Vintage Review: Ken McMahan's That's Your Reality (1997)

The last time that Ken McMahan checked in here at the ConMedia world HQ, he was delivering a fine initial solo effort, Ken McMahan & Slumpy Boy on the French Dixie Frog label. Produced by ex-Georgia Satellite frontman Dan Baird and including the talents of folks like Stan Lynch, Terry Anderson, and Bill Lloyd, the disc was a steamy slab of blues-infused roots-rock. Needless to say, even with the fine pedigree the album brought along with it, Kenny couldn’t get in the back door at RecordCoAmerica, that one great major label whose A & R poseurs were too damn busy trying to find the next great alt.rock breakthrough to get their heads out of their collective behinds long enough to actually listen to some GREAT FUCKING ROCK ‘N’ ROLL rather than miring themselves in martinis and misanthropy.

Now McMahan – former axeman of the much-beloved Southeastern power blues trio the dusters – has put together a permanent touring version of Slumpy Boy, knocked out That’s Your Reality, his second disc for Dixie Frog, and is now poised to play live in your hometown. I recommend that you ring up your local neighborhood baby-sitter, draw a few dollars out of the ATM and roll on down to the club to catch Slumpy Boy ‘cause, if That’s Your Reality is any indication of what the band will be delivering live and on-stage, then we’re all in for an evening of good old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll the way that it was meant to be, with lots of guitars and heavy amplification.

That’s Your Reality, you see, is no wimpy “my life sucks, think I’ll grow a beard” carbon-copy “alternative” crapola, no sir, this 12 song collections rocks relentlessly from start to finish. At the proper volume, it’ll peel the paint off your living room walls and blow the windows out of your neighbor’s house. Play it in your car stereo and it’ll super-charge your engine like a set of racing cams and a tank of Turbo Blue™, melting the tar on the highway behind you. McMahan has picked up a little more of the songwriting duties this time out, and by god, I think that the boy’s got it all figured out. As good as his first solo disc was, That’s Your Reality is even better, the material highlighting McMahan’s growing ability as a wordsmith. Cuts like the rollicking “Fredonia,” the introspective “Everything Turns To Dust,” or the piss-off, get lost good-bye of “Reality” showcase an artistic maturity above his previous efforts.

Musically, McMahan is a vastly underrated guitarist, bringing a freshness and vitality to his material, deriving strength from his influences without ever mimicking them. Every cut here is a fat, multi-layered, guitar-driven rocker, evoking the best of almost half a century of rock ‘n’ roll history, throwing in just enough elements of country and the blues to keep it honest and interesting. If you prefer your rock to be of the two-fisted, hairy-chested variety, if you worship at the alter of bands like Humble Pie, the Georgia Satellites, the Faces or Lynyrd Skynyrd, then That’s Your Reality is right up your alley. With That’s Your Reality, Ken McMahan & Slumpy Boy deliver a disc that burns like a four-alarm fire and hits like a drunken prize-fighter. (Dixie Frog Records, released 1997)

Review originally published by Thora-Zine (Austin TX), 1997