American Patrol go Ameripolitan

AP General Jerry Sikorski tells me he just entered his group's "I Ain't Never Been a Cheater" in the Rockabilly classification of the Dale Watson-founded Ameripolitan's 2027 Award competition. 

Previous awards winners include Nick Curran, Kyle Eldridge, Jane Rose, The Lucky Stars, and Nic Roulette.

In reviewing AP's recent platter last May, I wrote "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." 

"I Ain't Never Been a Cheater" (live)

The Ameripolitan Awards nomination period is now open, and will remain so until late summer / early fall. Nominees can be put forward not only by bands themselves, but also by peers and fans.

Following the nomination term's conclusion, top nominees will be compiled. Official voting on final nominees will end in October or November. General Ballot Blaster voting will then be open until late December or early January.

The Ameripolitan Awards ceremony is set for February. 

Ameripolitan

Facebook (Jerry)

Instagram

Jimmy and the Mustangs: Ducktail oeuvre

1980s California birthed a jitterbop uprising that too often was slighted, as commenters focused more on Robert Gordon, the Stray Cats, and English have-a-go heroes like Graham Fenton and Cavan Grogan. (Of course, not for a moment do I intend to dismiss their significance in the scheme of resurgent twang.)

Ronny Weiser's Rollin' Rock herculian strivings deserve wide approbation. But other West Coast names also merit credit. Like Top Jimmy, Hollywood Fats, and James Intveld.

And Jimmy and the Mustangs.

Hey Little Girl (1982) was the group's virgin wax. Though a dapper Rockabilly firecracker of above-usual gifts, Jimmy Silvers (né Haddox) also knew related night-joint strains of senior vintage. His reanimations of Wynonie Harris, Baker Knight, and Louis Jordan shouters attested to diverse appreciation. He had furious chops that cashed the check his hepcat finery wrote. 

Fellow Californian stage-demolisher Jerry Sikorski tore at strings in spectacular manners (as he previously had with Ray Campi at Rollin' Rock, and went on to do with American Patrol). Associated players arched forward with the vigor of battle-ready recruits to a jukebox campaign. 

MTV didn't have a clue - but something big was bubbling.

Videos: "Bring Back My Cadillac" (Live TV)   "I Want You To Be My Baby" (Live TV) "Let's Dance"

(In 1983, repopulated Mustangs guested on TV comedy Square Pegs.)

MCA / Curb released the 1984, self-titled EP. Two years had elapsed since the auspicious maiden platter, and some alterations were manifested: A pronounced New Wave flair had partially replaced previous vintage honor, and Marshall Rohner had assumed lead guitar duties, as Jerry Sikorski had gone on to American Patrol. (Rohner wielded his guitar like a stilletto.)

The fire remained on highest setting. 

A kinetic reading of Kenny Lewis' 1964 novelty "Bad Detective" stormed with righteous enthusiasm (just as it had when covered by the Dolls in '74). All involved here were having a ball, a feature that was also loudly apparent on "I'll Steal For Your Love" and "Stomp." "Justine," perhaps the most frantic headfirst dive included among the six tracks, turned up in the soundtrack of 1984 film Voyage of the Rock Aliens.

The affection for traditional gestures returned in the closing slide-guitar, swaybacked "It's All Over Now" revisitation. Bobby Womack, who had co-written the 1964 Bluesy ambler with sister-in-law Shirley for his group the Valentinos, would surely have nodded approval.

Videos: "Justine" (Official video)   "The Pressure's On" (Live TV)   "It's All Over Now"

Not illogically, maturity takes a hand in these 2011 (again, self-titled) cuts, though hardly in reserved fashion. Instead, judiciousness leavens proceedings, which are no less grounded in Americana inclinations than before. 

Jimmy's voice reveals a wisdom gained through life variously trying and exultant. Assembled around him as he imbues common-man musics with idiosyncratic aplomb are players cut from stout cloth: Tom Coplen (guitar), Dylan Cavaliere (doghouse), John Powell (drums), and Stefano Intelisano (keys). Fiddle and harmonica are added by Heather Rae Johnson and Guy Forsyth.

The maturity previously noted was leashed, though, for "Wanted Man;" that selection rampaged with the gleefulness of any earlier LP's entry. 

Videos: "Wanted Man"  "How Can I Miss You (If You Won't Go Away)?"   "I-35"   

The rollicking hijinx and Rock'n'Roll history command that made earlier discs estimable breathes and jumps still, on 2015's Another Round. The disc acquits itself as infectious, animated, and possessed of particular sinew. This was much more than only an undersung name from 1980s neo-Rockabilly rising anew; it testified to enduring powerfulness worth broad regard.

Horns sprawled like tuneful abettors in swinging rollick. "Roll the Dice" stutter-skipped with brim atilt. The swinging nite-spot long-legging that once notoriously marked Sinatra and his Rat Pack confreres (and later a truck driver named Presley) spun and tapped across gleaming dance floors.

"Cherry Bomb" swung straight in behind. 88s were pounded as Rock'n'Roll had its familiar, beloved way with every ear in the joint. Back in saddles were TNT players from the previous studio endeavor. And their pumped-to-nth-degree onrushes (which wisely intuited when to play it cool and when to pour it on) were precisely the launch pad required by Jimmy's outsized personality. 

He crooned, soared, and belted like Nudie-shirted gangbusters. Tribute to the Norfolk-birthed Black Leather Rebel "Ready Set Go" romped in manner not unlike "Cruisin'," its impeccably picked dash nimbly turning on silvery FDRs.

Following in brash joyfulness was a passel of tunery in moments rumbustious and, frankly, ineffable. A Sikorski-penned stroll down N'awlins boulevards, "Bourbon Street" unspools to high-stepping fiddle cavortings and bass-string articulations, as Jimmy discloses calm orations.

Fellow vinyl denizens included under-moonbeam ballads and rockers that probably resulted in furniture kicked into splintered kindling.

Established far past reasonable disputation was that seasons that intervened betwixt Hey Little Girl and Another Round had exercised no weakening; muscularity, blood connection to bygone nights' teachings, and love of hipness bombardments remained in full bloom.

So, if you read an account of '80s-forward neo-Rockabilly that makes no mention of Jimmy and the Mustangs' coolness-on-10 oeuvre, throw that book straight through the fucking window.

Videos: "Roll the Dice"   "Cherry Bomb"   "Ready, Set, Go!"   "Bourbon Street"

When Rollin' Rock took blue cruise              

Let's dispense straightaway with bluenoses' caterwauls against sex; it's always been among Rock'n'Roll's basic subject-matter food groups. Besides, were it not for the base instinct, I wouldn't have penned these words and you wouldn't be reading them.

It was in the mid-'80s, while browsing through an Iowa Co-Op Records cut-out bin, that I discovered Teenage Cruisers. I was already a fan of indie Rollin' Rock's dedication to preserving the Big Beat, but didn't expected to find the label's output amid Rundgren, Savoy Brown, and Toby Beau LPs.

An immediate purchase, the platter remains in my stacks.

Ronny Weiser's Van Nuys, California, Rollin' Rock Records produced indispensable Rockabilly beginning in the 1970s. Recording sessions were convened in his living room on consumer-grade reel-to-reel. (Taping eventually moved to Ronny's garage.) Significant new vinyl was marketed through mail orders. 

The indie linked original Rockabillies such as Charlie Feathers, Mac Curtis, and Ray Campi -- who reemerged to record once more -- to a crisp crop of twanging rebels like Jerry Sikorski, Jimmie Lee Maslon, and Billy Zoom.

(Too, Ronny and Rollin' Rock recorded the Blasters prior to the group's move to Slash/Warner Brothers.) 

Rollin' Rock offerings in those times typified emergent Neo-Rockabilly, in that material generated by its roster folded somewhat contemporary flavorings into the vintage brew. Perhaps that was attributable to players' contemporary inclinations and awareness of pop-culture flux. 

1977's Teenage Cruisers was billed as the first filmic union of pornography and Rockabilly (a not illogical mating). It was alternately billed as Young Hot n' Nasty Teenage Cruisers. Though of meager production standards and featuring actors of far less than stellar abilities (albeit dutifully exhibitionistic), it is today a fun oddity.

IMDB's discreet summary withholds ridicule: "Fast-paced, almost plotless Rock'n'Roll adult film musical set during a crazy night in the lives of a dozen or more teenagers, and other people during a night out on the town." (Inanity never kept trenchcoats away from grindhouses.)

But the music is of paramount worth. Rollin' Rock stars who imbued the soundtrack with slicked-back rollicks included Campi, Sikorski, the Blasters, Feathers, and Zoom. Their savage, jumping-from-loudspeakers input lifted high an otherwise lackluster enterprise.

Rollin' Rock's usual-suspects house band in '77 included Ray, Jerry, Jimmie Lee Maslon, Poppa Jim Durbin, Mike Henderson, Jay Phillips, Rip Masters, and Ronny himself. 

All songs impress to varying degrees, but five merit especial note:

"Are You Hep to It?" Johnny Legend

A cult-famed dab hand, ever behind cheaters (who co-wrote and directed TC), Martin Margulies passed mere months ago. His three Teenage Cruisers tracks ankled down GV's Bop Street like they'd huffed Murray's Superior. Bunny Hop bonanza "Are You" was emblematic of TC's tunery: buoyantly skittish, straight from the fridge, and powered by seriously able dispatch that urged on giddiness, the selection "put some meat on the bread!"

"Bad Boy" Billy Zoom

Perhaps many gash-and-slash delinquents throwing gran mal floorshows to X's serrated serenadings had no idea guitarist Billy had Etta James, Gene V., Johnny "Guitar" Watson, and Rollin' Rock on his blotter. Notable in this 1:47 kicky jaunt are steroidal braggadocio and economical jive-bombing responsible for innumerable footwear scuffs on red-light lane black-and-white tiles.

(Research indicates that Billy played all instruments.)

"The Newest Wave" Ray Campi                                                        

Ray's romp aligns smoothly with tunes sharing vinyl real estate, in that merriment carpentered by swinging jukesters punches in most solidly. "Rockabilly's knockin', ya better open up your door," proclaims the neckerchiefed former blackboard jungle pedagogue. "Disco? Zounds! Don't wanna hear that sound no more! The Newest Wave, fillin' up your record store." Overly optimistic? Yes. Of course, on a cooler planet...

 "Hard Knocks and Tough Rocks" Wildman Tony Conn

At the introductory drum smashes, squares flee the floor as heedless cats and gators perform a multitude of gymnastics flabbergasted eyewitnesses would previously have thought beyond physical possibilities. Yes, it's the storied Wildman -- and the frenzied, tornadic Rock'n'Roll sweep upon which he defies time/space confines -- that leads assemblages of tilted funatics in going so far out, they're back in.

"That Certain Female" Charlie Feathers

Ronny's living room reel-to-reel captured the raw rascalry of glottal-stop legend Charlie. Here, the histrionic hiccuppist not only sings the first-hand testimony of  an obsessed everyman hunting "that little, bitty woman," but administers rhythm guitar and doghouse, on top.  Lead guitar by Charlie's son, Bubba (who is yet out there) and Ronny's own percussive additive pump go juice.

It'd be hyperbole to term this soundtrack vital to Rockabilly libraries. But it is a document of the thoroughly ecstatic carrys-on at Rollin' Rock -- ones in which Catmen of all seasons pooled ammunition -- and the glorious validity of tech primitivism to the genre's loci classici.

Flicker Teenage Cruisers was pretty much a failed endeavor. But the soundtrack attests that Rock'n'Roll doesn't require elaborate gadgeteering; just a feeling and a guitar. Buy the soundtrack, but skip the movie. (Unless, y'know...)

Videos: "Are You Hep To It"   "Bad Boy"    "The Newest Wave" "Hard Knocks and Tough Rocks"   "That Certain Female" 

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)    

Facebook (Jerry)

Instagram

Colin Winski 1956 - 2007 

Rebellion and the unheard grail

"A very special and fabled musical crossroad exists in America," I wrote in a Blue Suede News article, while Colin still breathed. "One that would defy cartographers' attempts at location. 'Rockabilly,' reads the signpost. 

"Countless hopefuls journey in search of it, and some even produce wondrous works that capture its lightning between grooves. But few call it home. Colin Winski lives at that rural intersection."

I recall his self-reflection: "Throughout my life, as long as I could get up onstage and put on a wild, sweat-drenched show and was appreciated for it, then yes, I felt redeemed. Sort of like a baptism of sweat and a little of Janov's primal scream therapy." 

The serpentine-hipped L.A. shouter didn't so much replicate fires that preceded, as vent a blaze independently within. Born of Ronny Weiser's legendary indie Rollin' Rock, in an otherwise ordinary, Van Nuys garage, he leapt to the fore of 1970s/1980s Neo-Rockabilly voices. 

I first spoke with Colin in 2005, for that Blue Suede News piece. Following the article's publication, he and I maintained our telephone connection. He was both witty and clever. I'm proud to say we were friends.

He had recorded several 1970s singles for Rollin' Rock, and later performed globally as a member of Ray Campi's Rockabilly Rebels. He cut two albums with Ray, and also released solo discs. Wholly apropros Rockabilly Hall of Fame formal acknowledgement came to him in the 1990s.

Three solo albums captured his specialness.

1980's Rock Therapy (Takoma) loosed upon unsuspecting ears a wildman whose hiccuping, sonorous entreaties and dizzying-height shouts painted dangerous Neo-Rockabilly of mercurial quintessence. 

Erstwhile Ray Campi bandmate Jerry Sikorski, his helter-skelter guitar wielded as incising banderilla, drove deeply and savagely into each unfolding arrangement. Notably, Colin here covered the Burnette Trio's "Rock Therapy," which was to become his signature selection.

Follow-up disc Helldorado (Fury) didn't appear until 1993. Colin had by that time relocated to Arizona and wrestled with demons familiar to aspiring creative souls: self-doubt, substance reliance, and a vocation-uncertainty sword of Damocles whose sinister shadow had already crossed his dirty-blond pompadour.

None of those negatives, though, dimmed Helldorado. Once again within Rock'n'Roll's mad clutch, Colin was restored. Shimmering with delirious ferment, he delivered up a testimony so reckless and bold as to render all about in spectacular wonderment. 

And that leaves the last Colin Winski solo recording. It is, at the moment of this writing, doubtful most will ever hear the unmarketed Rockin' at the Calderon. 

Among its perhaps forever-secret documents are mournful hillbilly laments, jumping and laughing bop, even songs leaving orthodox Rockabilly in swirling, take-off exhaust as they zoom upward.

 

I was fortunate enough to have been sent a cassette dub by the man himself. 

Colin and I had agreed, earlier in what turned out to be his last year, to make efforts at securing label interest. I wrote promo copy that drew on vintage Lucky Strike advertising:

TAKE THE COLIN WINSKI CHALLENGE:

Does your Rockabilly sound different lately? Not as satisfying or thrilling as before?

Make the move smart cats and chicks do! Switch to Colin Winski! Colin blends the rich, good-time hillbilly and bluesy flavors you
crave with electrifying additive Psychobilly!

So, take the challenge! You'll agree:

CW/MFR -- COLIN WINSKI MEANS FINE ROCKABILLY!


We made a few tries, focusing on US and UK independent labels that catered to his style's market. Sadly, though, we found no interest. 

Colin just stopped trying. He took his own life.

The world may never hear Rockin' at the Calderon.