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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"


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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"


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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"


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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.)

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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)


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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)


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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"


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About Me

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FORMER staff writer for Rockabilly and Pin Up America magazines. FREELANCE credits include Daily Caller, American Thinker, Free Republic, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Independent Political Report, USA Today, Des Moines Register, Iowa City Press-Citizen, Waterloo Courier, Cedar Falls Times, Marshalltown Times Republican, Cincinnati.com, IndyStar, Arizona Republic, No Depression, Goldmine, Blue Suede News, Rock and Rap Confidential, Crackerjack, Blues News, Wrecking Pit, Punk Globe, Prairie Sun, Music and Sound Output, BAM, New Music, and 1980s NYC fanzines Shake, Rattle, and Roll, Rebel Rouser, and Off the Wall. AUTHOR: Shake, Rattle and Rocket!, Ghost Saucers in the Sky!, Stratosphere Boogieman!, Flesh Made Music, That a Man Can Again Stand Up: American spirit vs, sedition during the incipient Trump Revolution, and Ideas Afoot: Political observations, social commentary, and media analyses. WORKED as 2004 Iowa coordinator for Ralph Nader independent presidential campaign; co-founded Iowa Green Party, also served as statewide media coordinator; press coordinator, 2002 Jay Robinson (Green) IA gubernatorial effort. Wrote extensively re Trump campaign..