Vintage Review: Webb Wilder & the Beatnecks’ It Came From Nashville (1987/2004)

Brothers and sisters, I want to share the good word about Webb Wilder and the Beatnecks and their magnificent debut It Came From Nashville! This will make the third time since 1987 that the Reverend has reviewed this particular album. Not surprisingly, in a corporate music world dominated by airheaded, lip-syncing Barbie dolls and angry male fashion models with out-of-tune guitars, It Came From Nashville holds up remarkably well. In fact, much like fine wine, this version  – the album’s third incarnation (vinyl, CD w/bonus tracks, CD w/more bonus tracks) – has only gotten better with age.

Webb Wilder & the Beatnecks’ It Came From Nashville

For you poor souls who have never experienced the greatness of the man known to legions as “WW,” this is where it all began, a humble introduction to a Wilder world. Roaring into the Music City like a drunken tornado sometime during the mid-80s, WW quickly assembled a top-notch musical hit squad, a finely-tuned machine of rock ‘n’ roll salvation helmed by the man behind the throne, Bobby Fields. Although a vinyl recording is a poor substitute for the magnificence that is WW in person, It Came From Nashville did a pretty doggone good job of capturing the spirit – the zeitgeist, if you will – of the man from Mississippi. Wilder, Fields and crew masterfully mixed roots rock, country and blues with elements of psychdelica, swamp rock and surf music. Imagine Hank Williams, Robert Johnson, and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins sharing a beer at the crossroads in a midnight jam session and you’d come close to the sound of It Came From Nashville.

Friends, Webb Wilder and the Beatnecks hit Nashville like a double-shot of whiskey with a six-pack chaser. Along with Jason & the Nashville Scorchers, WW and his posse allowed a bunch of cornpone punk rockers to break loose and embrace the reckless country soul of their ancestors. After eighteen years, the songs on It Came From Nashville still rock like a house afire! From “How Long Can She Last,” Fields’ ode to youthful indescretion, to the original album-closing instrumental rave-up “Ruff Rider,” these songs are muscular, electric and 100% high-octane rock ‘n’ roll. An inspired cover of Steve Earle’s “Devil’s Right Hand” showcases both Wilder’s sense of humor and his deep, friendly baritone in this tragic tale. “One Taste of the Bait” speaks of the dangers of love while “Is This All There Is?” is a kiss-off to failed romance on par with Dylan's “Positively 4th Street.”

The original CD reissue bonus tracks are included here, a motley bunch of spirited covers that illustrate Wilder’s range and tastes. From a raucous rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Rock ‘n Roll Ruby” to a swinging reading of Steve Forbert’s “Samson and Delilah’s Beauty Shop,” these are all keepers. Fields’ instrumental “Cactus Planet” provides a rollicking good time while “Dance For Daddy” is a down-and-dirty, leering rocker with scrappy guitarwork. The six new live tracks included here were culled from a vintage 1986 Nashville performance at the world-famous Exit/In and include rarities like the rockabilly-flavored “Hole In My Pocket” and an early version of fan favorite “Rocket To Nowhere.”

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

If It Came From Nashville introduced the world to its rock ‘n’ roll savior, the album also marked Bobby Fields’ emergence as a songwriter of some skill and knowledge. These songs have held up so well over time because they are rooted in the deep tradition of rock, blues and country that was forged by pioneers like Elvis, Hank, and Chuck. Unfortunately, the world has turned so much that these men have mostly been lost in the haze of pre-fab pop stars and soft drink advertising.

Even a prophet like WW is without honor in his own country, although a loyal cult of followers continues to keep the flame burning. Rescued from the abyss of obscurity, It Came From Nashville is an important document of a time when giants roamed this planet and men were unashamed to follow the Webb Wilder Credo:

“Word hard…rock hard…eat hard…sleep hard…grow big…wear glasses if you need ‘em.” Amen… (Landslide Records, reissued 2004)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™

Vintage Review: Tommy Womack's There I Said It! (2006)

In a city filled to the brim with musical talent, Tommy Womack often gets overlooked. I first met Womack two decades ago when he was the frontman for late ‘80s cult band Govt. Cheese, a unique hard-rocking outfit that came roaring out of Bowling Green, Kentucky like the ghost of Hank Williams riding astride a Nipponese superbike with flaming tailpipes! The band’s momentary flirtation with stardom inspired Womack’s tale of rock ‘n’ roll woe, The Cheese Chronicles, the best book about life on the road ever written (sorry Jack Kerouac!)

After the demise of Govt. Cheese, Womack immigrated to Nashville to pursue his musical career in earnest. Womack landed a gig as one-third of the Bis-Quits, a groovy little band that included the talented Will Kimbrough and future music retail exec Mike “Grimey” Grimes, the collaboration yielding one great roots-rock album on John Prine’s Oh Boy record label. Womack would then launch his solo career, almost a decade ago, with the brilliant debut album Positively Na Na in 1998.

The life of an indie rocker is a tough one, though, especially when, like Tommy Womack, your main attribute is that you don’t fit in. Womack has always been too country, too rock ‘n’ roll, too serious, not serious enough, too wordy, too stubborn, getting older…just not marketable by today’s “standards.” Never mind that he’s always made brilliant, entertaining music with highly personal lyrics that nevertheless appeal to many people that recognize the characters in the songs from the same streets we all walk together, if separately.

Tommy Womack’s There I Said It!

After 2002’s Circus Town, shortly after his fortieth birthday, Womack hit rock bottom. As he writes in the liner notes to There I Said It!, “one morning in March ’03, God came across my teeth with a skillet of White Light Truth. Whomp! I was toast at forty and destined to die poor.” Womack had a meltdown, of sorts, the sort of life-paralyzing crisis-of-confidence that drops the strongest of men to their knees and into spirals of mind-crippling depression. Months passed by and those close to Womack began to worry; more than one “friend-of-a-friend” got in contact and asked me to talk to Tommy. We swapped emails back and forth, even talked on the phone once or twice, but I doubt that my words of encouragement did little more than add to the chorus of friends and admirers urging Tommy to “feel better.”

Truth is, the personal hell that Womack was going through was something that few people will ever experience. He thought he saw his career circling the drain, his future uncertain, a divine voice saying, as he writes, “you had yer shot, thanks a lot,” leaving him older and broke with a family to support and the kind of dreams that tear one apart. Over the following three years, Womack recovered somewhat, got a crappy job like most of us, hating it like most of us and still, always, playing music. It was the music that, in the end, pulled him through, lending a voice to his fears and emboldening him to carry on.

The result of Womack’s trials and tribulations is There, I Said It!, his fourth studio and fifth album overall, a mind-staggeringly brilliant collection of songs that literally open a window to the artist’s soul. In many ways There, I Said It! reminds me of Joe Grushecky’s equally powerful 2004 album True Companion. At the same time that Womack was living through his crisis, Grushecky was looking into his own abyss. Over fifty, overshadowed by the accomplishments of his peers, Grushecky came to the conclusion that he may never make it big in rock ‘n’ roll but, “I still got a long way to go.”              

This is Tommy Womack’s story, however, and There, I Said It! is his masterpiece. The songs here recount the last several years of his life, biographical tales with great humor and insight and a little sadness. “A Songwriter’s Prayer” is a brilliant lead-off, a somber ode from a wordsmith to a higher power asking for just one good song, something to hang your hat on and build a career around. Delivered with pious vocals, mournful pedal steel and a haunting melody, the song is both tongue-in-cheek and deadly serious, with “we got to get out of this place” urgency.

I’m Never Gonna Be A Rock Star

Written about his son Nathan, “Nice Day” takes a look at life from the high side of 40, a winsome kind of tune that concludes, at the end of the day, that life is good when you have your family around you. The country-flavored “25 Years Ago” is a semi-biographical honky-tonk tale of the search for stardom by three hopefuls, spiced up with twangy steel and Womack’s upbeat vocals, the story of everybody that has ever come to Nashville (or LA or New York) chasing a dream.

“I’m Never Gonna Be A Rock Star,” from which There I Said It! takes its title, is a lilting, jazzy tune with Womack’s soulful, fluid vocals and muted yet lush instrumentation. The song’s reflective self-confession is both cathartic and one last shot at those who would try and bring the artist down. “My hair may go, but the dream remains,” the protagonist sings, getting older every day while his musician friends have forged moderate careers of one form or another, “buddies on tour buses, takin’ that ride, while I’m gettin’ older with an itch inside.” This reflective song parallels Joe Grushecky’s “Strange Days,” a realization that while every artistic effort through the years may not have been for naught, the lack of recognition – if not fame and fortune – is a bitter pill nonetheless.  

The bluesy “Too Much Month At the End Of The Xanax” is a bleak reflection on modern life, its otherworldly, electronically-altered vocals punching their way through a cloud of tortured electric guitars and discordant rhythms. It’s a style that Womack has always excelled at, self-referential talking blues paired with a hard rocking soundtrack that could just as easily been a Govt. Cheese song if it wasn’t so damn personal. By the time you reach “I Couldn’t Care Less,” a rollicking pop-rock rave-up inspired by the tired 9 to 5 that Womack endured during his “blue period,” things are starting to look up. Gigs are coming his way, and Womack delivers a lyrical coup de grace with more attitude and bile than any punk band I’ve been witness too, allaying his friend’s fears with “I feel alright, suicide is overrated, I’ve killed and lied, or at least I’ve mutilated.”

The centerpieces of There I Said It! are the epic stream-of-consciousness masterpiece “Alpha Male & the Canine Mystery Blood” and “A Cockroach After The Bomb.” Both songs evince the sense of humor that has always driven Womack’s best material, but they are also both songs that pack up the past in a box and put it on the shelf, saying goodbye to a time that none of us will ever again enjoy, much less revisit except in memory. “Alpha Male” is a wonderful recollection of a misspent youth and encroaching middle age that many of us can relate to (especially those of us whose age and experience parallels Womack’s). He sees a band poster while walking to work, bringing back memories of the day 20+ years ago when all of us would run out to see a show by any band that sounded even half-intriguing, a poster on a telephone pole an invite to a night of beer, women, and rock ‘n’ roll. Tying the past to the present and facing his own growing obsolescence, Womack admits that “can’t be a has-been when you never was.”    

A Cockroach After the Bomb

“A Cockroach After the Bomb,” a semi-shuffle with lively vocals and spry piano work courtesy of producer John Deaderick, is the yin to the yang of “Alpha Male.” The song begins by expressing an angst that no 20-something-year-old young pup could ever understand, confessing, “I get up every morning and I go to a job where I’ve thrown up on the john. I worry about who’s mad at me and spend a lot of time wishing I was gone.” He remembers his previous life, in a gang with a band, “I used to be somebody, I was a star, it takes a lot of guts to fall this far,” concluding that “I’m a cockroach after the bomb, carrying on…”

It’s with this refrain, however, that Womack touches the album’s truth, that in spite of the darkness, those that feel the muse are compelled to follow, to “carry on” no matter the price, and as Steve Forbert once sang, “you can not win if you do not play the game.” The singer asks, “what if Jimi’s lighter hadn’t lighted, what if Monet was just near-sighted, I’ll go to my grave knowing I took me a chance, I’m a cockroach after the bomb carryin’ on.” The song is a call to arms for all of us last-crop-baby-boomers stuck in a cubicle or middle management with a mortgage and obligations who still harbor delusions of creativity that our parents warned us against pursuing. It’s fitting that the album’s next-to-last song is “Everything’s Coming Up Roses Again;” Womack writing in the liner notes that “this record started with a prayer and ends with its answer.”

The song’s waltz-like demeanor and wistful vocals belie its message – that as long as you’re breathing, you can still follow your dreams. “I may be a 44-year-old office boy,” writes Womack, “but I’m the office boy that did Leno!” You’re never too old to sing that song, write that story, paint that picture, and thus sayeth Springsteen, “throw away the dreams that break your heart.” You’ve got one life to live, and as There Is Said It! slides to a close with the wiry, guitar-driven instrumental “Nice Day (reprise),” you get the sense that Womack, like Grushecky at the end of True Companion, has found some degree of peace in family, friends and, of course, his music.     

In a city filled to the brim with musical talent, Tommy Womack has often been overlooked. Age and experience has broadened his lyrical palette, however, the songs on There, I Said It! among the best he’s ever written. A skilled songwriter and charismatic performer, Womack peppers his songs with musical scraps of roots-rock, Americana, blues, and hard-rock. Ironically, initial acclaim for this album, and the positive response afforded it by nearly everybody that has heard it, could end up reviving a career that Womack thought was on life support. By any measure, There, I Said It! is the work of an artist yet to hit his peak, an emotionally moving song-cycle that defies the industry gatekeepers and rocks with élan, guts, and intelligence. (Cedar Creek Music, released 2006)

Review originally published by the Trademark of Quality (TMQ) blog…

Vintage Review: Stealin Horse’s Stealin Horses (1988)

Dear Mom & Dad:

I know that it was a great shock to come home and find out that I’d packed up and left. I’ve gone in search of Stealin Horses, the hottest rock & roll outfit to ever hail from Lexington, Kentucky. Ya’see, ever since I heard Stealin Horses’ self-titled Arista Records debut, I’ve been deeply and hopelessly in love. Stealin Horses, as you should know, are basically Kiya Heartwood and Kopana Terry, two gorgeous and veeerrryyy talented women who write such bittersweet songs of love and betrayal, fear and endless dreams that from the opening chords of “Turnaround,” the album’s first single, through the power-pop melody of “Gotta Get A Letter” to the anthemic “Ballad of the Pralltown Café,” I knew that these were the girls for me!

So I’m going to roam the dusty, hot blacktop of America ‘til I find them. I know that they’ve got to be playing somewhere, touring this great land, bringing their energetic, hard-driving brand of rock & roll; well-written, Dylanesque lyrics and beautiful, near-flawless harmonies to the hundreds of small towns that dot the landscape. I’m sure that they wouldn’t mind having a world-renown rock critic such as myself documenting their career (after all, look what Dave Marsh did for Bruce Springteen). I’m going to give my heart to Stealin Horses.

It’s time for my bootheels to be wandering…

Your son, Keith


Dear Son:

Good riddance! After thirty years, we thought you’d never leave!

Mom & Dad


Review originally published by Metro Magazine, 1988

Vintage Review: Passafist's Passafist (1994)

Whether or not Passafist and their self-titled, seven-song EP end up becoming a full-time project or remain a mere footnote in the impressive musical careers of Dave Perkins and Lynn Nichols, it’s a milestone in the history of the local scene. Perkins and Nichols are best-known for their work with one of the best bands to spring out of our scene, Chagall Guevara. For this effort, the pair – dubbing themselves the “Caruso” twins, in the best glimmering tradition – have rounded up a handful of the city’s best nontraditional talent and put together a hard rocking disc that sounds like a bludgeon, yet cuts like a knife.

Dessau frontman John Elliott lends his distinctive and effective growling vocals to the disc, while Michael Saleem and Mustafa contribute their underrated talents as well. It’s the Caruso twins, however – Waco and Reno – who steal the show, whether it’s kicking out the jams with an inspired cover of the Stones’ “Street Fighting Man,” pounding out the wickedly pointed industrial drone of “Glock,” or closing with the socio-political implications of “The Dr. Is In,” with its Dr. Strangelove samples and jazzy, hypnotizing rhythms. It’s an effort that would do any regional music scene proud and it deserves a wider audience. (R.E.X. Music, released 1994)

Review originally published by R.A.D! music zine

Vintage Review: Walk The West’s Walk The West (1986)

There’s a new breed of cowboy roamin’ the range these days, pahdner…fierce young men with one foot in the saddle and one foot on the hot asphalt of the city street…six-string guitarslingers, uniquely American artists mixing C&W influences with an undying allegiance towards Rock ‘n’ Roll with a capitol ‘R’, bands spurred on by the success enjoyed by their musical antecedents (such as the ever-amazing Jason & the Scorchers, the still-vital granpappies of the “cow-punk” legacy), bands such as Nashville’s Walk The West.

Walk The West’s debut LP is a dark, smoky slab o’ petroleum by-product, a record that reinforces as well as illustrates the basis for their incredible local popularity. Rich in texture and heavily-laden with the wailing riffs of lead guitarist Will Goleman and vocalist Paul Kirby. Walk The West experiments with a variety and diversity in styles, ranging from the Pettyesque “Backside” to the country-tinged, rollicking “Sheriff of Love,” to the urban-rocking “Living At Night.”

Kirby’s vocals are strong and clear, if appropriately nasal, and the production is almost invisible, never interfering with the music. The result is an enjoyable and solid debut that combines some of the best elements of thirty years of rock music and country influence into one nice, neat, and potent little package. The intensity contained within their music and their sense of roots proves that rock ‘n’ roll lives outside London or Los Angeles. (Capitol Records, released 1986)

Review originally published by The Metro magazine

Vintage Review: Dave Perkins’ Pistol City Holiness (2009)

Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Dave Perkins is, perhaps, best known as one of the creative forces behind the early ‘90s rock band Chagall Guevara. Some may remember him as one of the architects responsible for mid-’90s industrial/alt-rock terrorists Passafist, whereas others may know him as the producer behind such successful CCR bands as the Newsboys. Whether he’s playing guitar behind Jerry Jeff Walker or singing with Amy Grant, Perkins’ talent has always risen to the top.

One of Perkins’ greatest loves has always been the blues, however, and with the release of Pistol City Holiness the artist rediscovers the vibrancy, electricity, and excitement that got him into music in the first place. Influenced and inspired by blues greats like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, and blues-rockers like Cream and Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, Perkins has delivered in Pistol City Holiness a stunning collection of ambitious blues-rock tunes that was almost a decade in the making.  

Dave Perkins’ Pistol City Holiness

Pistol City Holiness opens with a squawk and a holler, the muddy Delta grit oozing from Dave Perkins’ serpentine fretwork, his vocals gruff and supple and soulful all at once. Although the song has inherited the spirit of a hundred juke-joint jams, its underlying funky swagger, metal-edged guitar, and contemporary poor man’s lyrics clearly stamp it as a fine example of 21st century electric blues, the song swinging wilder and harder than a blacksmith’s hammer.

The album’s lone cover, Don Nix’s classic Memphis blues standard “Goin’ Down,” is provided a tune-up under the hood and a fresh coat of paint up top. With roaring, whiskey-soaked vocals driven by Perkins’ brutal six-string assault, T.J. Klay’s rampaging harpwork, and a fine bit of nearly-hidden piano-pounding courtesy of former Double Trouble keyboardist Reece Wynans, Perkins and his manic mechanics hot rod “Goin’ Down” from its turbocharged, flat-track origins into some sort of interstellar, space-ace speed machine.

Hard Luck Men & Long Suffering Woman

Perkins gets down-and-dirty with the powerful “Long Eleven Road,” the song itself a showcase for Klay’s tortured harpwork. With a wiry guitar riff that chases its tale in circles, Perkins’ best black cat moan vocals, and Klay’s timely blasts of soul, the song is a hard luck tale of a factory ghost town where little is left but sin and degradation. With a true Delta vibe that reminds of Son House’s most apocalyptic visions, “Long Eleven Road” is a potent modern American fable of hopelessness and misfortune.

If “Long Eleven Road” is the story of hard luck men and long-suffering women facing another brutal workweek, “Bottles and Knives” is a rollicking and curious mix of Chicago and New Orleans blues music that signals the arrival of the weekend. With the entire band playing helter-skelter, Wynan’s flailing ivories are matched by Perkins’ joyful, ramshackle guitar solos.

Perkins’ humorous lyrics are pure genius – “bottles and knives flyin’ all around this place, we’re gonna leave here darlin’ before I lose my pretty face” – the song’s protagonist claims that his girl ain’t happy goin’ out on Saturday night unless he gets into a fight. It’s 1930s blues jukin’ reality set to music, delivered with reckless abandon (and highly-amped instruments).

The Devil’s Game

Blues guitarist Jimmy Nalls sits in for “Devil’s Game,” the former Sea Level fretburner adding some tasty acoustic notes behind Perkins’ greasy slide guitar runs. The song’s languid pace is deceptively framed by an underlying rhythm that moves at the speed of kudzu growing, blasts of ice-cold sax complimenting the red-hot notes of Klay’s harmonica and Perkins’ flame-thrower guitar. Lyrically, the song is a Southern Gothic dirge of sore temptation and the wages of sin, punishment meted out in an aching limbo that again evokes the blessed ghost of the mighty Son House.

Perkins’ “Preacher Blues” is a blistering, raw blues-rock rave-up with noisy, buzzing rhythms, blustery vocals, and whipsmart lyrics that reference Robert Johnson and his fabled hellhounds. The song is probably also the best showcase on Pistol City Holiness for Perkins’ phenomenal six-string skills, the two-and-a-half-minute rocker virtually humming and crackling with the electricity generated by the guitarist’s rattling leads.

The album closes with the explosive “Mercy in the Morning,” a full-tilt, anarchic, stomp-and-stammer that throws dynamite in the water in the form of scorching guitarwork, darts of gospel-tinged and honky-tonk piano, powerful drumbeats, and shots of machine-gun harp notes that dive-bomb your ears like a horde of angry hornets.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Those of us that have followed Dave Perkins’ lengthy career as sideman, band member, producer, and solo artist have never been surprised by the artist’s immense talent, deep musical knowledge, and ability to perform well in nearly any musical genre. Nothing could prepare the listener for the nuclear-strength fall-out of Pistol City Holiness that cascades from your speakers. Perkins has created a masterpiece that fuses Mississippi Delta and Chicago blues tradition with a hard-rocking, guitar-driven blues-rock sound that fans haven’t heard since Stevie Ray Vaughan burst onto the scene. Although it’s hard to find, go out and beg, borrow, or steal a copy of Pistol City Holiness… (self-produced, released June 2, 2009)