DC Larson's JUKEBOX JURY

Wednesday, April 9, 2025

Voodoo Tones

Livin' Ain't Easy 4-track EP

(Cleopatra)

This troupe of heroic bearing hefted a pair of Creedence Clearwater Revival and Doors classics to fresh high station. And into the endeavor, they wrought two self-penned stunners of smack-down vivacity. To listen is to be absorbed. No volume is too high.

Lest readers suspect hyperbole, consider those responsible: CM Wolf, Djordje Stijipovic, Danny B. Harvey, and Slim Jim Phantom. Each is a master whose brilliance flares.

Woe be to any who face off with Rock'n'Roll.

Recommended: "Livin' Ain't Easy," "Break On Through (To the Other Side)," "Come On (Let's Dance)," "Sinister Purpose"

Videos: "Livin' Ain't Easy" "Come On (Let's Dance)"

CM Wolf and Danny B. Harvey

Robert Connely Farr

Live At Green Auto

(Self-issued)

"We're gonna take ya'll down South," singer/guitarman Robert drawls at the outset. A sweet journey ensues.

He augments beloved heritage with crisp flair and the on-fire passion of a hard-knocks proselytizer. The absence of polish is appreciated; in plainness, honesty proclaims its compelling case. At Robert's elbow is confederate Jay Bundy Johnson, who surely has yet to meet a drum he didn't show who's boss - on into wee hours.

Offered are 11 slices of genuine down-home Blues, wrung from workaday life that can too often be arduous, both physically and emotionally. But moments can be found that make a man keep on keepin' on.

The pace is unhurried. Deliberate. And exquisitely so, in an each-note-exactly-right way that engenders belly-rubbing night spot couples revolving glacially.

It's sad but so: The Industry too often neuters Blues, sanding away rough edges and rendering it antiseptic in grasping covet of refined markets. Just so, Rockabilly was commodified into inocuousness and, much later, Punk was emasculated into New Wave. Interchangeable Industry operatives despoil every music they touch. The bastards create nothing.

Fortunately, they'll never get a hold on Robert and Jay.

Recommended: "Train Train," "Cadillac Problems," "Just Jive," "Gettin' Tired of Gettin' Old," "Jackson Town," "Mississippi Mud," "Train I Ride," "Po' Black Mattie," "Gasoline"

Video: "Train Train" (live) "Gettin' Tired of Gettin' Old"

Piss Poor

Bad Words EP

(DieHipster!Records)

Easily among the more volcanic works this reviewer has assayed of late. Even during sporadic measured moments, Molotov-cocktail formidability is so threateningly implied as to send cautious sorts dashing for shelter. And when all hell does bust wide, when ears spurt crimson, the four culprits survey the surrounding wreckage and sneer their disdain.

(One notes approvingly that singer Freddy Automatic sometimes vents histrionic caterwauling once the emblem of Johnny Rotten.)

Recommended: "Raw Meat," "Hallow Eyes," "Couldn't Find You"

Videos: "Raw Meat" "Couldn't Find You"

Die Hipster!

Bandcamp

Back In the Day, 1961

Roy Lanham

The Most Exciting Guitar vinyl

(Dolton Records)

Suitable for nightspot long-leggers and others desirous of astral projection. By the 1959 recording of this masterwork (which went unreleased for two years), Roy had already amassed credits with icons including the Delmore Brothers, Roy Rogers, Jimmy Patton, and Hank Penny. (Later confreres included the Burnette brothers - separately - Johnny Horton, and Jim Reeves.) Bassist Red Wooten and drummer Earl Palmer (himself since of legendary status) fell in with Roy to produce this wondrous document - eminently polished, dirt-road and Jazz-mannered musings in which slyly darting string-touches and lush passages fly adherents to the stars.

This was reissued in 1981 by Bear Family.

Recommended: "Lost Weekend," "Where Or When," "Body and Soul," "Song of India," "A Smooth One," "These Foolish Things," "Steel Guitar Rag," "Lover Come Back To Me," "As Time Goes By," "Wildwood Flower," "Kerry Dance," "Old Joe Clark"

Video: "Where Or When" "A Smooth One" "Steel Guitar Rag" "Wildwood Flower"

Sunday, April 6, 2025

Koffin Kats

Higher Lows

(Self-issued)

Detroit's seasoned Kats evince the rumbustiousness of first-timers, though aerodynamics are tempered by ace craftsmen's knacks. Mongers acidic, sometimes witty observations in lieu of the monsterism often prevalent in Psycho. (No negative note in either direction, that; each offers peculiar bounty.)

Recommended: "Happy Hour," "Higher Lows," "From the Light," "Black Box," "Tuning In," "Way Out There," "Ride Like Hell"

Videos: "Way Out There" "Higher Lows" live at Camp Punksylvania, 2024

The Rumjacks

Dead Anthems

Danny Boy three-track EP

(FOUR FOUR)

In two 2025 releases, and to the surprise of no one (but the elation of all), the Rumjacks persevere down prized path, locating and holding up the commonality of airs ancestral and others roaringly crisp. Every sudsy mug is waved aloft, and hearty shouts are belted lustily, as fellowship is rejoiced in and life's vexations are kicked the hell out back.

And that is sufficient to accrue lofty recommendation. But, as acolytes understand, there is much more than compelling musics to be got from Rumjacks' works. Massive heart enriches, and world-taught wisdom bears heed.

Recommended, Dead Anthems: "Come Hell Or High Water," "Smash Them Bottles," "Cold Like This" (feat. Ken Casey of Dropkick Murphys), "October," "Father's Fight," "Eye For An Eye," "Some Legends Never Die"

Recommended, Danny Boy: "Danny Boy," "Face the World," "Were You Waiting"

Videos: "Come Hell Or High Water" "Cold Like This" "Eye For An Eye" "Danny Boy"

Screamin' Sins

Living Nightmares

(Self-issued)

It's gratifying that the three perpetrators under consideration chose to continue in the vein of their 2024 Haven For the Damned; bluntly muscular and limber-limbed spectacle, leavened by macabre cultivation. Rugged deploy is enveloped in ghostly echo, further conveying sepulchral aspect. Creep beneath the shelter of this ghastly crazy quilt, constructed as it is from shreds of Psycho, Goth, Swamp Blues, and Punk detritus, and know that spleneticism and desolateness lurk, maws adrip.

In the marble orchard, soil is upheaved.

Recommended: "The Hills Have Eyes," "Living Dead," "Love You To Death," "Nightmare," "Haunted Dreams," "Curse On You"

Video: Living Nightmares promo "Six Feet Under" (from Haven For the Damned)