DC Larson's JUKEBOX JURY

Sunday, March 16, 2025

Whiskey Daredevils

Fast and Furious

(Self-issued)

"We are America's finest Country-Punk band left standing," is their jaw-jutted proposition. Lofty claim, that; several other combos qualify for similar esteem. But Whiskey Daredevils can't reasonably be accused of over-selling themselves. Because, like a barrel bursting slats, the raucous sounds they hand tool fly in all directions, old-ways and crisp ones blurring as they sail, motivating many-a limber-limbed shit-kicker to hurl his hat skyward.

Recommended: "(Didn't Get) High With Willie Nelson," "A Forest," "Detroit Over Houston," "Further Down the Line," "California," "Nicky Done Got a Secret," "Slip Into Heaven"

Video: "(Didn't Get) High With Willie Nelson" (live) "Nicky Done Got a Secret"

The Velveteen Flowers

Cadillac Desert EP

(Newsboy Cap Records)

A Fleetwood swung to the cracked curb. From it exited a hawkshaw whose hard-knocks backstory determined his moves. Shades. Sharkskin. Roach killers. Neon flashings flickered in wee-hours puddles. And this was his chosen music: a percolated amalgam of Rock'n'Roll flares and cool-Jazz contemplations, wrought by men driven to answer the timeless call of the Hip.

Recommended: "Sleek Cat Slippy," "Bebop Baby," "Baby Goodbye," "Swing Kitten (Bad Bad Girl)," "Shoulda Stayed In"

Video: "Sleek Cat Slippy" "Baby Goodbye"

Amazon (UK)

Ghoultown

Rare and Unreleased

(Wreckin' Bones Records / Black Angel Promotions)

Ghoultown's thunderous Tales of the Crypt transmogrification of Zane Grey's slap-leather milieu has never assumed deserved position in chart highlands, illustrating again Legs McNeil's dictum that cool music seldom enjoys mass popularity. In the group's darkside rowdiness, guitars gallop and ascendant trumpet strains resound. They collude with poundings-times-ten, lending animation against which spectral host Count Lyle's dead-man's drawl etches jaggedly. Lurking here are demo and in-concert tracks from 1999 - 2008, as well as the 2012 Killer In Texas EP - long unavailable.

Recommended:"Ballad of Clarence Heckles," "Skeleton Cowboys," "Southern Witch," "After 2," "Killin's a Bitch," "Fistful of Demons," "Wicked Man," "Ten Seconds To Blood," "Death of Jonah Hex" (Alt.), "Killer In Texas," "Bury the Hatchet"

Video: "Skeleton Cowboys" "Death of Jonah Hex"

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Black Angel Promotions

The Brian Setzer Orchestra

VAVOOM!

(Deko Entertainment)

Weeks ago, Brian disclosed saddening news: “I just wanted to check in with you all,” he wrote online. “Towards the end of the last Stray Cats tour I noticed that my hands were cramping up. I’ve since discovered that I have an autoimmune disease. I cannot play guitar."

Of course, so widely (and rightly) appreciated are his masterclass adroitness and contributions to music that they require no retelling. Instead, spinning any discs that bear his name impresses satisfactorily.

2000's Vavoom! (Interscope) was the Brian Setzer Orchestra's fourth effort. Now, for the first time since that issuance, it graces shelves in limited, variously colored vinyl incarnations. From its grooves leap great-big-and-sassy sounds redolent of champagne ballrooms of Rooseveltian vintage.

Brass merriment is writ large, shoulder-to-pinstriped shoulder with fractued guitar on the footloose. Dressed to the nines, Jacks and Jills knock it out. More fun can't be had. (At least, not within statutes.)

Fashions, auto designs, and popular musics of yesteryear were superior to most contemporary strivings. Brian understands that. For, just as he'd punched-up traditional Rockabilly gestures with muscular, post-Punk ripping, the guitar maestro restores killer-diller Big Band stylings with brazen rumbustiousness.

Swinging airs long forgotten bounded back to the fore. And new generations of jits swung wings. Brian untethered hands-in-air jollification.

Prayers are advised, that he rebound and continue preaching the gospel of those straight-from-the-fridge.

Recommended: "Jumpin' East of Java," "If You Can't Rock Me," "Gettin' In the Mood," "Drive Like Lightnin' (Crash Like Thunder), "Mack the Knife," "Caravan," "The Footloose Doll," "From Here To Eternity," "That's the Kinda Sugar Papa Likes," "Jukebox," "Gloria"

Video: "If You Can't Rock Me" "Caravan" (live) "That's the Kinda Sugar Papa Likes"

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Willie Barry

This Is How We Duet

(Barryfied)

In days long past, regional crackerbox radio outlets piped similar musicalizing of plain-folks' fortunes to listeners weary after the day's toils. Simple instrumentation and harmonies that gladdened befit commonplace circumstances. Real Country was authentic expression of the world in which average men and women loved and lived.

Willie is celebrated as the Rock-A-Sonics' bop-heeled singer. Joined here by a slew of visiting talents, he revisits vintage jewels whose back-country fashion has enough spiritedness to set woods on fire.

It's like discovering a time machine with a speaker.

Recommended: "Love Me To Pieces" (feat. Dave Stuckey), "You've Got Everything" (with Deke Dickerson), "My Honey" (feat. Big Sandy), "Draggin' the River" (with Grey Delisle), "Why Don't You Love Me" (feat. Dave Stuckey), "That's All I Want From You" (with Dani Colace), "Tired and Sleepy" (feat. Eddie Clendening), "Two Hearts, Two Kisses" (with Dani Colace), "Warm Love" (feat. Big Sandy)

Videos: "Tired and Sleepy" "Two Hearts, Two Kisses" (both live, at Viva Las Vegas 2023)

The Cramps

Fiends of Dope Island 2025 reissue

(Planet Records)

By the 2003 date of Fiends' initial issuance, blood-moon brace Lux and Ivy had thoroughly stropped their grisly-kicks spectacle: the morbid schlock of Al Adamson with John Waters' depravity, carved onto a garage-Punk soundtrack. Some components spurted crimson, while other maleficent curiosities flung sparks. Lux heaved an abundance of maniacal ejaculations, whoops, and stream-of-monstrousness intonations. But "Taboo" revealed him as a more technically adroit singer than those customary vocal-gymnastics suggested. Vampy vedette Poison Ivy - long known to be of homicidal capacity whilst molesting metallic strings - acquitted herself with all the pointed poise of a mercenary assassin. And the teasingly creeping "Color Me Black" may be the most bare-faced Link homage they ever put to tape.

This Swedish rerelease was limited to 300 red-vinyl units.

Recommended: "Big Black Witchcraft Rock," "Hang Up," "Dr. Fucker M.D. (Musical Deviant)," "Dopefiend Boogie," "Taboo," "She's Got Balls," "Oowee Baby," "Mojo Man from Mars," "Color Me Black"

Videos: "Dopefiend Boogie" "Taboo" "She's Got Balls" "Color Me Black"

Ripmen

Ready For Lobotomy? EP

(Beagle Sound)

Morbidness lunges headlong into demolition-chorded furiousness. Guttural spittings splatter across clamor, acids corroding violent noise. But those culpable evince impressive resourcefulness in the coda: Banjo romps along in a sportive Country-Rockabilly ditty likely to prompt jigs.

"In the heart of sweet Dixie, where the whiskey is strong" is the introduction drawled to down home merriment.

Recommended: "Dark Carriage," "Night Terror," "Nightwatch," "Torn Hearts & Twisted Souls"

Videos: "Night Terror" "Torn Hearts & Twisted Souls"