DC Larson's JUKEBOX JURY

Wednesday, September 17, 2025

Back in the Day, 1999

Blazing Haley

Sleeper

(Self-issued)

Memory falters, but I believe it was around 2000 that I saw Blazing Haley pretty much destroy all competition on an MTV beach-shindig battle-of-bands. For the brief span of an abbreviated "Train to Nowhere," real Rock'n'Roll blared on MTV.

As tempting as some might find the proposition, Santa Barbara's brutal knuckle-poppers didn't ultimately fade because they were too too for early 2000s palates; numerous walloping peers did prosper. Perhaps the combo fell to fortune's inexplicable vagaries. But their big-shouldered perpetrations (in which Rockabilly, Punk, Country, and Psycho instincts conflagrated kick-ass firestorms somewhere betwixt fun and mayhem) are salubrious options now, when it seems Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars will never shut up.

The iron-visaged quartet did release a second platter - the equally robust Mas Chignon - before going into that good night. Various members pursued gambits including Graveside Rockers, Phantom Pomps, and Whiskey Glass Eye. Later years' reunion performances attested to enduring combustible capacity.

Though Blazing Haley placed second in that MTV battle, competition judge Busta Rhymes proclaimed "If it was my choice exclusively, it would've been Blazing Haley!"

Recommended: "Train to Nowhere," "Run Down Dive," "V-12 Ford," "Blazing Haley," "Clambake," "Back for No Good Reason," "End of the Line"

Videos: "Train to Nowhere" (live, 2018) "Back for No Good Reason" (live, 2016) "Clambake" "End of the Line"

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[Contemporary information for group members Brian Lakey, Dave Kruger, and Matt Armor could not be located.]

Sunday, September 14, 2025

P. Paul Fenech

Happy Halloween X

(Mutant Rock Records)

Kim Nekroman, in discussing the Meteors' baleful lynchpin on 2006 DVD The Psychobilly Sickness, said "I don't know him. I do know he doesn't like anyone or anything." The coffin-doghouse slapper noted he'd once seen P. Paul sitting alone at a club bar. No one said as much, but it was understood P. Paul was in charge; everyone was scared to approach him.

Where matters concern P. Paul, there exist no consequence confusions. The eldritch ikon excels at dominative darkness. P. Paul's efforts all manifest his brick hammer-finesse and predilection for motifs disquieting. Here mustered are numerous essays bespeaking vileness, many first loosed upon the planet via previous Halloween collections. One welcomes their return.

Mutant Rock details various versions soon to be marketed: vinyl (in several colorations), CD, and digital. A digital package numbering all 15 of Mr. Fenech's solo discs is available, and a grim poster can also be got.

This disc's issuance is timed for the dire day, itself. When the All Hallow's Eve blood moon hangs o'erskull, the eternally blighted will visit only houses bedecked with the P. Paul poster.

Recommended: "Meet Me at the Morgue," "Witchy Witchy (Bb Halloween Mix)," "Graveyard Rock," "Night of the Blood Monster," "Murder in the Graveyard," "Haunted House," "Gimme Gimme Halloween," "All Hail the Pumpkinhead (King of Halloween)," "Jager Ya," "The 13th Chime," "Ghost Mountain," "Funeral for a Saint (Muerte en Octubre)"

[Two songs were unavailable for consideration.]

Videos: "Meet Me at the Morgue" "Graveyard Rock" "Gimme Gimme Halloween" "All Hail the Pumpkinhead (King of Halloween)" "Funeral for a Saint (Muerte en Octubre)"

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Demented Are Go

Welcome Back to Insanity Hall

(Rebellion)

"Staring at the moonlight through rusty iron bars / eyes bulge with madness, but your mind is in the stars!"

People Like You initially marketed this in 2012. As it was DAG's 8th full-length platter, the International Wrecking Crew (and its far-flung spiritual fellows) were long-since hip to the beast-pack's gore/lunacy/flat-gone rat-rod offensives. Sparky and his garish gang of miscreants riveted eyes with ripped-flesh visages, and blasted frenzied monsterisms that sawed technicolor quiffs clean off.

Rebellion now mongers Welcome in smoky vinyl, gatefold incarnation. A mere 500 units were generated.

"Climbing up the walls, clawing down the doors / There's no way out, there's no way out, there′s no way out / But the doctor's coming!"

Recommended: "Welcome Back to Insanity Hall," "Bodies in the Basement," "Retard Whore," "Engine Trouble," "Gone," "Heads on Poles," "Out in the Dark," "Lucky Charm," "The Life I Live," "Dark Angel"

Videos: "Bodies in the Basement" (live) "Retard Whore" (live) "Heads on Poles" (live)

Mad Sin

Dead Moon's Calling

(Rebellion Records)

Again populating shop bins is a 2005 People Like You release, whose echo offers something special: an opportunity to appreciate the German malcontent spectacles in early cocoon. (Sailor's Grave also once reissued this.)

In a giddily skewed, uncanny dimension, rampageous ventures are torn off by leathery quiff-topped cacodemons with sideways senses of humor. Not knowing whether to laugh, spin crazily, or scream for all of Creation to hear, savoring victims settle upon all three.

Recommended: "Point of No Return," "Fuel for Brains," "To Walk the Night," "Not Invited," "Plastic Monsters," "Dead Moon," "Radio Psycho," "Underground," "Rebels Undisguised," "2 x Love = 2 x Pain"

Videos: "Point of No Return" (live) "Fuel for Brains" (live) "Not Invited" "2 x Love = 2 x Pain"

Psycho Bats

Kuopio Goes Psycho! - Live

(Self-issued)

Finnish wreckers smash aside all impediments to their amphetemine-pumped exhibition. Adherents rave like creatures untethered. "Creepshow Carnival" is but one specimen of fervid propositions awaiting those who put stylus to grooves.

Recommended: "Nightmare," "Old Times," "Hot Rod Bats," "Creepshow Carnival," "Bats and Roll," "Conquistador," "World Wide Horror," "Twisted Truth," "Fast Bats," "Make Psychobilly Great Again"

Videos: "Nightmare" (live) "Old Times" (official live video) "Creepshow Carnival" (live) "Fast Bats" (live)

Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Black Valley Moon

We Sleep two-track digital release

(Songs From Oa)

Daring sorts who've pushed-wide oak doors of haunted Old Dark Houses during the Witching Hour, will dig the mood oozed by "We Sleep." It unfurls in creeping manner. Players collude with knowing acumen, their dark purpose to fulfill. Cobwebs are ubiquitous. "They're after me, but I ain't runnin'," intones a narrator for whom accursedness is as naught. A Danzig song, "Mother" also advances in ominous languorousness; skin-crawling essence spreads by the inch. Smiles will never gather in these shadows - at least, not innocent ones.

Videos: "We Sleep" "Mother"

Back in the Day, 1963

Etta James

...Rocks the House

(Argo Records)

The drabness of interchangeable corporate cut-outs like Nikki Minaj and Cardi B is forced into sharp relief by R&B/Soul paragon Miss Etta. This was her first live vinyl, recorded in Nashville, and her gifts were at full capacity. When she belted out, when she reared back and let fly her characteristic back-of-throat growl, every table shook. She required neither auto-tune nor recorded vocal track to which she could lip-sync whilst cavorting. No robotic dance troupe or costume changes, either; her real-world music was sufficient.

At the board with Chess Records founder Leonard Chess, she ensured her sound was portrayed with every ounce of its natural splendor.

Providing Etta with the stout platform she merited were David T. Walker (guitar), Marion Wright (bass), drummers Richard Water and Freeman Brown, Vonzell Cooper (organ), and tenor sax-man Garnell Cooper.

Re-releases have been marketed by numerous labels, in the U.S. and abroad.

Recommended: "Something's Got a Hold on Me," "Baby, What You Want Me To Do," "What'd I Say," "Money (That's What I Want)," "Seven Day Fool," "Sweet Little Angel," "Ooh Poo Pah Doo," "Woke Up This Morning," "Ain't That Loving You Baby," "All I Could Do Was Cry," "I Just Want to Make Love to You"

Videos: "Something's Got a Hold on Me" "Sweet Little Angel"

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