Antti reassures. Knocking negativism into the rearview is friend Rockabilly, its shoe-leather swing irresistable. Versed-in-Goneness axe-choppers tip incomers as to how best to deal in heptitude, their slap-back hedonism given surplus sinew by cameo saxophone exploits.

Video: "Keep On Keeping On"

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Blue Light Records

Zotal

Indignation glides atop punch-chords, under which head-thrashings of resoluteness pound incessantly. Cool as ice, a declarer shoots commentary in brusque espanol.

Video: "Fascistis agudo (Hate At First Sting)"

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Xonix Records

American Patrol go Ameripolitan

AP General Jerry Sikorski tells me he just entered his group's "I Ain't Never Been a Cheater" in the Rockabilly classification of the Dale Watson-founded Ameripolitan's 2027 Award competition.

Previous awards winners include Nick Curran, Kyle Eldridge, Jane Rose, The Lucky Stars, and Nic Roulette.

In reviewing AP's recent platter last May, I wrote "Sandburg's line about coming in on 'little cat feet' has no relevance here. Opening track 'I Ain't Never Been a Cheater' makes like a lion with its tail stuck in a wall socket."

"I Ain't Never Been a Cheater" (live)

The Ameripolitan Awards nomination period is now open, and will remain so until late summer / early fall. Nominees can be put forward not only by bands themselves, but also by peers and fans.

Following the nomination term's conclusion, top nominees will be compiled. Official voting on final nominees will end in October or November. General Ballot Blaster voting will then be open until late December or early January.

The Ameripolitan Awards ceremony is set for February.

Ameripolitan

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Canada's Bopcats echo onward

Popular-music mavens will recount that the 1980s Rockabilly Revival had geographically scattered jitter-bop paragons. Upstart indices could be located in NewYork, California, London, Japan, and many points beyond.

Canada's Bopcats warrant recollection, to speak nothing of evergreen appreciation. Tim "Sonny" Baker. Teddy Fury. Zeke Rivers. Jack de Keyzer. Men of rampage.

"They call themselves the Bopcats," a 1981 CBC reporter explained. "And for three years they've been squeezing out a high brand of Rockabilly in and around Toronto."

"I think the American Rockabilly is a lot more honest...," drummer Teddy told the CBC interviewer. "We approach it with a sense of today, same as the Stray Cats."

Theirs was a fervent assault that laced belovedly familiar genre gesticulations with full-on firepower that bespoke Punk uproar. Country-tinted numbers provided pacific ease between pummelings. Bopcats' drag-out fashion of bopping the Blues was fierce enough to trigger burg-wide sirens.

"Rock'n'Roll is really the only kind of music I really know. I've always really liked it," Zeke told a 1982 TV interviewer. "We don't really play solid, old Rockabilly. We more like to play Rock'n'Roll with Rockabilly Roots."

"What we do is basically, it's our own stuff," Sonny added. "And it's quite contemporary."

s/t (1980)

Notable tracks: "Rockin' a Dream," "Kiss Goodbye," "Down the Line," "Let's Go," "Buddy This Is It (the Stand)," "Don't Say Sorry," "Rainbow Girl," "Cool Off Baby"

An exhilerating freshness was announced by opening changes, which turned and shifted with acrobatic alacrity. To be sure, one sussed underlying hillbillies-on-juice bent, but youthful agitation and vernacular did their parts to tear away old-ways cobwebs.

Being rockers of sound bloods, of course, they tore up Feathers' "One Hand Loose" and Buddy's 1956 "Down the Line." And in the combustible combo's hands, Tiny Bradshaw's 1951 "Train Kept A-Rollin'" came out like a blade-swinger's snarl.

One sensed the Bopcats had never encountered a genre staple they couldn't grab hold of and pump up with intoxicating New Day oxygen.

"Buddy This Is It" scooted down the clay road with home-folks' tunefulness that surely would set woods on fire. More relaxed and emotive, "Don't Say Sorry" shone tenderly.

A most propitious introductory platter.

Videos: "Rockin' a Dream" "Buddy This is It (the Stand)" "Rainbow Girl"

Wild Jungle Rock (1982)

Songs etched into the LP's wax bore out Sonny's words with hand-standing exclamation points. As had been so of their debut, regard for vintage stylings stalked the deck alongside new and brash-out-loud creatures. Titles like "Too Fast Past," "Dressed to Kill," "Train Called Rock'n'Roll," "Earthquake," and the titular barnstorm showed off rockers versed in Then, hip to the Punk Now, and possessed of a wicked ferality they thoroughly dug throwing into everyone's agape mugs.

Too, interspersed amongst the unleashed ravers were Countrified charm ("Home to Me") and the somewhat more Bluesish "What Did I Do Last Night?"

Videos: "Wild Jungle Rock" (live) "Dressed to Kill" "What Did I Do Last Night?" "Earthquake"

(In 1993, Attic released both Bopcats' LPs on CD. Appended to tracks, in the place of "Earthquake," was the Rock Angels' "Calling All Girls," penned by de Keyzer. No related video could be located.)

But the global gush of acclaim the Bopcats merited never materialized. Cynics (myself being in that number) would credit that as illustrating life's inexplicable unfairness.

Following the foursome's 1983 dissolution, some members briefly worked as new combo Rock Angels (absolutely not to be confused with annoying Bratz dolls' Rock Angelz.). All found divergent paths beckoning.

Drummer Teddy Fury cast his lot with the Royal Crowns, with whom he recorded numerous discs, and became one of Canada's finest bartenders. Fretboard hitman Jack de Keyzer issued numerous Blues safaris, becoming one of the Great White North's finest Blues purveyors. (Twice, Jack pocketed Juno awards, and seven times Maple Blues ones.)

Royal Crowns videos: "Badlands" (live 2011) "Caveman Boogie" (live 2012)

Jack de Keyzer videos: "I Want to Rock With You" (live circa 2007) "On the Money"

The eventual careers of Sonny Baker and Zeke Rivers, per online research, did not involve performing. Sonny was said to have abandoned his post-Bopcats R&B/Soul band Ten to Midnight, and settled into retail and managerial labor with Sunrise Records.

Zeke took an altogether unlikely course that resulted in a Ph. D and teaching sociology and criminal justice in Massachusetts. (Long since absent by then, I'm certain, was the lofty ebony pomp and forehead-obscuring waterfall the bass agitator had once sported.)

What could have / should have graced sales charts and glossy magazine covers, then, is today but a memory -- though one relished by collectors of hot vinyl; we dig that cool notes can be forever heard.

Some two decades ago, while preparing a piece about Teddy's Royal Crowns, I spied an online notice that three CDs of live Bopcats performances (recorded directly from the soundboard) were newly on the market. I bought one from the seller, whose name was unknown to me, and explained I planned to review it.

Upon learning of my intention, the seller -- merely a "friend" of the Bopcats, he insisted -- sent the remaining two for free. (I did review the discs for Marc Bristol's Blue Suede News.)

I related that exchange to Teddy during a subsequent online conversation. The drummer replied that it was in fact, surely, bassist Zeke himself.

"If you catch him on a good day," Teddy emailed. "He'll tell you about his Rock'n'Roll past. But if you catch him on a bad day -- and it sounds like you did -- he'll deny having been in the group and say he was only a friend."

(Note: "Zeke Rivers" is too close to the name "Deke Rivers" -- Elvis' Loving You character, to be innocently coincidental.)

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Sunday, August 16, 2026

The Riptides

Who Goes There EP

(Pirates Press Records)

This ain't no poofter Pop domestication of the Punk impulse four bowl-haircut ne'er-do-wells from Forest Hills once kindled. In a mere quartet of deafening, scant bursts, belligerently prideful maple-leaf bully-boys rampage over the hill and into the ferocity abyss.

Recommended: "Inadequate," "Dumb It Down," "Bad Decisions," "Proud to Be a Canadian"

Videos: "Inadequate" "Proud to Be a Canadian"

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Pirates Press Records

Pääesiintyjät

Yövuoro, Twist and Twang live EP

(Bluelight Records)

Neo-Rockabilly takes its mail at this address. Commencing reliably rockaround matters is a faithful reading of Matchbox's "Put the Blame on Me," and goodbye (for the moment) arrives as a cover of Lee Hazlewood's "These Boots Were Made for Walking." Between those solid bookends spins a pair of gymnastic originals penned by Finnish-band founder Pete Salomaa. Recorded in action during wee hours on a shake-and-rattle cruise that rolled 'cross the briny main.

Recommended: "Syytӓn itseäin," "Ala ota pitkatukkaa," "Kulkuri," "Saappaat"

Videos: "Ala ota pitkatukkaa" "Kulkuri"

Lucy

Rockarollica III

(Victor Entertainment)

Know that jet-chords blitz, but they hardly travel skyways alone. Lulling mildness explores melodic muses. Chants unite. Dissonant eruptions startle. Involved passages parade past. Rockarollica III pogo-slammed into shop bins some 20 years in its predeccessor's wake. Lucy's initial discs are to be reissued this year, newly remastered and sporting fresh digipak graphics. Too, a tour has been bannered.

Recommended: "Punk the Lucy," "Lazy Crazy," "Hey! Lu," "Halo," "Kacchan Calling," "I So Heavy," "Ino to Cowboy," "Wall Futashikanakabe," "ROCK THE LUCY SHOW"

Videos: "Punk the Lucy" "Halo" "I So Heavy" "Wall Futashikanakabe" "ROCK THE LUCY SHOW"

The Maestros

s/t

(TwoThirds Records)

It would be tempting to characterize these songs as brisk marriages of melody and horsepower, but to do so would imply the qualities were once separate. So one are they, that one suspects union has always been the case. There's just enough Pop sensibility making merry here to lift material above its forcibleness unto tons of fun passion. ("Rolling Stone" nods in the direction of "Manic Depression;" Jimi's inspiration also imprints elsewhere.)

Recommended: "Pump Me Up," "Speed of Light," "Rolling Stone," "Here Tomorrow, Gone Today," "K.O.K.O.," "Today is Gonna Last"

Videos: "Pump Me Up" "Rolling Stone" live 2026 (1:01:40)

Rezurex

It's wholly likely that fleshy hulls devoid of life-spark clawed up through sod to perform a morbid ballet when this rang through chilly blackness.

From 2006 Fiendforce debut Beyond the Grave, now remastered and remixed.

Video: "Black Rose"

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Kathleen Winters & the Checkmates

It's in simplicity that humanity can be best rendered, and often through Blues that the universal condition is made artful.

Video: "Bow on a Bone" Digital track

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Jimmy and the Mustangs: Ducktail oeuvre

1980s California birthed a jitterbop uprising that too often was slighted, as commenters focused more on Robert Gordon, the Stray Cats, and English have-a-go heroes like Graham Fenton and Cavan Grogan. (Of course, not for a moment do I intend to dismiss their significance in the scheme of resurgent twang.)

Ronny Weiser's Rollin' Rock herculian strivings deserve wide approbation. But other West Coast names also merit credit. Like Top Jimmy, Hollywood Fats, and James Intveld.

And Jimmy and the Mustangs.

Hey Little Girl (1982) was the group's virgin wax. Though a dapper Rockabilly firecracker of above-usual gifts, Jimmy Silvers (né Haddox) also knew related night-joint strains of senior vintage. His reanimations of Wynonie Harris, Baker Knight, and Louis Jordan shouters attested to diverse appreciation. He had furious chops that cashed the check his hepcat finery wrote.

Fellow Californian stage-demolisher Jerry Sikorski tore at strings in spectacular manners (as he previously had with Ray Campi at Rollin' Rock, and went on to do with American Patrol). Associated players arched forward with the vigor of battle-ready recruits to a jukebox campaign.

MTV didn't have a clue - but something big was bubbling.

Videos: "Bring Back My Cadillac" (Live TV) "I Want You To Be My Baby" (Live TV) "Let's Dance"

(In 1983, repopulated Mustangs guested on TV comedy Square Pegs.)

MCA / Curb released the 1984, self-titled EP. Two years had elapsed since the auspicious maiden platter, and some alterations were manifested: A pronounced New Wave flair had partially replaced previous vintage honor, and Marshall Rohner had assumed lead guitar duties, as Jerry Sikorski had gone on to American Patrol. (Rohner wielded his guitar like a stilletto.)

The fire remained on highest setting.

A kinetic reading of Kenny Lewis' 1964 novelty "Bad Detective" stormed with righteous enthusiasm (just as it had when covered by the Dolls in '74). All involved here were having a ball, a feature that was also loudly apparent on "I'll Steal For Your Love" and "Stomp." "Justine," perhaps the most frantic headfirst dive included among the six tracks, turned up in the soundtrack of 1984 film Voyage of the Rock Aliens.

The affection for traditional gestures returned in the closing slide-guitar, swaybacked "It's All Over Now" revisitation. Bobby Womack, who had co-written the 1964 Bluesy ambler with sister-in-law Shirley for his group the Valentinos, would surely have nodded approval.

Videos: "Justine" (Official video) "The Pressure's On" (Live TV) "It's All Over Now"

Not illogically, maturity takes a hand in these 2011 (again, self-titled) cuts, though hardly in reserved fashion. Instead, judiciousness leavens proceedings, which are no less grounded in Americana inclinations than before.

Jimmy's voice reveals a wisdom gained through life variously trying and exultant. Assembled around him as he imbues common-man musics with idiosyncratic aplomb are players cut from stout cloth: Tom Coplen (guitar), Dylan Cavaliere (doghouse), John Powell (drums), and Stefano Intelisano (keys). Fiddle and harmonica are added by Heather Rae Johnson and Guy Forsyth.

The maturity previously noted was leashed, though, for "Wanted Man;" that selection rampaged with the gleefulness of any earlier LP's entry.

Videos: "Wanted Man" "How Can I Miss You (If You Won't Go Away)?" "I-35"

The rollicking hijinx and Rock'n'Roll history command that made earlier discs estimable breathes and jumps still, on 2015's Another Round. The disc acquits itself as infectious, animated, and possessed of particular sinew. This was much more than only an undersung name from 1980s neo-Rockabilly rising anew; it testified to enduring powerfulness worth broad regard.

Horns sprawled like tuneful abettors in swinging rollick. "Roll the Dice" stutter-skipped with brim atilt. The swinging nite-spot long-legging that once notoriously marked Sinatra and his Rat Pack confreres (and later a truck driver named Presley) spun and tapped across gleaming dance floors.

"Cherry Bomb" swung straight in behind. 88s were pounded as Rock'n'Roll had its familiar, beloved way with every ear in the joint. Back in saddles were TNT players from the previous studio endeavor. And their pumped-to-nth-degree onrushes (which wisely intuited when to play it cool and when to pour it on) were precisely the launch pad required by Jimmy's outsized personality.

He crooned, soared, and belted like Nudie-shirted gangbusters. Tribute to the Norfolk-birthed Black Leather Rebel "Ready Set Go" romped in manner not unlike "Cruisin'," its impeccably picked dash nimbly turning on silvery FDRs.

Following in brash joyfulness was a passel of tunery in moments rumbustious and, frankly, ineffable. A Sikorski-penned stroll down N'awlins boulevards, "Bourbon Street" unspools to high-stepping fiddle cavortings and bass-string articulations, as Jimmy discloses calm orations.

Fellow vinyl denizens included under-moonbeam ballads and rockers that probably resulted in furniture kicked into splintered kindling.

Established far past reasonable disputation was that seasons that intervened betwixt Hey Little Girl and Another Round had exercised no weakening; muscularity, blood connection to bygone nights' teachings, and love of hipness bombardments remained in full bloom.

So, if you read an account of '80s-forward neo-Rockabilly that makes no mention of Jimmy and the Mustangs' coolness-on-10 oeuvre, throw that book straight through the fucking window.

Videos: "Roll the Dice" "Cherry Bomb" "Ready, Set, Go!" "Bourbon Street"

Wednesday, August 12, 2026

Tami Neilson

Songs from the Motion Picture "Holy Days" EP

(Outside Music)

A voice whose massiveness defies measurement. Tami is all over Aretha's "Are You Sure," bending it into cool Soul shape that demands respect for its emotive gospelizing. Proud-out-loud revival stomp colors "Sister Mavis" no less robustly; that tribute to Mavis Staples and percussive joy "Queenie Queenie" -- a jump-rope chant -- graced Neilson's 2020 Chickaboom; their return for cinematic employ gladdens.

Recommended: "Are You Sure," "Sister Mavis" "Queenie, Queenie"

Video: "Are You Sure" "Sister Mavis" "Queenie, Queenie" (official video)

Hearthill

Rockin' in the Graveyard live

(Bluelight)

"Graveyard Party Blues," revisited here from the group's 1990 studio effort, is the initial single from this 2023 Tavastia tour recording. And a wise selection it was. The brashness, headlong dive (featuring six strings afire), and blunt dispatch are emblematic of an all-players-leaning-in enterprise that may well leave stage boards in splinters.

Recommended: "Graveyard Party Blues," "Lost Paradise," "Gas Station," "I'm Moving," "He's Alright," "Blue Fool," "Shake It Up," "Rock-a-Billy Guy"

Videos: "Graveyard Party Blues" "He's Alright" "Shake It Up"