Handsome Dick Manitoba

Back On Broadway   7" vinyl EP 

(Heavy Medication / Ghost Highway / Take the City)

It's clobberin' time.

Since 1975's The Dictators Go Girl Crazy (Epic) first perched on shop shelves, Handsome Dick has been the prototypical Punk band's global visage. Given those decades of branding, surviving members' current attempted relaunch without their storied frontman is as futile as would be a 'new' Stones without Sir Mick.

His 2019 solo debut, Born In the Bronx (Liberation Hall), heralded the larger-than-life, one-man power crisis's return in limber fettle. As affably bombastic as ever, he tossed off brash attitude with pipes undiminished by seasons; it was as if the seventies' wise-cracking Two Tub Man was again charging from a turnbuckle. Dynamic, metallic robustness raged at each turn. It was a colorful opus whose alternating textures and ambitions satiated.

As Back on Broadway attests, he is unmolested still by the calendar. Brusque and blasting. The wall-bouncing life of the party assembled an urban squad of formidable torpedoes. Frank Meyer (Streetwalkin' Cheetahs), Scotty Slam (Circus of Power), Michael Butler (Jetboy), and Craig Berhost (Two-Bit Thief) forge and maintain a hard-line propulsive force no counter could best. Chords crush, changes unspool with lightning-flash drama.

Notable, too, is his clever way with a lyrical pen. The sunglassed brawler can contrive swaggering japes with the finest on offer. Self-penned studio cuts "Back on Broadway" and "DeLuise Nation" split waxen turf with Dictators tune "Savage Beat" and "The Party Starts Now," a free-for-all from the Manitoba's Wild Kingdom era.

Handsome Dick's trophy-belt possession remains undisputed. 

Recommended: "Back On Broadway," "The Party Starts Now" (live), "DeLuise Nation," "Savage Beat" (live)

Video: "DeLuise Nation" (live at Bowery Electric, 2021, w/saxophonist Arno Hecht)

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Kid James

"Bewildered"   single

(Wild Records)

As he recently evidenced at Viva Las Vegas, Kid James embodies all the flames and crazily hopping dervishness with which classical Rockabilly punched its way through 1950s' staid popular music ethos. "Bewildered" is a sterling stage for him to mount his talents. Throwing out lyrics in growls, jackhammer exclamations, and histrionic whoops, he attacks electrified strings in paroxysmal abandon that befits the flat-gone bop agitator he devastatingly is.

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Zabilly

"Mobilete"   single

(Self-issued)

Issued in the afterdraft of Psycho killers like "Seca Sovaco" and "Acenei e Sorri," Zabilly's crispest barrels with soundly slapped double-bass in its proper upfront location. Of course, it's hardly alone: serpentine guitar strikes, skins battered insistently, and sneers en español proclaim their coarse virtues in 3:27 of ruggedness replete with gang shouts.

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Tommy Ellsworth and his Rockin' Jesters

The Hertz Sessions

(Self-issued)

These never-issued songs were put to tape in 1963. Tom Nazziola ("Tommy Ellsworth") led a combo through gracious turns that exemplied Rock'n'Roll in an evolutionary stage. Southern-spawned Rockabilly's rip-snorting defiance had by then conceded real-estate to more widely accessible tunefulness that bespoke the influence of Northern inclinations and lacquered crooning. As apparent here, such smooth gestures harbored their own especial magnetism. 

Endeavors benefiting from majestic harmonies and genteel instrumentation predominate. They cast shine on Tom's personable vocals, ones for which no note exceeds grasp. Sporadic inclusion of uptempo, somewhat sterner jaunts points up resourcefulness. 

Singer Nazziola's son Tom recently discovered the reel-to-reel masters in storage. And together with his brother Jay, Tom the younger has now made these available in CD and streaming formats.

Recommended: "Every Day I Have to Cry," "Raining in My Heart," "Little Town Flirt," "Charms," "Your Lips," "If I Had a Hammer," "Black and Blue," "The Right to Love," "True Love Ways," "If You Wanna Be Happy," "Take Good Care of My Baby," "Every Day I Have to Cry" (background vocals version)

Videos: "Every Day I Have to Cry"   "Your Lips"   "Take Good Care of My Baby"    "Little Town Flirt"

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Guitar Slingers

Six String Bandit   digital album

(Diablo Records)

Doyley just uploaded Guitar Slingers' 2010 second release to Bandcamp, for digital marketing. Within these grooves breathes the misbegotten issuance of Psycho and Punk having made Shakespeare's "beast with two backs." (Brisk Swing and Mex airs also thrust legs 'round the back-curtain, in striking cameos.) For happy lunatics, knowledge that Doyley stars is sufficient to mandate purchase. But the illustrious axeman/producer/label magnate was abetted by a slew of wicked co-conspirators: Names like Fantomas, Koefte, Daniel De Leon, and Nigel Lewis further spur wallet grabs. As those culpable despoil others' fabrications, electricity seethes with peculiar toxicity. 

Recommended: "The Bandit," "Django Meets Bastardo," "Seven Deadly Sins," "Red Hot Rockin' Blues," "Don't Blame Me," "High Heel Sneakers," "Right Now," "Mexicali Baby," "Can't Catch Me," "Madame Oscar," "Bop a Lena," "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock Ya," "Momento Di Uccidere"

Videos: "Seven Deadly Sins"   "Bop a Lena"   "Mexicali Baby"

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Atomic Drifters

Atomic Man   EP

(Self-issued)

Small wonder, that Viva Las Vegas 26 habitués tapped to this outfit's output; they and attendees were of one blood. Slouched Country disposition here imbues tunes whose jumped-up manners leave zero question about their rightness for that venue. Cowboy hats and cat music in hep symbiosis.

Recommended: "Atomic Man," "Come With Me," Devil In My Mirror"

Videos: "Atomic Man"   "Come With Me" (live)   

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The Hammer Horrors

Creepy Cocktail

(Self-issued)

Delectable creepiness resounds off gray-stone walls, but that's only half the good news unveiled. The remainder is that the wretches who grabbed up angry instruments, having left shackles dangling, perpetrate strange savageries at once titillating and deleterious to moral being. If songs seem to pass quickly, that's because time flies when you're up to no good.

Recommended: "The Shape in the Shadows," "Tombstone Shuffle," "Creepy Cocktail," "Hot Bitch From Hell," "Friday Night Frightmare," "Every Dead Thing Needs a Hole," "Just Buried," "Bloodmobile," "Sundown In Bloodtown," "Beast"

Videos: "Tombstone Shuffle"   "Just Buried"   "Beast"

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