The Blasters

Rare Blasts: Studio Outtakes and Movie Music 1979 - 1985

(Liberation Hall)

Neophyte barroom jumpers are counseled to study the faiths of the Blasters, just as California Alvin brothers Phil and Dave - plus accompanying roots stalwarts John Bazz, Gene Taylor, Bill Bateman, and Steve Berlin - revered works of impactful pioneers like Magic Sam, Big Joe Turner, Charlie Rich, and Sonny Burgess. (Also aboard was sax legend Lee Allen, himself a voice on storied, back-in-the-day waxings.) Alvin-the-Dave's own pennings settled comfortably amongst gray-bearded, plain-folks songs. The whole totals a learning trek of foot-dashing significance.

(Others sometimes joining the rank included X/Knitters agitator John Doe and bassist Jeff Eyrich.)

Rare Blasts contains outtakes and film numbers. Thrown into the bargain are scarce photos and memorabilia images. Record Store Day, Rough Trade, Discogs, and other independents offered this on limited-edition blue cobalt vinyl. 

Young cats - start hittin' the books.

(Sadly, ever-emotive Phil has suffered serious health issues. The singer is said to be improving, thankfully. But support is yet needed: Donate.)

Recommended: "21 Days in Jail," "Love 24 Hours a Day," "I Fell in Love," "So Glad," "Ashamed of Myself," "One Bad Stud," "Blue Shadows," "Flat Top Joint," "Cry for Me," "Kathleen"

Videos: "21 Days in Jail"    "Love 24 Hours a Day"   "I Fell in Love"   "So Glad"   "Ashamed of Myself"   "Blue Shadows"   "Kathleen"

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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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The Blasters

Over There: Live At the Venue, London 1982 - The Complete Concert

(Slash/Warner Bros./Liberation Hall)

The early 1980s were heady times. Downey, California's Blasters, who had germinated at Ronny Weiser's Rollin' Rock, were at the fore of a roots-music rennaisance that, in the US, also included Robert Gordon, the Rockats, Ray Campi, and the Stray Cats. Brash reinventions of vintage modes were animated by the rumbustiousness of the CBGB's Class of '77, many of whose more significant alumni (like the Ramones and Heartbreakers) were yet on the loose.

The Blasters offered particularly Blues-based neo-Rockabilly, and may well have introduced genre stalwarts to fresh ears. (Big Joe Turner, Pete Johnson, and Otis Redding come to mind.) Phil Alvin threw himself body-and-soul into vocals that were (and still are) among the most distinctive in roots-music revivalism. Brother Dave's joyfully manic picking lent vibrance to already steamrolling projection; his gleeful tearing off of savage licks stole oxygen.

All players were equally vital to krackajack American Music. The fearsomely formidable John Bazz/Bill Bateman rhythm cell made for solid firmament from which feral cats pounced. Eminent keyboardist Gene Taylor proved himself a master of the ivories, never hitting a wrong note and augmenting matters with alive-out-loud eminence.

And the sax duo of stormer Steve Berlin and living legend Lee Allen made walls tumble down to the elation of all. Their wailing exertions lent hue and texture.

1982's Over There leapt up in it's birth year as marvelous testimony to the era's exhilaration. Now, Liberation Hall's expanded reissue reminds mightily.

Recommended: "This Is It," "No Other Girl," "Border Radio," "I Don't Want To," "Tag Along," "Walkin' With Mr. Lee," "I'm Shakin'" "Hollywood Bed," "Go! Go! Go!," "Stop the Clock," "Marie Marie," "American Music," "So Long Baby Goodbye," "Roll 'Em Pete," "High School Confidential," "These Arms of Mine," Keep A-Knockin'"

Videos: "Roll 'em Pete"   "I Don't Want To"

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