Red Roosters

Take You To a Dirty Ride

(Singer Recordings)

Saxophone drawling lustily distinguishes this down and dirty, rocking, rhythm & blues-based set. Appreciation of the building blocks of rock'n'roll can be felt in each visceral passage. Sturdily significant.

Recommended: "Dirty Ride," "Baby Whay You Want Me To Do," "Shortnin' Bread Rock," "Mary Lou," "Guitarville," "Rooster Rock"

Video: "Rooster Rock"

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Slow Jams

Punk Standards

(I. Corrupt Records)

Angrily swiped chords and thunderous beats smashing into one another and splintering into lunatic insistence / Growl-shouted voices raging atop the fury / Intriguing, labrynthine arrangements that jet past in slap-dash formations / From chaos comes order. 

Recommended: "Acrimony," "Swapping Promises," "Cleft In Twain," "Donuts," "Run Down," "Sobriety of One," "Barbed Brain," "Parsimony"

Audio selections

I. Corrupt Records

The Rockats

Start Over Again

(Cleopatra)

This isn't the disc I expected. It's better.

Don't misunderstand, I anticipated a quality effort. The Rockats always issue first-chair work. But Start Over Again exceeds that already lofty standard.

It's a mix of originals, covers, and reimagined early tunes, and is consistently superior to peers' output. As countless international devotees can attest, The Rockats means the highest caliber of rock'n'roll.

Indeed, the music here is atop such a capstone as to render many competitors' toils superfluous. 

It's been eight years since their last CD, "Rockin' Together" (Lanark), and that was outstanding. The intervening years are as nothing, for the players are still at the top of their game. 

Newly minted originals "Rock, Baby, Rock (All Night Long), "Rockabilly Swamp," "Lucky Old Rockabilly (Walking Down the Pike),"and "Working Man" are apt complements to covers of Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly, and others. 

1980 45 "Rockabilly Doll" b/w "Tanya Jean" is remastered and reminds of the combo's initial topmost promise. (I've still got the original cracking single, plus the two-tone mini poster that accompanied it upon issuance.)

Enough good cannot be stated of The Rockats' cohesive deploy of rockin' mannerisms. They never sounded more committedly exuberant.

Praise can rightly be accorded widely. Founding members Dibbs (he of the golden voice), Smutty, Barry, and Lewis all acquit themselves admirably, turning in remarkable efforts. 

And associates Mike Osborn and Blondie's Clem Burke are to be commended for in-pocket abetments.

Multi-instrumentalist Danny B. Harvey contributes enormously, including as mixer and producer. The resultant sound is pellucid, portaying all players in advantageous lights. 

(Not to belittle Danny's inventive soloing, but Barry remains the definitional guitar-voice of The Rockats. His inclinations amaze.)

However, there is one concern:

The cover Mick Rock photo dates from 1983's Make That Move era, as do performance clips in the promo video for "Nervous Breakdown." 

I suspect this is attributable to Cleopatra; packaging new tracks with old photos is a course taken with others on the label. 

But it's misrepresentative. There's an '80s visual ambiance that might mislead some purchasers into passing, unaware, on important fresh recordings. It looks like a retrospective.

Aesthetic apprehensions aside, though, and if the title is an indication, The Rockats may have a grand new conquest ambition planned. 

Some of us knew they had it in them.

Recommended: "Nervous Breakdown," "This Is the Night," "You're My Baby," "50 Miles From Nowhere," "Rock, Baby, Rock (All Night Long)," "Rockabilly Swamp," "Start Over Again," "Lucky Old Rockabilly (Walking Down the Pike)," "Rock Around With Ollie Vee," "Working Man," "Rockabilly Doll," "Tanya Jean"

Video: "Nervous Breakdown"

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Cleopatra

Johnny Cash

Live At the Carousel Ballroom April 24, 1968

(Bear's SONIC Journals)

Outsiders and outlaws were Johnny's preferred subjects, as well as his natural audience, and he looked them in the squinted eyes. He never seemed to be speaking about them, as he was one of them. And, by the doing, he communicated the lives of a sizeable swath of the American tableau.

Recommended: "Orange Blossom Special," "The Ballad Of Ira Hayes," "Guess Things Happen That Way," "Give My Love To Rose," "Green, Green Grass of Home," "Lorena," "Jackson" (duet with June Carter Cash), "Wildwood Flower," "Wabash Cannonball" (June Carter Cash), "Long Legged Guitar-Pickin' Man" (duet with June Carter Cash), "Ring Of Fire," "Big River," "I Walk the Line"

Holloway Echoes

Triumphs and Tragedies

(Western Star)

Per Western Star, all tracks on this limited edition colored vinyl issuance are "related to or about Joe Meek." Each remains in low gear and is pacific in atmosphere. Needed valleys, not hills.

Recommended: "Saturday Submission," "Beneath the Telstar Man," "The Spook Walks," "Calling Buddy," "Countdown to Suicide," "Three Coins in the Sewer," "Johnny Watts"

Video: "Saturday Submission"

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Western Star

The Glad Rags

Introducing...

(Retro Recording Services)

The absence of skins and prominence of acoustic guitar aren't all this combo has in common with the founding crop of rockabillies. In their oeuvre is a spartan authenticity that favors the genre's pastoral blood. 

Recommended: "No Use Knockin' On My Door," "Bird Dog," "Fallin'"

Video: "No Usee Knockin' On My Door"

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Killer Tone Jones

Killing Barbie

(Planet X Music)

At first, it was puzzling: the decision to bury the vocals. But it's a gambit that works, making the listener concentrate more intently on the messages. And those messages are mesmerically dreadful. These tracks are compiled from previous releases.

Recommended: "Killafornia," "Red Snow," "Psychonat," "Bad Barbie"

Video: "Bad Barbie"

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Planet X Music