Jared Petteys & the Headliners
Rockabillaque Two-track disc, digital or vinyl
(Rumble Road)
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.
Jared Petteys & the Headliners
Rockabillaque Two-track disc, digital or vinyl
(Rumble Road)
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.)
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"