The Big Black Bugs

The brass-knuckled roundhouse thrown is precisely what can be expected from ex-members of the Spastiks: Headlong. Resolute. Airtight. (Bass-wrestler Jorg also slaps for the Grims.)

Video: "Spider Baby" (live 1:00 excerpt)

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Geoffrey Miller

Geoffrey Miller and the Rockin' Rousers   digital and vinyl

(Self-issued)

The dust on Geoffrey's boot heels is hardscrabble certification of the pickin' bard's genuineness. From his songcraft pen and home-folks- affable guitaring flow good-humored, sway-backed, sittin'-on-the-fence minstrelsy that could raise up a barn or dig for kicks in a neon-flashing big city with nary a care, save for that specially warm honey. 

When I glimpsed song title "Meanwhile Back at the Ranch," I guessed Geoffrey would be having a time with the Buck Owens classic. Chalk that in my loss column. Turned out to be a sprawling instrumental during which the man whose name adorns the cover shuffled sophisticated dirt-road licks and dealt them out like a cowboy-hatted croupier.

To quote Ferlin Husky in Hillbillys in a Haunted House: "He picks a mean guitar!"

Recommended: "Don't Shake My Heart," "So Goes the Nation," "Good Morning Blues," "The Whip," "You're There," "Can't Catch a Star," "Meanwhile Back at the Ranch," "California Shakes"

Videos: "Don't Shake My Heart" (live)   "So Goes the Nation"   "The Whip"   "Meanwhile Back at the Ranch"

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Todd Arita and his West End Poets

Hired Gun Trio's guitar ace Todd dedicated this wiser-for-the-aching plaint to his late mother, an act whose respectfulness finds fellowship in 3:54 of expansive, swingalong meditation.

Video: "Isn't Life Grand"

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OP ED

E.P. by OP ED

(Self-issued)

All thunderslaps are concise and race furiously, tuneful architecture stabbing gray matter.

Recommended: "Poetry About Narcotics," "Inept Pimps," "Subordinate," "Death Wish"

Video: live August 2025 (Four songs, two from above EP)

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Jinx Jones: Fire forever    

                        

Californian Jinx Jones's status as fretboard royalty is beyond dispute. Last March, he issued his 7th disc, Under the Neon Moon. 

In reviewing it at the time, I wrote: "Bow low when entering the palace chamber. Jinx pulls up a pillowed seat at the same roundtable as Barry Ryan, Chris Spedding, George Benson, and Danny B. Harvey. (From yon wall, gilded portraits of lamented heroes like Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, Matt Murphy, Jimmy Bryant, Danny Cedrone, Charlie Christian, Danny Gatton, and Franny Beecher peer down on proceedings.)"

Globally famed as a breath-stealing picker both encyclopedic and devastating, he's on first-name terms with outer planets of bop nonpareil. Whereas others might have left the Rockabilly / Country trail he's ridden to fame -- to assay styles more sanctified by clef-note gray-beards -- Jinx stayed put and unburdened himself of serrated thunderbolts that parted pomps and frizzed Bettie bangs.

His journey to current renown was paved with experiences that both seasoned and informed him. 

Beginning in 1976, he backed legends Solomon Burke and Howard Bomar. He then worked in one of Chuck Berry's regional touring bands. During the mid-1980s, Jinx backed Roy Buchanan in concert.

Subsequent studio session toils led to Jinx playing both guitar and bass on the 1992 En Vogue hit "Free Your Mind."

Over these years, he developed a musical voice inclusive of the finest of Americana past, his own novel articulations lending piquance. 

With seeming ease, he divines the blood fraternity of Rockabilly, Western Swing, Blues, Jazz, and Honky Tonk, dazzling with furious note-bursts one moment and in the next, spinning glorious strands of wondrous and untethered imaginings.

Imagine an advanced fretboard textbook on 10. Listeners are surely thunderstruck by Jinx's authoritative command of labyrinthine note aggregates, lightning-fleet navigations, and esoteric chordal modes. One intuits they are in the twang-upholstered, Jazzy Court of a flat-gone monarch, one for whom fair Aoede is a favored midnight-hour ship.

Jinx's Under the Neon Moon holds gripping wonders for both his established audience and untouched ears. Ecstatic notes are bent, jabbed, and fired off at jet velocity. Fierce and wooly barn-dancin' bop drops by the bale, but gentler moments also croon.

"Hittin' the Hard Stuff," "Cadillac Love Machine," and "Million Dollar Fool" point up his flair with spring-heeled rambles and wry (sometimes self-effacing) wit. Instrumental odysseys like "Prelude Noir," "Duane's Train," and "Neon Moonlight" allow Jinx the elbow room to expand at length upon artful musings.

Honky Tonk expressiveness and rumbustious Rockabilly exhortations were colorfully integrated with ebullient bursts of Jazz-inflected phrasings. . 

Now, it's not uncommon for artists to cool down once they're a few discs into recording careers. Perhaps they lose something of their initial creative fire.

But not Jinx. Never Jinx. I don't believe he'll ever lose the fire.

Videos: "License To Twang"   "Redneck Barbie"   "Cadillac Love Machine"   "Neon Moonlight"

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 Carl Sonny Leyland

Carl Sonny Leyland's Blues   digital album

(Self-issued)

Admittedly, the Recommended list below isn't fully accurate, in that all 15 selections harbor fascinations worth appreciation. No words need be spent introducing the starring 88s maestro; Carl's renown is already global. Suffice it to say, a million roots-rhythm aspirants, going to town on a million ivories for a million years, would only be wasting their time striving to top these improvised hots and colds. Roll 'em, Carl.

Recommended: "Bouncin' Boogie," "Badland Meander," "Just Raggin'," "Deep, Dark, and Stormy," "Strolling Through Life," "Gyrate at a High Rate,"  "Enchanted Drifter," "Good King Albert," "8 Bars to Home,"  "CSL Walks the Boogie"

No related Videos were available at presstime. Here's Carl at the 2024 San Francisco Boogie Woogie festival. And here's another clip.

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The Phantom A.D.

Revenge of...the Phantom A.D.

(Rock N Rhythm Records)

He never drinks...wine. Here in the Phantom A.D.'s cobwebbed, latex-monster hood, darkness is a 24/7 proposition. Splenetic chords race like risen-from-beneath, demolition terrors, hip to the ways of lost avenues Rock'n'Roll. Swirling his cape while surfing atop a saucer, The Phantom A.D. growls enunciations that bespeak horrors good men know not. Martin Milner scrambles for exit, though Mickey "Bip Bop Boom" Hawks and Shadowman Link stick around where the action is.

Change for the strange, it comes: In months before us, the Phantom A.D. will unfurl finger-popping bizzaritude across Norman Rockwell's placid middle states.

(Backstage, respect is due Isaac Rother. The man behind this all is a prolific composer, shaper of six-string stimulations, and master contriver of monstery kicks.)

Recommended: "Revenge of the Phantom," "Spider Baby," "Chainsaw Rock," "Alley of Terror," "13 Ghosts (in Illusion-O)," "Phantom's Rumble," "Mark of the Vampire," "Gator's Grin"

Videos: "Spider Baby"   "Chainsaw Rock"   "13 Ghosts (in Illusion-O)"   "Phantom's Rumble"   "Gator's Grin"

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Magic Sands

Limón y Agua

(Hi-Tide Recordings)

Many travel agents, posters of exotic destinations adorning office walls, could doubtlessly convey you to Kona, Hawai'i's Magic Sands, reputedly the world's most dangerous beach. (Riptides, shorebreak,  and all.) But know that the present Los Angelino combo, sharing that and-still they-come tourist-spot's name, can do so faster and cheaper. Hawai'i's ancient charms roll forth in wonderment, as strings are plucked and strummed with a dignity that is all the more intriguing for its mum knowingness. Percussions of island, exotica, and Latin characters induce pleasing physical inclinations. August ambience is further embellished by piano-key judiciousness. 

Sun disappears far across blue vastness, as ti leaf-wrapped pigs roast beneath earth in kālua enterprise. Mesmeric airs waft through evening air, and hula voluptuousness undulates.

Hi-Tide has specified a June 26 release date. Orange and green vinyl versions in gatefold jackets, with collectable obi strips, will be marketed in 200-unit limited edition.

What travel agent could offer all that?

Recommended: "Hawai'i Kai," "Vaquero," "Night in the Medina," "Mahina," "Back Door," "Hawai'i Kai," "Limón y Agua," "Baja Norte"

Videos: "Hawai'i Kai"    "Vaquero"   "Payout"   "Mahina" 

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Jerry Sikorski and American Patrol

s/t

(Self-issued)

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. That rollick and following ones teem with executive guitar navigations, piano and brass tear-it-ups, and a rhythm section tag team at once poised and dynamic. Swinging baby-moonabilly/jazz-snazz forays predominate, though affairs sometimes downgrade for pensiveness evocative of smoke-clouded, dimly lit nightspots. Plank specialist Jerry's vocals and songcraft are of their usual lofty rank. He's eminently able to loosen his collar and "go native" in grinning, growling fashion. 

You can bet your hat - we got a date Saturday with American Patrol.

Recommended: "I Ain't Never Been a Cheater," "Just Like You," "You're Everything and Then Some," "Blue by You," "It's Me You're Gonna Lose," "Tears Are Falling," "Love Fixes," "Bourbon Street," "Little Baby"

Videos: "Tears Are Falling" (clip)    

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Aaron Burnham and the Brushfires

smoke & mirrors

(Self-issued)

Four Bakersfieldian Jacks is a winning hand, according to Opry Hoyley. Sharp in Country gentleman attire, pasteboards two-step across the table. Pulling in winnings ("Come to Papa") and squiring home-and-hearth dollies - livin' the low life ain't so bad, a'tall.

Recommended: "High Life," "Runaround," "Crazy for My Daisy," "Alleycattin'," "Gussy Up," "Smoke and Mirrors," "In With the New" (album version), "I Only Smoke When I Drink," "Lonely Bottle Blues," "Salinas," "Dynamite"

Videos: "High Life"   "Crazy for My Daisy"   "I Only Smoke When I Drink"   "Dynamite"

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Brandon Wayne & His Lonesome Drifters

The broken everyman's shoulders slumped, as he leaned against the Seeburg. A nearly empty bottle of house whiskey was his sole pal. Digging in a pocket, he fed another coin into the juke, and selected Brandon's latest. For the seventh time.

Video: "Swimming in the Bottle"   

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Lil' Mo & the Dynaflos

Fronted by a siren with angelic tones capacity, a trio of doo-woppers, straight from beneath some Bop Street lamp post, urge tender confederacy. Players with PHDs in hepness spin understated merriment - with saxophone piquancy - ensuring embrace.

Video: "Let's Fall in Love"

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The Star Mountain Dreamers

Rawboned humanity thrashes in roots pugnacity; studio tech contrivances scramble down the road, lest they be stomped flat.

Video: "Trail Burnin'"  

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Back in the Day, 1979

Ray Campi

Rockabilly Rebellion

(Rollin' Rock)

Each time you drop a needle on gone wax, remember that Ray and Rollin' Rock's Ronny Weiser were very much among 1970s (and beyond) Rockabilly Rebels whose indefatigable toils helped the wildcat sound rise again. Since his 1950s Texas ramblings, Ray bore feral witness to homestyle Country's prominence in the glorious Red White and Blue story - often with hot-rodded, handerchief-waving abandon that dug the cool things possible when Sol sinks. Tracks compiled on this platter are good-time, good-humored evidence that the bar on the corner of Sunset, where Country and Rockabilly met up and shook hands, was one fractured destination. Indie label-maven Rockin' Ronny and the King of Rockabilly threw hellacious Van Nuys bashes - ones we still can and should dig.

Recommended: "Tore Up," "Ballin' Keen," "Don't Get Pushy," "Pinball Millionaire," "Eager B-B-Beaver Boy," "Georgia Slop," "You Don't Rock'n'Roll At All," "One Part Stops Where the Other Begins," "Dual Wheels No Brakes," "Rockin' and Rollin' Towards Tennessee"

Videos: "Ballin' Keen"   "Pinball Millionaire"   "Dual Wheels No Brakes"   "Rockin' and Rollin' Towards Tennessee"

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Pat Todd & the Rankoutsiders

A One-Sided Affair   one-sided, six-song, 12" clear vinyl

(Ghost Highway Recordings)

Crank stereo volume to utmost reaches. "Classical, 1970s-type Hard Rock" might be the assessment offered by someone ignorant of the music's evergreen bounty. Of course, guitar-powered tunes featuring rocket-fueled rhythm sections and too-devastational-to-ignore vocal bombardments give absolutely zero damns about any calendar that Hallmark might roll out. Wild don't age. Those wise enough to search out this disc will thrill to a succession of tunes whose muscles ripple, and which are greatly more planet-splittingly powerful than the insipid music product churned by faceless production gadgetry. Being alive kicks ass!

Recommended: "Mercy," "If Love is Outta Style," "Like Trash on the Ground," "Hey 2 Face"

Videos: "Mercy"   "Like Trash on the Ground"   "Hey 2 Face"

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Jinx Jones

Under the Neon Moonlight

(Vibrosound)

Bow low, when entering the palace chamber. Jinx pulls up a pillowed seat at the same roundtable as Barry Ryan, Chris Spedding, George Benson, and Danny B. Harvey. (From yon wall, gilded portraits of lamented heros like Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, Matt Murphy, Jimmy Bryant, Danny Cedrone, Charlie Christian, Danny Gatton, and Franny Beecher peer down on proceedings.) The guitar case Jinx hefts is festooned with stickers proclaiming genres from which he samples, an idiosyncratic admixture the end product. Jazz accentings daub passages as only they can. Rockabilly assertions jump up. Blues pensiveness murmurs. Even Bakersfield Country contributes. Beribboned cavalier Jinx renders them as coalesced body, and they celebrate spectacularly. 

Recommended: "Prelude Noir," "Rumble Street," "Get Out of This Place Alive," "Hittin' the Hard Stuff," "Duane's Train," "Cadillac Love Machine," "Neon Moonlight," "Million Dollar Fool," "Western Orange," "Lookin' for My Next Mistake," "Flippin' My Lid," "Love Letter from North Beach"

Videos: "Duane's Train"   "Cadillac Love Machine"   "Neon Moonlight"   "Million Dollar Fool"   "Western Orange"

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The Blasters

s/t, Non Fiction, Hard Line

(Slash / Liberation Hall)

The Blasters' three Slash LPs, now thankfully reissued by Liberation Hall, represent some of the 1980s Neo-Rockabilly crusade's finest exponents. 

Solid grounding in Blues truths was every bit as hardwired into their muscular exertions as were dirt-road joints' bucolic animations.

Dave Alvin threw flashing fires packed with twangs from his Strat. He also evidenced himself as a song-craftsman with one alligator shoe in vintage Americana tune idioms, and the other in a many-shelved library.

Bill Bateman, Gene Taylor, and John Bazz acquited themselves with such passions (all the while confidently showing their respective instruments who was boss) that kids beholding them doubtless caught the bug. (That's how Rock'n'Roll works.) 

Adding their own sax magics to all three discs were OG Lee Allen (whose majestry exists into perpetuity in scores of vital vintage waxings) and Steve Berlin, himself a cut-above brass actionist. Better bopping through honking.

Brother Phil crooned every melody and touched all notes with enviable mastery. As if it were easy. But his bulging temple veins, and the perspiration rivulets demarcating facial features like interstates on an unfolded map, let the cat escape the bag.

They were the real article, while all around were flamboyant money-machine contrivances. Flock of Seagulls, Eurythmics, Madonna, and a slew of interchangeable MTV manikens had limited shelf life. 

The Blasters offered desperately craved, rocked-to-the-nth-degree celebration, in an otherwise airless and formulaic music environment. Genuine humanity was in scant supply. They brought it. Oh, brother, did they.

Plus, with each chord, note, and downbeat, they kept in glorious dynamism stylings crafted by elders like Rudy Toombs, Jimmy Rodgers, Little Willie Johns, and Big Joe Turner. (Afore-cited, stalwart originals from the pen of Dave boosted the worth.)

I'll scrutinize one track from each record.

"American Music" (first waxed by Ronny Weiser's Rollin' Rock indie label) was a rousing calling card whose union of rambunctiousness and legitimate Old Gloryism underscores blood shared by common-man musics birthed in New Orleans, Nashville, Memphis, the Delta, and anywhere folks earned calluses and burned candles 'til wee hours.

"Look Out It Must Be Love." Dave once told an interviewer that the more personal a lyric, paradoxically, the more universal its relatability. In no example is that truer than this song. While idiosyncrasies like "she works all night at a joint on the highway" and making a "date at the city hall" don't figure in everyone's wedlock accounts, the 'lavender haze' experience is common. For 2:59, Dave and Phil, Gene Taylor, and the Johns Bateman and Bazz bounce like to happify all hearts from Lovers' Lane to Saturn's rings.

"Rock and Roll Will Stand" Embodied here is a quality typical of Blasters' ouput: Raging momentum of old-ways Rock'n'Roll in fresh glad rags, ridden by substantial lyricism that speaks of mankind's undersurface. Hard to discern is whether its honest criticisms of shady managers, fickle audiences ("dedicated followers of fashion," went a bygone verse), and the hapless protagonist himself were intended as industry condemnations or forewarning advisories. Probably both. 

I'll land the plane here: Then and today, the group deserves acclaim by the Mason jar-full. In 2026, a somewhat altered lineup hefts the group's standard admirably. Between their efforts and Dave's solo ones, "the house'll be shakin' from the bare feet slappin' on the floor," as a man once said.

Recommended, s/t: "Marie Marie," "I'm Shakin'," "Border Radio," "American Music," "So Long Baby Goodbye," "This is It," "I Love You So," "Stop the Clock"

Recommended, Non Fiction: "Red Rose," "No Other Girl," "Bus Station," "One More Dance," "It Must Be Love," "Jubilee Train," "Long White Cadillac," "Fool's Paradise," "Leaving"

Recommended, Hard Line: "Trouble Bound" (feat. the Jordanaires), "Little Honey," "Samson and Delilah," "Hey Girl," "Samson and Delilah," "Rock and Roll Will Stand"

Videos: "Stop the Clock" (live, 1982)   "Fool's Paradise"   "Trouble Bound"

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Forced Exposure

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Crown City Bombers

"Toxic Town"   single

(Self-issued)

With matter-of-fact terseness, Bombers' boss man Dave Bertiz relates a dark-truth tale: "Hey little girl gettin' off the bus, you're gonna be a star / You got strung out, you lost your job, well now you won't go far. Hey everybody gather 'round / It's showtime in this Toxic Town." Chugging rockbop makes common cause with his somberness, and is entirely content to monger its mesmerism as poised understatement. Albert Hammond's 1972 radio staple mourned identical dark-side-of-Hollywoodland realities, but lacked the razory soloing Dave deploys with head-turning consequence.

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Fear

The Last Time

(Atomic Age Industries / Fear Records)

Don't be put off by masterly touches that gloss now and again. The brutally-swerving obstreperousness that made 1982's The Record so impactful tears up macadam all over the place. The actuarial table gets good and punched up. High-rank songcraft. Lee Ving.

Recommended: "Here We Go Again," "Fuel-Injected Papa," "What Are Friends For?," "Three Blind Mice," "The Last Time," "What Happens," "Pain in the Neck," "A Million Bucks"

Videos: "Here We Go Again"   "Fuel-Injected Papa"   "Three Blind Mice"   "The Last Time"

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The Blasters

American Music

(Liberation Hall)

Among qualities shared between California's Blasters and inspirations like Rudy Toombs, Big Joe Turner, and Sonny Burgess is timelessness; matters so enriching never really fade. So widely and profusely ladled has been praise for the roots-rocking machine instigated by Alvin brothers Phil and Dave, that no laudatory adjectives have been neglected.

American Music was first marketed in 1980 by Rollin' Rock's shrewd impressario Ronny Weiser. (Hightone and Floating World reissues ensued.) The Alvins were joined by a rugged bass/drums unit membered by John Bazz and Bill Bateman. (Later personnel were piano man Gene Taylor, and saxophonists Lee Allen and Steve Berlin.) 

The four wrought some of the New Wave moment's most true-blooded roots exertions. Within the richness of American Music howled common-folk declarations birthed in jukes, honky tonks, mountain regions, neon-lighted cities, and pastoral climes whose residents' hardscrabble realities were disclosed by the callouses on their hands.

Song crafter Dave Alvin once observed that, "paradoxically," the more personal a narrative be, the more universal its resonance. His five-star architectures rose upon territories where regular folks' musicalizing and perspectives lamented travails and made merry in ways peculiar to them.

The yet-thriving Blasters iteration boasts originals Phil, John, and Bill. Now lending six-string masteries is Keith Wyatt, whose deft demolitions have over years graced stagefronts, studios, and even esteemed instructional environs.

Recommended: "American Music," "Real Rock Drive," "I Don't Want To," "Marie Marie," "Flat Top Joint," "Never No More Blues," "Buzz Buzz Buzz"

Videos: "Real Rock Drive"   "Flat Top Joint"   "Buzz Buzz Buzz"

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