Tribute: Max Vague

Nashville rocker Max Vague passed away in August 2005 but left behind an enormous musical legacy. The following tribute was originally published by the Reverend’s Alt.Culture.Guide zine…

It is with great sadness that we report the death by suicide of an old friend and one of our favorite musicians, Max Vague. A multi-talented musician and producer as well as an enormously skilled graphic artist, Max was a leading figure in the Nashville rock music scene for over a decade. Although relatively unknown to the music world outside of the southeastern U.S., Max nevertheless recorded and released six albums without any label resources and, with various bands, toured the region relentlessly.

Max’s musical career began back in the early ‘80s in Monterey, California. He taught himself to play keyboards and, known by his birth name – William Hearn – played with a number of popular local bands, including Bill Hearn and the Freeze. In 1984 he packed his bags and headed to Los Angeles where he supported himself as a freelance graphic artist and musician, writing the scores for several documentary films, including a special on the GM Sunraycer. While in LA he changed his name to “Max Vague” and began an incredibly prolific period of songwriting and recording. In 1992, Max recorded his first album, Love In A Thousand Faces, moving later that year to Nashville with his debut disc tucked beneath his arm.

Max made an immediate splash in the Music City. This critic, writing about Love In A Thousand Faces in Nashville’s Metro music magazine, said “the songs presented here – hard-edged pop/rock replete with melodic experimentation – evoke a variety of influences: the Beatles, Peter Gabriel, many electric British folkies, but are freshly original and completely uncategorizable.” Shortly after arriving in Nashville, Vague recorded his sophomore effort, S.O.S. The Party’s Over.

Produced in his home studio, Max contributed nearly all of the instrumentation for this solid collection of songs. “Imaginative, colorful and intriguing, the songs on S.O.S. are like a puzzle box whose solution awaits discovery,” I wrote in December ‘93 in R.A.D! Review And Discussion of Rock & Roll. Support for Max came from unlikely places, such as from NASA Space Shuttle Captain Michael Baker, who carried Max’s CDs with him on two trips into space, subsequently mentioning Vague when interviewed by MTV’s Tabitha Soren for the cable network’s ‘Week In Rock’ show.

Over the course of the next twelve years, Vague recorded and released four more critically acclaimed albums, each more musically complex and rewarding than the previous. With The Field CD, released in 1995, Max began recording with a full band that included guitarist Steve Green, bassist Ross Smith, and drummer Robert Kamm. Two years later Vague recorded the Timing LP with Smith and drummer Buddy Gibbons. It was with the addition of Music City rock veteran Kenny Wright to his band, however, that Max would hit his creative peak, the trio of Vague, Smith and Wright recording the powerful Kill The Giant album in 1998. Together, these three toured the southeast and drove home Vague’s immense talents to appreciative audiences. Max’s work received airplay on local and regional radio stations and accolades poured in from publications like the industry trade paper Cash Box, Bone Music Magazine, and the Nashville Scene alternative newsweekly.

In 2002, Vague returned to the studio to record the self-titled maxvague CD, his darkest and most personal effort yet. A solitary figure in the studio, Max carefully crafted the songs, playing nearly all the instruments while engineering and producing the album himself. Of maxvague the album, this critic wrote, “there’s no denying the power of his music, Vague’s gift of artistic expression and his instrumental prowess making him the most consistently interesting and intriguing artist working in the American underground today.” A masterful collection of songs, the album nevertheless went largely unnoticed by the mainstream and alternative press alike.

After the release of this self-titled album, Max retreated from music somewhat, supporting himself as a graphic artist. He never stopped writing songs, however, and before his death had nearly completed work on what would have been his seventh album, titled Drive. Max and Kenny contributed a track, “Oh Well, Okay” to the memorial CD A Tribute To Elliot Smith, released earlier this year by Double D Records. Max had found new love, was beginning a new company, and was seemingly looking towards the future when he came to the decision that he had accomplished everything that he had set out to do.

Sometime in the early morning of August 13th, Max took his own life at the too-young age of 44, leaving behind his fiance Danni, his mother Gay Cameron, his sister Lynda Cameron, and brother Jim “Spyder” Hearn. At a memorial service held at The Basement club in Nashville on Sunday night, August 28th, a packed room of family, friends and fans heard Max’s siblings Lynda and Jim share their memories of their brother. Former bandmates Ross Smith, Kenny Wright and Steve Green also spoke as did Ben Mabry, one of Max’s oldest friends and biggest fan and the Rev. Keith A. Gordon, who presided over the memorial service. Mike “Grimey” Grimes, co-owner of Grimey’s Music and booker for The Basement graciously provided the club for Max’s memorial.

An intelligent, complex, multi-faceted and extremely talented artist and musician, Max Vague’s work will live on long after his tragic death. As a friend and champion of his music, I’ll miss Max and look forward to meeting again on the other side.

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)

CD Review: White Animals' Star Time (2024)

The White Animals were one of the first original rock bands to hit the fledgling late ‘70s Nashville rock scene, and they remained one of the most popular regional acts throughout much of the 1980s. The White Animals’ dub-styled college radio-friendly cover of “These Boots Are Made For Walking” brought the Nancy Sinatra oldie to an entirely different generation but all too often overshadows the truth that the White Animals were one of the first bands to take lessons from Prince Tubby and Lee “Scratch” Perry by incorporating Jamaican dub influence into what were inherently rock ‘n’ roll songs before the Clash, the Police, or even Killing Joke did so…  

Beneath the novelty and the cover songs, however, was the beating heart of a skilled and creative rock ‘n’ roll band in thrall to a myriad of influences. As the band’s primary songwriters Kevin Gray and Steve Boyd grew in confidence, so too did their original material display heightened boldness and sophistication, albums like 1982’s Lost Weekend, 1984’s Ecstasy, their self-titled 1986 LP, and 1987 swansong, In the Last Days, worthy of reissuing and rediscovery by a new generation. After a seven-year run that included video airplay on MTV and opening slots for bands like the Ramones and Talking Head, the band split up. A modestly-successful, 17-song compilation CD titled 3,000 Nites In Babylon was released in 2000, followed shortly thereafter by a 2001 studio album, The White Animals.

White Animals’ Star Time

Flash-forward 23 years and White Animals (no “The” this time) have released their first studio album in decades in Star Time, a fab 12-song collection that – no surprise, really – shows that the band hasn’t lost a step during its lengthy hiatus. Featuring four/fifths of the original band (keyboardist Tim Coats is AWOL), Star Time provides 37 jam-packed minutes of high-octane rock ‘n’ roll cheap thrills. Album-opener “My Baby Put Me On the Shelf” is the best 1960s-inspired garage-rock rave-up that was never recorded by the Seeds, with Rich Parks and Kevin Gray’s screeching guitarplay propelled by the dynamite rhythm section of bassist Steve Boyd and drummer Ray Crabtree, the band delivering hints of the vocal harmonies they’re capable of embellishing their material with.

Star Time only gets better from this point forward … “In A Post-Apocalyptic World (Would You Be My Girl?)” is a delightfully wry power-pop tune with great vocals and an infectious melody while “Ready To Go” is a bluesy romper-stomper with the best use of echo that I’ve heard since my bong-influenced wayward youth. The Delta-dirty “Chanty” is even bluesier, with serpentine guitar and eerie, prison-gang styled call-and-response vocals. It’s a cool performance with an undeniable presence that unexpectedly switches gears mid-song. “I Tried Like Heck” is vintage White Animals, an unabashed pop song with a rock ‘n’ roll edge, inventive fretwork underlining the vocals, and a driving rhythm that’s heavy on Crabtree’s powerful big beats. The heartbreak of “Back Around” is pure 1980s-era college radio rock with a popish vibe, wistful vocals, and rich instrumentation which weaves a gorgeous melody from the chaos.

Something the White Animals did sparingly back in the day was any song with a hint of country influence (they were young soul rebels living in Nashville), but the twangy country-rock of “When It All Came Down” is provided a counterpoint in Parks’ biting, caustic guitar licks. The song’s honky-tonk rhythms and rootsy Americana sound feel like a road untraveled. The jaunty, up-tempo “Unlucky In Love” evinces a similar alt-country pathos and seems more tongue-in-cheek than its predecessor, if no less entertaining. It wouldn’t be a White Animals album without a fanciful cover tune, and for Star Time that’s a mesmerizing, electrifying dub-styled version of “Man of Constant Sorrow” (titled “Man of Constant Dread”). Suffice it to say that previous covers of the antique folk gem by the Stanly Brothers, Bob Dylan, or even Ginger Baker’s Air Force sounded nothing like this.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

There’s really not a duff song to be found on Star Time, which finds the White Animals to be every bit as daring, creative, and carefree as the best of their 1980s-era albums. I don’t know why they never got a major label deal back in the day – maybe they didn’t really want one, preferring their independent Dread Beat label and the freedom it provided – but the White Animals in their prime were every bit as good as better-known contemporaries like Violent Femmes, They Might Be Giants, or Camper Von Beethoven while sounding absolutely like none of them. Star Time rocks from start to finish and, hopefully, the guys won’t wait another 23 years before rewarding their fans with another banger of an album! (Dread Beat Records, 2024)

Buy Star Time directly from the band!

Nashville Rock Memorabilia: Chagall Guevara Photo Gallery

Chagall Guevara: the band

Chagall Guevara's self-titled 1991 debut album

Chagall Guevara show posters

Chagall Guevara Christmas Card

 

Metro Magazine cover story

Vintage Review: Every Mother's Nightmare (1990)

A hard-rocking disc teetering shamelessly on the sonic barrier, Every Mother’s Nightmare’s vinyl debut puts the teeth back into metal-edged musical mayhem. A cross between nostalgic ‘70s glam-metal and ‘90s thrash sensibilities, Every Mother’s Nightmare, the album, kicks out the proverbial jams with its inspired hybrid of musical influences which includes, though is not limited by, Kiss, the Babys, AC/DC, Slade, and any one of a number of true rockers who have dotted the FM radio landscape during the past two decades.

Every Mother’s Nightmare represents the combined creative efforts of a foursome of well-known Music City rockers: ex-Hard Knox vocalist Rick Ruhl, guitarist Steve Malone, bassist Mark McMurtry from Suicide Alley, and drummer Jim Phipps, formerly of Justin Heat. Ruhl and Phipps formed Every Mother’s Nightmare a couple of years back, after the break-up of their respective bands. Moving to Memphis and hooking up with producer Eli Ball (the same guy who discovered Jason & the Scorchers), EMN were signed to Arista by the big cheese himself, Clive the D. The rest, as they say, is history.

Every Mother’s Nightmare is receiving a lot of industry hype, and rightfully so. From the ringing chords of their lead-off single “Walls Come Down,” to their bigger-than-life cover of Charlie Daniels’ “Long Haired Country Boy,” to the call-and-response power funk of “Listen Up,” it is evident that this is a disc of considerable energy and emotion. Toss in their photogenic rock ‘n’ roll image (just ask Joan Rivers), a couple of MTV videos and the band’s own considerable talents and hard work (they’ve been on tour forever) and you have an equation which equals success: a valuable commodity in a hard rock field over-peopled with shallow images lacking in ability. (Arista Records)

Review published by The Metro, 1990  

Every Mother's Nightmare

Vintage Review: The Evinrudes (1998)

Nashville’s Evinrudes got signed on the strength of the radio-friendly “Drive Me Home,” a regional hit a couple of summers ago from the band’s self-produced EP. Sparking major label interest after constant airplay throughout the Southeast, “Drive Me Home” is a witty, hook-laden song that’s full of clever wordplay, propelled by Sherry Cothran’s sexy, breathless vocals and guitarist Brian Reed’s great guitar line.

“Drive Me Home” got the Evinrudes signed, but, as shown by their big-league debut disc, the band is no one trick pony. Sure, “Drive Me Home” opens the band’s self-titled intro, but there’s lots of other material here to recommend that the band be given a spot in your personal music rotation. “Jimmy’s On Crack (And I Don’t Care)” is a rocking little slice of life, with more than a few precious observations on society’s ills; “Otis” name-checks the great Otis Redding but is really a brief glimpse at the mortality that haunts us all.

Opening with a nifty bit of rhythmic voiceplay by Cothran, “Dick and Jane” is a nonsensical and whimsical sixties-styled pop song that says little but is a lot of fun to listen to. “High Street and the Universe” is another observation of our culture while “Swagger” is a delicious piece of braggadocio, the song’s protagonist the baddest mofo on the block since Jim Croce’s “Leroy Brown.”

Guitarist Reed writes a fair tune, a little light on the instrumental side but penning lyrics chockful of humor, irony and wit and enough pop-culture references to jump-start a Trivial Pursuit tournament. Cothran’s aforementioned vocals have one setting – sultry – which is entirely appropriate for the material. Overall, The Evinrudes is a solid effort, with more character and personality than most you’ll hear these days. Give ‘em a little seasoning, a veteran producer to bring out the dynamics promised by Cothran’s voice and another batch of Reed’s clever songs and you’d have a real Top Forty contender. (Mercury Records)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™, 1998

 

Mark Germino Remembered

Singer, songwriter, and poet Mark Germino passed away this week after a tragic accident. As an artist, he released four critically-acclaimed solo albums circa 1986-95 as well as an acclaimed 1991 album recorded with Nashville rockers the Sluggers. Germino pursued a sound that was part folk, part country, and part rock n’ roll, and although his smallish catalog of music never found a wider audience, he was a well-respected Nashville wordsmith, with songs recorded by artists like Vince Gill, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, John Anderson, and Kenny Chesney, among others.

I didn’t know Mark all that well, but we hung out a bit in Nashville in the early ‘90s. Introduced to Germino by the late, great Jack Emerson of Praxis International (Jack managed Jason & the Scorchers and Webb Wilder, among other artists), I saw him perform a couple of times and was suitably impressed. Germino’s handful of albums are criminally underrated, and a recent campaign towards “rediscovery” of this worthy had begun before his death. Below are comments from Mark’s entry in my 2012 book The Other Side of Nashville, a history of the Music City rock scene (in italics) along with current reflections on the artist.

Mark Germino – The Other Side of Nashville

Mark Germino moved to Nashville from North Carolina around 1974 and quickly fell in with the street poetry/alt-songwriter crowd that included talents like Steve Earle, Kevin Welch, John Allingham, Dave Olney, and Tom House. Germino began turning his carefully-constructed and verbose poetry into carefully-constructed and verbose songs, and began playing clubs at night while driving a truck during the day.

Germino scored a publishing deal in 1980 and while few mainstream Music Row hacks had the cajónes to actually record a Germino song, a few visionaries like Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, and Vince Gill did so. Germino landed his label deal mid-decade after Earle had opened the door for the first wave of alt-country artists.

Germino’s deal with RCA Records resulted in the release of a pair of pretty decent albums – 1986’s London Moon & Barnyard Remedies and the following year’s Caught In the Act of Being Ourselves. Neither album gained any traction with country radio, mostly because Germino was too original, too eccentric, and too wordy to pen three-minute chart hits. Shunned by Music Row, Germino hooked up with some guys from similar poet Tim Krekel’s band, the Sluggers, and delivered the stunning 1991 album Radartown…  

Radartown is the culmination of Germino’s better than 15 years of hard work, struggle, and flirtations with stardom, a near-perfect collection of working-class blues backed by one of Nashville’s best band of veteran rockers. The original “Rex Bob Lowenstein” from 1987 had earned Germino a European following and a short-lived chart position in the U.K. Here the song takes on a brilliant anarchic quality that appeals to the outlaw mentality, while tunes like “Radartown” and “Unionville” are blue collar odes to hard times. Germino’s smart story-songs, like “Leroy and Bo’s Totalitarian Showdown” display both his talent and wry sense of humor. Altogether, Radartown is one of the best rock ‘n’ roll albums to ever come from the mean streets of the Music City.

Sadly, Radartown fell on deaf ears as major label A&R drones were then hovering over Seattle and the Pacific Northwest looking for the next Nirvana or Soundgarden, not a scrappy pugilist poet from Nashville, of all places. Tom Petty may have written about “The Last DJ,” but Germino’s “Rex Bob Lowenstein” is a more powerful expression of the same theme, something that Mark must have agreed with as he recorded three different versions of the song, all excellent! When Radartown failed to find a greater audience, Germino went back to his roots and recorded 1995’s acoustic Rank & File for Nashville indie label Winter Harvest, part of an impressive roster of artists that included Steve Earle, Mickey Newbury, Mac Gayden, Jonell Mosser, and John Kay (Steppenwolf).  

In between the release of his final RCA album, Caught In the Act of Being Ourselves in ‘87 and the release of the indie label gem Rank & File in 1995, Germino hooked up for a few years with the Sluggers for an album of real poop-punting rock ‘n’ roll music. This one is a fine acoustic set with Germino’s typically well-written, intelligent, and erudite songs that evince more humor than a stage full o’ drunken stand-up comedians. The album also has the third – count ‘em! – third version of Germino’s wonderful “Rex Bob Lowenstein.” After this one, Germino disappeared for over six years, turning his back on music, and writing three novels. He has since come back and is touring with his unique country/rock/folk sound.

Germino returned to the studio in 2021 to record Midnight Carnival for Red Parlor Records, an Americana label which has released wonderful albums by artists like Carla Olson, Dave Olney, Chris Whitley, Charlie Karp, and Eric Lindell, among others. Germino was enlisted by some old friends like guitarist Kenny Vaughan, bassist Tom Comet from the Sluggers, drummer Rick Lonow, and multi-instrumentalist Michael Webb to come down to Southern Grand Studios in Nashville to record Midnight Carnival, and the album is every bit as good as the contributors’ pedigrees suggest it would be.

There’s a long-lost Mark Germino album, recorded sometime during the ‘90s and distributed by the artist to his friends. Credited to “Mark Germino and the Grenade Angels,” the studio line-up included talents like guitarists Will Kimbrough and Rick Plant, bassist Todd Ellsworth, drummers Craig Wright and Willis Bailey (from the Sluggers), and the aforementioned Michael Webb, who co-produced the album with Germino. The resulting album – Atomic Candlestick – never received official release, ‘though there’s still hope as it seems that copies of the long out-of-print Rank & File are being bootlegged and available online.

Mark Germino was a unique and exceptionally gifted songwriter and performer in a vein similar to John Prine and Ray Wylie Hubbard, and although he provided songs and inspiration to a number of country artists in the 1990s and 2000s, he never got the industry attention and accolades he deserved.     

Find out more about Mark Germino & his music at:
https://www.markgermino.com/

Vintage Review: Mark Germino & the Sluggers' Radartown (1991)

Here is a perfect example of the whole being much more than the parts. I always found the Sluggers to be a solid band; the addition of rock poet Germino, however, creates something else entirely: a critical and commercial contender. Germino’s songwriting skills are the equal of any high-priced wordsmith in the Music City, his entertaining and thought-provoking story-songs drawing on the country and folk storytelling traditions to build a true rock ‘n’ roll legacy.

The Sluggers rock harder here than I’ve ever heard them. Radartown would appeal to fans of the Springsteen/Petty/Mellencamp school while holding its own with the brash young guitar bands of the college radio circuit. (P.S. The CD gives you a bonus, the hilariously funny, biting satire of “Rex Bob Lowenstein,” the best song about the airwaves since “Radio Radio”…check it out!) (review originally published by Radical Pizza zine, 1991)

Memories: Lollapalooza Festival 1993

The World Wide Web was just in its infancy in 1993, so venues for online publishing were limited for a cheeky bastard such as myself. My R.A.D! (Review and Discussion of Rock 'n' Roll) was one of the first online music zines, published in Usenet news groups like alt.zines and alt.music.alternative and downloaded through FTP sites like the University of Michigan. Digging into my archives, I found this "review" of the 1993 Lollapalooza Festival in Nashville:

"Well, the infamous Lollapalooza tour hit the "Music City" yesterday (June 6th) and, like most things here in Nashville, the "Bible Belt" mentality caused trouble...

Before the show began, officers of the Metro Nashville Police Dept. messed with the Cannabis Action Network booth (located in the Village), forcing them to all but shut down. Claiming that the C.A.N. folks were distributing "materials" which promoted drug use (what kind of materials? their flyers? of course, Metro cops have never heard of the 1st amendment!), making them remove unnamed items from their booth...

Later, one of the vendors in the Village was displaying a sticker which said "Fuck The D.E.A.!" which Starwood Amphitheatre claimed was obscene and made the vendor remove from his booth. After he replaced it, Starwood security evidently got a little "stern" with the guy, claiming that the word "fuck" wasn't in line with Starwood's "image" as a family kinda place (this coming from a 15,000 seat open-air arena which schedules drunken redneck orgies every summer with Hank, Jr. and Jimmy Buffett shows...and a year or two ago, a drunken redneck killed his wife in the parking lot after a Judas Priest show!).

The result was that a lot of people were buying the guy's stickers and giving them away, while others were sticking them to their bodies and dancing around the venue. The other Village vendors got upset about the treatment given the two booths and also got up in arms, which caused Starwood security to loosen up a bit and let the fans actually have a good time (Starwood is notorious for messing with concert goers).

The show came off without a hitch, with Arrested Development, Fishbone and Dinosaur Jr. being the crowd's favorite acts for the night. My own personal faves were Babes In Toyland and Arrested Development...

It's business per usual in Nashville when a large "counter culture" event like Lollapalooza (and I won't argue that statement here) is harassed by the local militia. Only in the Bible Belt... "

Vintage Article: Nashville's Next Big Thing with Be Your Own Pet, De Novo Dahl & Umbrella Tree (2008)

Be Your Own Pet

It’s taken thirty years, but Nashville’s rock underground, well…it ain’t exactly “subterranean” anymore, innit? No, the cat’s out of the bag now, and the dirt has been removed from the long dormant hopes-and-dreams™ of Nashville’s non-country music scene. Bands like the Kings of Leon, the Pink Spiders, and Paramore have attracted international attention while, shall we say, “artier” bands like Venus Hum have turned out well-respected records for major league labels.

‘twas not always so, my little babies – not so long ago, Nashville was a truly scary place to be in a rock band, or even write about people who were in rock bands. It was just back at the dawn of the ‘90s that the editor of a national music magazine asked the Reverend, in all seriousness, if we wore “shoes down there?” True, this was the pre-millennial dark ages, but even then I distinctly recall Dave Willie sporting a really nice pair of shoes on his feet. Think of what it was like for Jason & the Nashville Scorchers or Webb Wilder the first time they ventured into the big city to play…oh, the stories they could tell you.

Be Your Own Pet’s Get Awkward

But I digress…those days are safely behind us, and urban sophisticates have recently realized that not only do we mostly all wear “shoes for industry” these days, but that a Nashville band doesn’t have to wear Nudie suits and throw down with a fiddle to make good music (unless they want to, of course). Three distinctive Nashville bands – Be Your Own Pet, De Novo Dahl, and Umbrella Tree – recently released their sophomore efforts to no little praise and varying degrees of commercial success, helping firm up the Music City’s place on the proverbial map.

Be Your Own Pet has particularly been receiving a lot of love from out-of-towners these days for Get Awkward, and the Reverend has seen the band mentioned favorably in publications from the British motherland to the mysterious Orient; even Tierra del Fuego seems to have joined in the chorus of praise for Nashville’s next big thing. Producer Steven McDonald (of psychedelic-punk pranksters Redd Kross) – perhaps the best possible human to capture the band’s shiny, guitar-heavy, noise-pop sound – returns to his seat behind the board for Get Awkward.  

Get Awkward jumps straight into the fire with the turbo-charged “Super Soaked,” an electric shake-and-bake sizzler that’s straight outta the Detroit rawk songbook. Jemina Pearl’s vocals are strident to a fault (as in earthquake) while Jonas Stein’s rambling guitar delivers aftershocks in waves alongside the song’s explosive rhythms. BYOP had to look deep in the racks at Phonoluxe for the vintage sound of “The Kelly Affair,” a band-on-the-run tale of fun and hijinx in Hollywood that evokes fuzz-drenched ‘60s-era garage-rock with its manic riffing, clever lyrics, and John Eatherley’s muscular drumming.   

Although the band has matured in the year-and-a-half since its young, loud and snotty debut, Get Awkward has plenty of moments where every emotion is overwhelming, every perceived snub an uppercut. “Heart Throb” benefits from whipsmart lyrics, syncopated rhythms led by Nathan Vasquez’s bold bass lines, washes of razor-sharp guitar, and Pearl’s manic, lovesick teen vocal gymnastics. The other side of the coin is “Bitches Leave,” a cold, cold piss-off song with a nifty signature riff and snarling, spiteful vocals. The tribal Bow Wow Wow rhythms of “Zombie Graveyard Party!” are matched by Stein’s sonic guitar-squawk and Pearl’s effusive vocals.

Get Awkward lives up to all the hype, perfectly capturing BYOP’s mix of youthful energy, cluttered instrumentation, and flailing vocals. Be Your Own Pet has been compared once too often to New York’s Yeah Yeah Yeahs, mainly because of the vocal similarities between that band’s Karen O and Pearl’s out-of-control yelp. Sorry, but YYY is soooo yesterday, treading water while looking for a lifesaver. BYOP is the sound of tomorrow, and if they make the same creative strides between Get Awkward and whatever their third album ends up being as they did between their debut and this one, you’ll be seeing a lot more effusive comments in print and on the web about this band in the future.

De Novo Dahl’s Move Every Muscle, Make Every Sound

De Novo Dahl

Compared to Be Your Own Pet, De Novo Dahl has proved a bit more problematic for so-called “music journalists” outside of the critical zone (i.e. within 100 miles of Nashville, including Bowling Green and, of course, Murfreesboro). On one hand, the band delivers a lush, well-crafted brand of pop-influenced rock that is long on melody and short on the sort of attitude that bloggers and benchwarmers in the blue states eat up (and which the aforementioned BYOP delivers in spades).

On the other hand, however, the band dresses like refugees from ‘Olde Nashville,’ clad in fancy vines like the Countrypolitan song-pimps that one used to see traipsing from Music Row to Lower Broadway to hang out in Tootsies. The hipper-than-thou literati just can’t get a handle on De Novo Dahl, ‘though they’ve spilled a lot of ink-and-electrons in the attempt. Further complicating this critical confusion is the fact that the band’s Move Every Muscle, Make Every Sound was released by Roadrunner Records – a label better known for Nickelback and the sort of extreme metal that would make the hair on your toes curl. Thus, De Novo Dahl’s commercial prospects seem questionable from the very beginning.

Regardless, Move Every Muscle, Make Every Sound is a simply delightful album, a wonderfully-constructed collection of throwback pop that would sound as equally at home in the early ‘70s as it does in the new millennium. There’s nothing that’s overtly retro here, or even remotely derivative, just a reckless appropriation of influences ranging from the Beatles and the Kinks to Bowie, the Move, even ELO…in short, all the right stuff at the right time.

The band has the chops to pull off such a hat trick, and De Novo Dahl covers a lot of stylistic ground with Move Every Muscle, Make Every Sound. The whimsical “Shout” is a lofty shooting star featuring Joel Dahl’s slightly-accented Brit-punk vocals, delicious harmonies, and upbeat life-lesson lyrics. “Means to an End” mixes shoegazer sensibilities with a bit o’ feedback, lush backing vocals, and an odd melody that reminds of Revolver-era Beatles. De Novo Dahl gets funky with “Shakedown,” revisiting ‘70s soul with Dahl’s best high falsetto, call-and-response harmonies, and a fat soundtrack of warbling synths, subtle drumwork and wa-wa guitar.

“The Sky Is Falling” revs things up with 100mph drumbeats, fast-paced vocals, roller-coaster keyboards, and an undeniable ‘80s new wave vibe. The somber “Not to Escape” is a melancholy dirge of many hues, Dahl’s sinewy leads bursting out of the clouds of chiming keys, crashing cymbals, and shuffling drumbeats. “Be Your Man” is a whirling dervish of a song, the band taking a fair-to-middlin’ White Stripes/Jet garage-rock concept and cranking up the intensity a notch or six. Dahl’s vocals careen off the sides like a spastic pinball while a steady barrage of sound assaults your senses.

De Novo Dahl does a fine job of melding the band’s disparate personalities into a single, creative whole. The band’s chemistry is such that they emphasis a song’s lyrics with combined efforts. Dahl’s vocals are up front on most songs, but only by default … Serai Zaffiro’s feminine wiles aren’t far behind in the mix, offering a fine counterpoint, followed by the rest of the guys. Matt Hungate’s keyboards provide color while bassist Keith Lowan and drummer Joey Andrews build a solid framework for each song.

Dahl’s six-string work is understated but often elegant, and somewhat underutilized as a punctuation mark within the songs. In those moments when Zaffiro cuts loose with her omnichord, the instrument adds an alien, antediluvian, and entirely unique sound to the band’s material. Add it all up, and Move Every Muscle, Make Every Sound is the sort of album that, while maybe not lighting up the charts right this moment, will nevertheless be “rediscovered” over and over by rock ‘n’ roll archeologists for decades to come.

Umbrella Tree’s The Church & The Hospital

Umbrella Tree

Coming fast down the stretch in their attempt to be Nashville’s next big thing, Umbrella Tree is part of the same complex pop landscape as BYOP and De Novo Dahl, but it’s there that the resemblance ends. Umbrella Tree’s sophomore album, The Church & The Hospital, was released on their own independent Cephalopod Records label. If this charming, sometimes difficult, and totally entertaining album doesn’t net the band a deal, then the Reverend will eat his large-ish, size-14 Reeboks.

The Church & The Hospital is a deceptively engaging album, the songs creeping into your consciousness like some sort of purple plague. Umbrella Tree – the trio of Jillian Leigh, Zachary Gresham, and Derek Pearson – mine the same sort of art-pop vein that the old 4AD label bands once ruled with, but with a distinctly American twist. Whereas many 4AD bands brought a certain level of proper Britannic noblesse to their sound, Umbrella Tree imbues their work with an anarchistic spirit and inherent weirdness that can only come from a people that once started a war with the symbolic act of throwing a few crates of tea in the Boston harbor.

Not that Umbrella Tree isn’t capable of creating songs of immense, shimmering beauty; The Church & The Hospital offers many such moments across its sprawling soundtrack. Leigh and Gresham intertwine their voices beneath the instrumentation, which itself is fueled by Leigh’s delicate keyboards and Gresham’s ethereal fretwork. Drummer Pearson is an integral part of the Umbrella Tree sound, adding blasts of bass drum or clashing cymbals when needed to poke a hole in the thick wall of sound.

There’s a concept at work here, interlocking lyrical themes paired with scraps of recurring sound, sometimes operatic and other times slightly cabaret in nature. There’s no single song on The Church & The Hospital that necessarily stands out as a radio track or quick fix for stardom. Instead the band has crafted an album as a unified entity. Taken out of context, songs like “Make Me A Priest” – an enchanting tale with lofty vocals and changing currents – or the confused, clever “Schizophrenia” would hit your ears like a hopeless hodge-podge of sound and chaos. In the company of their neighboring songs on The Church & The Hospital, they fit like pieces in a somewhat surrealistic puzzle, showcasing a band of no little talent and musical ambition.

None of these bands may break-out and become Nashville’s “next big thing,” or even the city’s “first really big thing.” With Be Your Own Pet, De Novo Dahl and Umbrella Tree representing the city, however, I do believe that we’re in good hands...

Article originally posted by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine, 2008

Vintage Review: The Dusters’ Dang! (2002)

Known as the home of country music, Nashville had a thriving rock scene back during the mid-to-late 1980s, with bands like Jason & the Scorchers (country-punk), the Shakers (Goth-folk), Afrikan Dreamland (blu-reggae), and Practical Stylists (power pop), among many others, exploring various musical styles and stylistic fusions. One of the most popular outfits on the scene at the time was the Dusters, a no-frills blues-rock band whose hard-charging sound was fueled by frontman Ken McMahan’s raging fretwork and soul-twang vocals.

At the band’s early 1990s peak, the Dusters received airplay on college radio and toured steadily throughout the South, songs like “This Ain’t No Jukebox…We’re A Rock ‘n’ Roll Band” and an incendiary cover of Savoy Brown’s “Hellbound Train” thrilling audiences from one side of Dixie to the other. Signed to an independent label in the Music City, the band was unable to break out of the Nashville rock ghetto in spite of a touring sponsorship from Miller Beer, and by the mid-‘90s the Dusters, like so many indie rockers, were crushed by the murky sounds coming out of Seattle. McMahan launched a solo career that resulted in three acclaimed albums for the French Dixie Frog label (which had also released the Dusters’ 1992 album, Unlisted Number) before touring as part of Dan Baird’s (the Georgia Satellites) band.

The Dusters’ Dang!

In 2002, the best and brightest Dusters line-up – guitarist McMahan, bassist David Barnette, and drummer Jeff Perkins – reunited for some Nashville-area shows which, in turn, led to a return to the studio by the band to record Dang! with Baird producing. Although the CD went out of print nearly as rapidly as it was released, it’s well worth digging up for the dedicated fan of roots/blues-rock, and is currently available digitally. McMahan leads his classic power trio line-up through a baker’s dozen of red-hot blues-rock romps, about 90% of them original tunes, with only a sparse handful of covers thrown in for flavor.

Dang! cranks up the amps with the album-opening “Goin’ Up Easy,” a McMahan co-write with esteemed Music City scribe Tommy Womack, the song a steamy slab of locomotive piledriver rhythms and blistering fretwork. The menacing “Mexico,” co-written with Baird, who also adds rhythm guitar if I’m not mistaken, is the best ZZ Top song that that lil’ old band from Texas never recorded, full of muscular riffs, endless swagger, and a sordid storyline that would make the Senoritas blush. The song’s uber-cool false ending is complimented by a hot, brief bluesy outro. McMahan’s “Red Sun” is a funky little sucker, with a sly rhythmic undercurrent, a mind-bending recurring riff, and rolling guitar solos that are warmer than a runaway bonfire.  

Cadillac Blues

You’ll find more than a little Delta blues spirit in the dark-hued “Killin’ Time,” a malevolent tale of violence and retribution with a swamp-blues vibe, a slow-burning groove, and McMahan’s shimmy-shake rattletrap guitar. The discerning ear will pick up all sorts of influences here, overt and covert alike, from Robert Johnson to Savoy Brown, from John Lee Hooker to the aforementioned ZZ Top. “Night Is Gone” offers up some of McMahan’s best guitar tone, kind of a cross between Bluesbreakers-era Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan, the song evincing just a hint of boogie-rock within its emotional, lovestruck lyrics. McMahan’s six-string work here is taut and structured but still imaginative within the rhythmic framework

McMahan’s “Poison Love” is built on a classic Bo Diddley beat, but quickly beats it into submission with a revved-up rhythm that would sound positively punkish (think Black Keys or Immortal Lee County Killers) if not for McMahan’s soulful Southern workingman’s twang vox and the song’s femme fatale subject matter. “Barn Door” has a heart that is pure Chicago blues, the song itself mixing its metaphors with an urban soundtrack and a storyline that has one foot in roots-rock and the other in country-blues, while another McMahan original, “Cadillac Blues,” is a smoldering sample of barroom blues, wearing its heart on its sleeve with low-slung guitar licks and subtle rhythms. One of the album’s few covers, of the great Chuck Berry’s “Don’t You Lie To Me,” throws a little New Orleans barrelhouse flavor in with Neal Cappellino’s spirited piano-pounding running like the Mississippi beneath McMahan’s fluid vocals and a sturdy rhythmic framework.  
   

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Blowing back onto the blues scene like a tornado, the Dusters have made major strides during the band’s ten or so years apart. Whereas the band had been enjoyable on record, if sometimes derivative in their approach, they were never anything less than devastating while on stage, and they could never capture their live performance dynamic on tape. As the three band members continued to grow and evolve while playing with other musicians during the ensuing years, however, they brought this maturity to the studio when making Dang!

McMahan’s guitarplay, always the band’s strong suite, has been honed to a dangerous edge through the years. The rhythm section of David Barnette and Jeffrey Perkins has developed into an explosive combination, unobtrusive when need be, a brick to your face when the situation calls for such. But the Dusters’ secret weapon may be McMahan’s skilled songwriting chops, seasoned by life and experience into an impressive bit of street poetry that combines a Southern rock heart with the soul of the blues. Dang! proves, without a doubt, that the Dusters are bad to the bone, with a black cat moan, and a lucky mojo hand. Can you dig it? (Lucky Hand Records, released October 21, 2002)

Vintage Review: Bill Lloyd's All In One Place (2001)

Bill Lloyd is remembered by many as half of the popular country duo Foster & Lloyd, who recorded three hit albums during the late ‘80s. Lloyd has always been a rocker in his heart, however, and he’s enjoyed a successful career as a songwriter and session guitarist, playing with artists like Al Kooper, Kim Richey, Steve Earle, and Marshall Crenshaw. His fourth album, All In One Place, gathers a decade’s worth of Lloyd’s songs from various tribute albums and compilations.

A glorious collection of pop-influenced roots rock, Lloyd joyfully interprets songs by folks like the Hollies, Badfinger, Bobby Fuller, Todd Rundgren, and Harry Nilsson. He also throws in a few of his own spirited compositions, as well as songs co-written with artists like Dan Baird (Georgia Satellites), Jerry Dale McFadden (The Mavericks), and Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate). Think of a mix of the Beatles and the Kinks, with a slight Nashville twang, and you’ve nailed the pop-rock aesthetic that makes All In One Place an enormously charming collection of tunes. (Def Heffer Records, released 2001)

Review originally published by View From The Hill community newspaper, Signal Hill CA

Vintage Review: The Features' Some Kind of Salvation (2009)

Back in the earlier part of this decade, the Features were fated to be the “next big thing” in Nashville rock ‘n’ roll. Sure, they didn’t have the curious, media-ready backstory of their friends the Kings of Leon, but what they did have was years of hard-won experience on the Southeastern club circuit. After releasing a self-titled indie EP in ‘97, the band delivered a strong (and critically-acclaimed) debut album with Exhibit A for Universal in 2004, but a subsequent clash of wills with the evil media corporation found the Features back out on the street.

The loss of their label deal was a big blow to a young band, no doubt, but unlike many of their brethren, the Features had the steel to persevere. Their return to the rank-n-file of indie-rock resulted in Contrast, a fine five-song EP in 2006 and now, a half-a-decade since their fall-from-major-label-grace, a triumphant full-length effort in the self- released Some Kind of Salvation.

Some Kind of Salvation shows that not only has the band not lost its sense of humor after the whole U-music spectacle, but that they’ve emerged with all of the musical elements that made them so special in the first place firmly intact. The Features’ trademark sound is an odd blend of ‘60s psychedelia and pop, ‘70s guitar-rock, and ‘80s punk/new wave with scraps of Britpop and singer-songwriter angst thrown in for good measure. Behind frontman Matt Pelham’s keening voice and slashing fretwork, the sturdy rhythm section of bassist Roger Dabbs and drummer Rollum Haas build a surprisingly robust structure while keyboardist Mark Bond throws in a little rolling 88’s whenever necessary.

Since the core of the Features has been together for better than a decade, the band’s innate chemistry allows them to follow Pelham’s lead and spin pure magic. For instance, “Wooden Heart” sports a strutting Memphis soul soundtrack within its timeless rock framework as the song’s wall-of-instrumentation is punctuated with blasts of rhythmic guitar and piercing vocal harmonies. “The Temporary Blues” is a working-class coming-of-age tale with insightful lyrics, joyously clashing instrumentation, and Pelham’s appropriately strained vocals.

The Features

The electro-pop rhythms of “Concrete” are matched by Pelham’s whipsmart lyrics – “I’m the king of indecision, just sitting on my throne, and if you ask me my opinion, I’ll tell you I don’t know” is a delicious bit of wordplay, while the song’s chorus – “nothing is complete, nothing is concrete, nothing is for certain, as far as I can see” – is pure genius, summing up perfectly both the band’s experience and life overall. “Off Track” sounds like a melancholy version of the Strokes, minus the fog of faux NYC hipness, chiming rhythms and dashes of guitar paired with soulful vocals that are nearly lost in the depths of the mix.     

The closest musical comparison that you could make for the Features would be to their Nashville neighbors Lambchop – both bands are talented, unpredictable, and seemingly without fear in their creation of music that is anything but cookie-cutter or trend-following. Whereas Lambchop uses country music as its jumping off point, however, the Features are firmly set in a pop-rock tradition. Onto this musical foundation, Pelham and crew include the playful anarchism of Wayne Coyne and the Flaming Lips, the wry sense of humor of Ray Davies, and probably a 100 or so other influences that are thrown into the blender and come out imminently sounding like nothing other that the Features.

Maybe Some Kind of Salvation provides the band with exactly that – salvation in the wake of their stormy past – and it comes as no surprise that your new favorite rock band closes the album with the pleading “All I Ask,” where Pelham implores “I won’t give up on you, so don’t give up on me.” With this, the Features are well deserving of another shot at the brass ring. The Rev sez “check ‘em out!” (429 Music, released July 28th, 2009)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine

Vintage Review: Jason & the Scorchers’ Clear Impetuous Morning (1996)

Seldom has a band received so much acclaim and developed such a loyal following as Jason & the Scorchers, yet never get any respect. Jason, Warner, Jeff and Perry have got to be the Rodney Dangerfields of the rock ‘n’ roll world. After a hiatus of several years, the original Scorchers’ line-up got back together a few years ago to record a solid collection of rock ‘n’ roll tunes called A Blazing Grace. It went nowhere outside of their hardcore circle of fans.

Now they’ve delivered what is arguably the finest album of their lengthy career in Clear Impetuous Morning and the signs are there for all to see that the effort is playing mostly to the choir, falling on those deaf ears who’d rather set down fifteen bucks for another Nirvana or Pearl Jam clone than actually grab something that would really get their adrenaline flowing. Even those nouveau country rockers over in  the alt.country scene, while recognizing the Scorchers’ place in their holy pantheon, don’t seem to be falling over themselves to pick up a new Scorchers disc or two...

Jason & the Scorchers’ Clear Impetuous Morning

Clear Impetuous Morning finds the Scorchers mining the same country-flavored, roots-rock vein that they pioneered almost fifteen years ago. In this aspect, the band has never sounded better. Warner Hodges is an exemplary guitarist, a legend-in-waiting on the level of Keith Richards who plays with great skill and flash. Hodges tears off chainsaw riffs like some kid playing air guitar in his bedroom, breathing life into each song. Jason’s energetic vocal delivery is part Hank Williams, part Johnny Rotten, crooning sweet country twang on cuts like “I’m Sticking With You,” kicking out the jams with reckless, joyful abandon on rockers like “Victory Road.” The rhythm section of bassist Jeff Johnson and drummer Perry Baggs provide a steady beat and a strong backbone for the Scorchers performances, playing conservative foils to Jason and Warner’s rock ‘n’ roll crazed wild men.

Lyrically, Clear Impetuous Morning distinguishes itself through its maturity and wisdom. This foursome clearly aren’t the idealistic youngsters that they were in 1982, and every scar that they’ve received through the years can be found in these songs. Jason Ringenberg, always the Scorchers main songwriter, collaborates here with some new partners. Most notable of these is Nashvillian Tommy Womack, formerly of Mid-South legends Government Cheese. Together they put together some of the album’s hottest songs, like the new Scorchers’ show-stopper, “Self-Sabotage” or “Cappuccino Rosie.” A duet between Jason and Emmylou Harris on “Everything Has A Cost” proves to be a natural pairing, the two creating a haunting musical moment that is underlined by some strong six-string work from Hodges.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Sadly, the Scorchers seem doomed to be one of those bands who never receive a break, who never find themselves in the “right place at the right time.” If the masses refuse to pick up on an album as solid as Clear Impetuous Morning, what’s left for the band to try? As one of a handful who can truthfully say that I’ve been a fan of the band since the beginning, I marvel at the Scorchers ability to keep going in the face of adversity. They’ve suffered breaking up, getting back together again, three record labels, industry indifference, constant touring and mediocre sales for over a decade and a half. Yet they keep on rocking, cranking out some of the greatest music in the history of the genre, delivering night after night with great live performances. Like Rodney, they get nowhere near the respect they rightfully deserve. (Mammoth Records, released 1996)

Review originally published by R Squared zine

Vintage Review: Th’ Legendary Shack*Shakers’ Believe (2004)

In the early ‘80s, Jason & the Nashville Scorchers shook up the staid country music establishment with a hard-rocking blend of adrenaline-fueled punk energy and reckless country soul. Two decades later, Th’ Legendary Shack*Shakers have arrived to finish the musical revolution begun by Jason and his crew, tilting the city on its collective ear. Nothing could have prepared the “Music City” for the band’s self-released 2002 debut – Cockadoodledon’t – reissued a year later by Bloodshot Records. A manic collection of rockabilly, blues, and country twang delivered with the intensity of a mad dervish, Th’ Legendary Shack*Shakers announced that it was a force to be reckoned with.

Believe proves that while they may not yet be legendary, the band sure knows how to shake the shack. Toss this slab o’ metal into your CD player and be ready for an old school tent revival to explode from your speakers. Shack*Shakers frontman Col. J.D. Wilkes is ready to preach the gospel of rock and roll to your lonesome ears; the rest of the boys ready to save your soul with their roots-rock hymnal. Believe opens with a train whistle, the choogling beat of “Agony Wagon” warping into an Arabic guitar line beneath a tale of a tortured soul doomed to forever ride the mythical “hellbound train.” Guitarist Joe Buck adds a twangy, Dick Dale-influenced guitar riff beneath Wilkes’ vocals, the lyrics delivered with all the fervor of a Southern preacher standing in the center of a Middle Eastern bazaar.

The album rolls along like a runaway hot rod fueled by whiskey and riding along a tightrope made of discarded guitar strings. “Piss and Vinegar” is a juke-joint rave-up; Wilkes’ echoed vocals punching through a fog of bluesy guitars and staggered drumbeats. Driven by a Carl Perkins-styled rhythms and hazy, psychedelic fretwork, “County of Graves” is another tragic tale, part prayer and part sermon with a drunken soundtrack. “Cussin’ In Tongues” is a mutant truck-driving song, a cross between Dave Dudley and the Butthole Surfers, Pauly Simmonz’ massive percussion work, and Buck’s stylish six-string riffing pushing the rig towards a crashing finish. If your spiritual quest is in need of some cheap thrills, let the Colonel and his boys guide you towards the path of righteousness with Believe. (Yep Roc Records, released 2004)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine

Tape Trading: Bare Jr. at 3rd & Lindsey, Nashville TN 1999

ARTIST: Bare Jr.

VENUE: 3rd & Lindsey, Nashville TN; February 28, 1999

SOURCE: 50-minute FM broadcast, performance (9), quality (9)

TRACKLIST: Intro/ Boo-Tay/ Nothin’ Better To Do/ Give Nothing Away/ Patty McBride/ I Hate Myself/ Tobacco Spit/ Naked Albino/ Love-Less/ Soggy Daisy/ You Blew Me Off/ Faker

COMMENTS: Having more in common with 1980s-era rabble-rousers like the Replacements or Jason & the Scorchers than with the vast majority of laid-back, cornpone-eating, Hank-quoting singer/songwriters in “No Depression” garb, Bare Jr. tend to lean more heavily towards the “rock” side of the country-rock equation. Fronted by, well, Bobby Bare Jr, son of the country legend, Bare Jr. the band kick out a high-voltage mix of punk-flavored rock and roots country that plays along the fringe of the current alt-country craze.

This show was a homecoming of sorts, a triumphant return to the Music City after the band had received rave reviews in the mainstream music press for their debut LP, wired live performances and spirited television appearances. Broadcast live on Nashville’s “Radio Lightning,” WRLT-FM from a packed local club, Bare Jr. pulled out all the stops to entertain their home audience. The show’s setlist here is skewed heavily towards material from Boo-Tay, their major label debut, playing most of the album, adding plenty of running commentary from the band in between songs. Although there’s not a bad song here, a few particularly strong performances do stand out.

Among them, there’s a rocking “I Hate Myself,” dedicated by Bare to “every woman I ever dated.” The song starts out mild, focusing on Bare’s introspective lyrics, before spiraling out of control into a black hole of anguished vocals and unrequited love. The senior Bare joins the band for a raucous rendition of “Love-Less” while “You Blew Me Off,” the band’s semi-hit single from the Varsity Blues movie soundtrack, drives the audience wild with its madly discordant guitar riff and Bare’s over-the-top vocals. Ronnie McCoury, fresh from recording an album with Steve Earle and his father’s respected Del McCoury Band, joins the Bare Jr. boys for a show-closing, bluegrass-styled “Hee Haw” version of the band’s “Faker.”

Bare Jr.’s musicianship is top-notch, the band energetically mixing twin guitars, mandolin and the traditional bass guitar/drums rhythm section into a powerful, original sound. What really makes Bare Jr. stand out, however, is Bare’s off-kilter vocals which are often strained to the point of painfulness, and the unbridled recklessness that the band brings to each performance. They adhere to the cowpunk credo: twang it loud! These guys obviously enjoy what they’re doing and we enjoy hearing it.

Review originally published as a “Roll The Tape” column in Live! Music Review, 1999

Vintage Review: The Bluefields' Pure (2012)

Probably the closest that the Nashville rock scene has ever come to the birth of a bona fide “supergroup,” the Bluefields are comprised of former Georgia Satellites’ frontman Dan Baird (who, more recently, fronts his own Dan Baird and Homemade Sin band); Jason & the Scorchers’ charismatic guitarslinger Warner E. Hodges (also a Homemade Sin band member); and singer/songwriter Joe Blanton, formerly of such beloved Music City rock ‘n’ roll institutions as the Enemy and Royal Court of China. All three men have a lot of miles under their belts, all three have experienced the fragile joys of a major label record deal, and all three have pursued solo careers with varying degrees of success. Nevertheless, their individual pedigrees are impeccable…

That these three musicians came together is an act of provenance, perhaps, or maybe just the Holy Trinity (Chuck, Elvis & Bob) looking down from the Mount Olympus of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Blanton had returned to Nashville after a decade-long hiatus spent in the hinterlands pursuing the brass ring with an acclaimed, albeit impoverishing solo career. Blanton reconnected with his teenage pal Hodges (the two cutting their musical teeth together on the roughneck late ‘70s Nashville punk scene), the guitarist in turn introducing Joe to Dan, the three subsequently finding acres of common ground. As these things happen, they decided to write and play together ‘cause, well, that’s what rock lifers do, and the trio convened to Blanton’s secret, subterranean recording studio, dubbed by the newly-formed Bluefields as the “underground tree house.”

The Bluefields’ Pure

I’m not sure whether it was the trio’s rapidly-formed musical chemistry, or if jars of pure-D white lightning corn liquor were passed around the basement studio, but Pure, the Bluefields’ debut album, serves up a righteous helping of shit-kickin’, guitar-driven, Southern-fried twang-rock that fans of both the Satellites and the Scorchers will nod their collective heads in approval of, although the Bluefields really sound nothing like either of those bands. Blanton takes the lead vocals on most of the tracks, the man really one of the best singers in the Music City, criminally overlooked among the glut of clones marching in lockstep through the halls of the record label offices that line Nashville’s notorious “Music Row.”

Hodges does what he’s always done best, and that is to bash and mangle that plank of wood and steel, tearing sounds out of his instrument previously unheard of by man nor beast while Baird, the M.V.P. of any session he’s involved with, plays the fat-string, adds a little of his trademark Keith Richards-styled rhythm guitar where needed, pitches in on backing vocals, and even adds keyboards if necessary. Friend of the band Steve Gorman, from the currently-on-hiatus Black Crowes, adds his thunderous drumbeats to the majority of the songs. The bottom line, though, is that regardless of the talent assembled, it’s the music that matters…and Pure offers up more than a few surprises.

The album kicks off with “What You Won’t Do,” the song’s brief instrumental intro displaying more than a few strains of Led Zeppelin’s Eastern-fueled musical mysticism. When the band kicks in, Gorman’s blast-beats ring loudly and the intertwined guitars are simply smothering. The instrumentation is thick, like an intoxicating smoke, the arrangement more than a little Zeppelinesque but with more twang and bang for your buck, mixing roots-and-hard-rock with a bluesy undercurrent to great effect. The jaunty “Bad Old Days” is both a gripping morality tale and a humorous page straight out of the Dan Baird songbook. With a rolling, Southern boogie-flavored soundtrack, the lyrics recall a tale of woe that all three band members have lived in one manner or another. Sobriety doesn’t come easy, those crazy old days are in the rearview mirror, and with guitars that swing with anarchic glee, “Bad Old Days” is an unbridled rocker tailor-made for radio…if radio still played rock ‘n’ roll, that is…

“Don’t Let Me Fall” is an old-school romantic ballad, the sort of song that, with enough hairspray and metallic hooks, would have had the spandex-clad bottle-blondes pulling out their lighters twenty-five years ago. In these days and times, though, Blanton’s vocals are timelessly heartworn, Hodges’ Duane Eddy-styled background riffs a perfect accompaniment. The band doesn’t stay morose for long, though, launching directly into “Nobody Loves You,” a pop-tinged rollicking boogie-rocker with a ‘80s new wave vibe built on a spry rhythm, ambitious rolling drumbeats, and shards of wiry guitar.

By this time in the album’s sequencing, the Bluefields sound like they’re having way too much fun, a hypothesis easily proven by the Zep-styled reprise of “Repair My Soul,” a larger than life, foot-stomping hard-rocker. Built on a foundation of dirty Delta blues, the song is raised to the heavens on the strength of intricate (and inordinately heavy) guitars that sound like a clash of the titans, and Gorman’s unbelievable drum tones, which sound eerily like the angry ghost of John Bonham banging on the cans. With lyrics dealing with sin and salvation, if this one doesn’t scorch the hair from your head and get your feet a moving, then you’re probably deaf (or a Justin Bieber fan…shudder).   

As good a song and performance as “Repair My Soul” may be…and make no mistake true believers, it’s one of the best rock songs you’ll hear in your lifetime…the Bluefields trio scale the heights of the aforementioned Mount Olympus with the incredible “Flat Out Gone.” A runaway locomotive of choogling guitars, racing drumbeats, defiant vocals, and swaggering rhythms, one can hear the entirety of the pantheon of rock heroes channeled through each and every note: Chuck Berry, Duane Eddy, Gene Vincent & the Bluecaps, Eddie Cochran, Big Joe Turner, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Roy Orbison, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bob Seger, Bo Diddley, Johnny Burnette, Ike Turner, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, Doug Sahm, Link Wray, Mitch Ryder, Elmore James, the Yardbirds, the Band, Bob Dylan, and the almighty Elvis himself. The song is three minutes and twenty-two seconds of pure, unvarnished rock ‘n’ roll cheap thrills, the likes of which come around far too infrequently these days for my tastes and, I’m betting, your tastes too...

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

There’s more, much more to be heard on Pure, the album probably the best example you’ll ever hear of three guys getting together and making music for the sheer joy of it all. Every note played, every word sung, every beat of the drum is the result of lives lived in thrall to the muse of rock ‘n’ roll, albeit with a distinctively Southern perspective. As a result, Pure lives up to its name, the album probably the purest expression of reckless country soul that’s ever been carved into wax. (Underground Treehouse Records, released 2012)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine