Nashville Cats: Richie Owens & Steve Boyd (2025)

Back in 1966, the Lovin’ Spoonful’s John Sebastian sang “there’s thirteen hundred and fifty-two guitar pickers in Nashville” later adding “and any one that unpacks his guitar could play twice as better than I will.” That loving ode to the Music City, “Nashville Cats” would peak at #8 on the Billboard singles chart, the seventh Lovin’ Spoonful song to hit Top Ten in the U.S. 

As Sebastian told writer Jeff Tamarkin (note: a former editor of mine) of the Best Classic Bands website, he drew inspiration for the song after he and Spoonful guitarist Zal Yanovsky were shocked by a talented unknown guitarist playing in their hotel’s bar, concluding that “how is it that this guy that doesn’t even have a stage can take us to town, and just kill it, in 20 minutes?” Although Nashville has long been known as the home of country music, there’s never been a lack of über-talented “Nashville cats” playing rock, blues, and jazz music. As I posited in my 2012 book The Other Side of Nashville, the Music City’s “rock era” started with the release of R. Stevie Moore’s Phonography album in 1976.

Back in the mid-‘70s, Moore and his friends – notably Roger Ferguson and Victor Lovera – were among the few artists making original, non-country music in Nashville. Moore later lit out for New Jersey and made a name for himself as the “Godfather of Home Recording.” But others would follow, diverse rockers like David Olney & the X-Rays, the White Animals, and Cloverbotton who would later be followed by Jason & the Scorchers, Afrikan Dreamland, and many others. The city’s rock scene thrived throughout the 1980s and ‘90s through today with talents like Sour Ops and William Tyler representing the city alongside immigrants like Jack White and Dan Auerbach.   

Richie Owens’ Redemption

New albums by a couple of the city’s O.G. rockers – Richie Owens and Steve Boyd – show that there’s still plenty of great music being made by the first generation of Music City rockers. Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Richie Owens grew up in a musical family (he’s Dolly Parton’s cousin and has toured as a member of the country legend’s band) and played around town during the ‘80s in beloved bands like Placid Fury, The Dayts (with my old high school buddy Norm Rau!), The Resistors, and The Movement. Most recently, he’s fronted Richie Owens & the Farm Bureau, the band creating an inspired blend of roots-rock and twangy country on albums like 2011’s In Farm We Trust, 2014’s Tennessee, and 2020’s Reconstruction. Owens has also worked in the studio with bands like Jason & the Scorchers, the Georgia Satellites, and Raging Fire.

Redemption, however, is credited to Owens by himself, and billed as “a gutter gospel for the damned,” so don’t let the poppy, melodic album-opener “Welcome To the Evening Show” fool you…this is a deeply-insightful (and disturbing) take on our apocalyptic days delivered by Owen with a smile on his face and a preacher’s fervor as his warm vocals and gorgeous guitar-play support an otherwise devastating message. The song also sets the stage for Redemption, the album, as a sort of rock ‘n’ roll parable, a clarion call for the faithful who have been conned and confused and debased for their empathy and humanity. “Sacrifice” carries the message into blues turf, with Owens’ Delta-dirty guitar lines punctuating his somber vocals. 

“The Hammer” digs even deeper, Owens’ voice warped and obscured by an electronic haze, the song’s deep blues roots modernizing the John Henry myth for a chaotic era. The somber “Muddy the Water” plays like a dirge slotted between “The Hammer” and the up-tempo “All That Matters,” which buzzes like the parasocial hum we find ourselves in daily, the song’s dire message buoyed by a glammy rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack with some tightwire guitar and a driving rhythm. It’s back to the hammer and tongs for “Nameless,” a bruising, metallic, Biblical message with oblique lyrics and a menacing vibe fueled by the flames of a dozen burning bushes.

The electrifying spaghetti western-styled guitarplay of “Trouble” is accompanied by a galloping arrangement and vocals that ride hard above the relentless rhythm to deliver the ‘Sturm und Drang’ while the late night bluesy feel of “Note To Self” offers up an exotic ambience that reminds of Santana’s Caravanserai. Featuring fluid, jazzy guitar lines that soar and dip across the musical landscape, it’s a joyful noise that flows as a counterpoint to the song’s lyrical struggle. “Fighting For Our Sins” is an unbridled rocker with taut guitar lines and a Beatlesque melody which creates a deceptively sunny soundtrack for an otherwise stormy lyrical journey.

“Miggido” is another brilliant, western-flavored romp with twangy guitar and a wide rhythm that strides the same dark side of the street as some of the best work from Luther Perkins, James Burton, or Hank Garland to ride alongside Owens’ brilliant, provocative, and poetic lyrics. Album-closer “The Last Song Written” is a bigger and bolder rocker than anything previous with the sound of a guitar army marching lockstep to Owens’ reflective albeit reflective lyrics, one final sermon for the end of the world. It’s the perfect closer for Redemption, a masterpiece painted with Owens’ effortless mastery of rock, blues, and country music to deliver a timeless message. “Redemption” is on the horizon, but we’re going to have to keep walking through hell to get there…

Steve Boyd’s King of the Losers

The White Animals were one of the most popular local bands during the first half of the ‘80s, releasing five studio and a live recording on their own independent Dread Beat Records label circa 1981-1987. Bassist Steve Boyd was along for the ride from the very beginning, and while fat-string players generally get short-changed on receiving credit for a band’s success, Boyd was integral to the Animals’ heavy rhythmic sound, playing off drummer Ray Crabtree like Entwistle and Townshend in the Who, or maybe Aston Barrett and Carlton Barrett in the Wailers.

Boyd also had a hand in the band’s songwriting, contributing fan favorites like “Constant Attention,” “Such A Long Time,” and “This Girl of Mine” to the Animals’ songbook. He brought similar pop/rock sensibilities to the Claimstakers’ self-titled 1988 album; a well-regarded side project Boyd recorded with White Animals bandmate Rich Parks. Boyd’s solo debut, King of the Loners, starts up front with a wry bit of humor…credited to Boyd and “The Loners,” in reality, the talented musician wrote all the songs, played all the instruments, and produced the album save for cameos by guitarist Will Kimbrough on two songs. By definition, Boyd would be “King of the Loners” as he was largely alone when he created this stunningly impressive solo debut effort. 

“Drowning” kicks off the album, the song reflecting more than a little Tom Petty influence; although Boyd’s vocals are slightly more flexible than the late rock superstar’s, they’re every bit as engaging. The folkish influences evident on “Scattered Down the Road” only add to the song’s enormous charm, Boyd’s wistful vocals accompanied by a filigree acoustic guitar strum. The mournful harp-play evokes Dylan, but with less grandiosity and more humility. The result is an overall gorgeous performance with intricate lyrics and wonderful vocal/guitar interplay. The title track is an upbeat rocker with a rollicking arrangement and a melody that’s two lanes wide and supported by wiry fretwork and power-pop vocals.

The loping rhythm that opens “Sands of Idle Time” draws you in with effortless grace, offering vocals that verge on melancholy accompanied by gossamer guitarplay that delights even as it mesmerizes. By contrast, the country twang of “Now I Understand” brings a bit of honky-tonk authenticity to a deep personal song that delves into the ages-old father/son divide. The languid “Lazy Tuesday” pairs swampy, Creedence-styled guitar twang to a slow-rolling lyrical feast while the ballad “The House Where Blue Light Lives” showcases a different facet of Boyd’s talents, lyrically and musically capturing an innocence too-often lost in the void of social media-driven “content,” relying instead on heartfelt, plaintive vocals and immaculate guitarplay. The lilting “A Prison Song” – originally recorded by the White Animals – offers a sublime 1960s-era country-rock vibe with weeping pedal-steel guitar and a gentle acoustic strum; “Up For Air” closes King of the Losers with an up-tempo performance that echoes the ‘Laural Canyon’ sound of the 1970s with glimmering vocals and guitar.

While I’ve always enjoyed and respected Boyd’s contributions to the White Animals, the bassist’s first solo shot at the brass ring is simply stunning in the heart and soul displayed by King of the Loners’ delicate wordplay as well as Boyd’s carefully-crafted instrumentation that wields either a velvet glove or brass knuckles, depending on which best serves the song. These are intelligent, carefully considered songs akin to artists like Dwight Twilley, Peter Case, and Big Star-era Alex Chilton as well as another Nashville cat, Bill Lloyd. Boyd’s ability to fuse classic pop and rock to a contemporary sound is a welcome breath of fresh air.

With apologies to John Sebastian, there’s more to Nashville than just “guitar pickers.” As these albums from Owens and Boyd – as well as recently releases by Tommy Womack and the late Todd Snider (R.I.P.) and a 2024 album by the White Animals – prove, the Music City is teeming with talent, even if it’s not always recognized.

Jersey Beat Archives: The Busted Lives, The Evoka Project, Fear of Fred, Goodbye Girl Friday, High Beams, The Microphones, The Mountain Goats & Nakatomi Plaza (February 2003)

For several years in the early 2000s, the Reverend contributed CD reviews to Jersey Beat music zine. It was a heck of a lot of fun, with JB editor Jim Testa mailing a package of punk and alt-rock CDs that I’d work up reviews for every month. Some of these reviews deserve representation in this archive...

February 2003

THE BUSTED LIVES – One Flap Down 
One Flap Down offers the listener nothing more than buzzsaw rock ‘n’ roll with lo-fi production and an amateur’s love of the genre, the Busted Lives too cool to be old school. Roaring and rattling like a hopped-up ’74 Mercury on high-octane homebrew, tunes like “Hac Man” or “Landlord’s Bitch” represent the artistic ghetto of the ‘60s garage rock aesthetic currently championed by the American rockcrit fraternity. With tongues placed firmly in their collective cheeks, bassist “Mr. Arafat,” guitarist “Mr. Valiant,” drummer “Mr. Lotion” and vocalist “Mr. Mobutu” drop musical bombs like the riff-happy “Beaked Forever” or the echo-drenched “Drinking Like An Oakland Raider” with reckless glee. A shambling trainwreck of retro-rock, One Flap Down is nevertheless a hell of a lot of fun. Somewhere Sky Saxon is laughing maniacally at the chaos he has unleashed... (Blueball Records)

THE EVOKA PROJECT – December Drive EP 
Better minds than I have chosen the Evoka Project for big, BIG things, but the Reverend just doesn’t hear it boys and girls. The six songs on the band’s December Drive EP seem to represent an FM radio consultant’s idea of “modern rock,” derivative and broadcast-friendly with shallow vibes and as much originality as an American Idol contestant. Take one part U2, throw in a little Britpop, some Creed-styled posturing, and a healthy dose of arena-rock histrionics, say the magic words – “marketing opportunity!” – and you have the next big media sensation! Produced by Ted Comerford and mixed by high-stakes playas Lou Giordano (Goo Goo Dolls) and Mitch Easter (R.E.M.), the Evoka Project’s December Drive EP is a musical resume banging on the door of the corporate starmaking machine. (AudioLab Records)

FEAR OF FRED – Another Bad Day 
Exiled from the NYC/NJ music scene, this humble scribe wouldn’t otherwise have heard of Fear of Fred and Another Bad Day if not for the infinite grace and mercy of Mista Testa and his magic package of promo CDs. The band’s sophomore effort, Another Bad Day is a mighty fine collection of alt-rock tunes drenched with pop hooks and whip-smart melodies, easily appealing to fans of Cheap Trick, Marvelous 3, Weezer, etc. Bill White’s fabulously imperfect vocals lend each song a flawed excellence, Chris McGrath’s six-string work is razor-sharp and riff happy and the rhythm section of bassist Mark Illiano and drummer Matt McCluskey are as tight as a clenched fist. The band’s chemistry is explosive, whether they’re recklessly throwing out infectious originals like “She Don’t Know” or joyfully revisiting a classic pop gem like “I Think We’re Alone Now.” A real find by any measure, Fear of Fred is the sound of a new rock revolution – don’t wait for it to steamroll over you, go ahead and check out Another Bad Day now. (Spin Around Sound Records)

GOODBYE GIRL FRIDAY – Mr. And Mrs. 
A trio comprised of Berklee School alumni Dave Sherman (keyboards) and Dan Grennes (bass) and drummer Andy Sanesi, Goodbye Girl Friday landed in NYC from Boston by way of Nashville, picking up some considerable musical chops along the way. Formed out of the ashes of the acclaimed outfit Edison with the Weather, Goodbye Girl Friday explore a similar sort of artistic groove, throwing jazzbo riffs, avant-garde rock, and hipster attitude into the studio blender and pouring out Mr. And Mrs., the band’s debut disc. A challenging and often infuriating collection of songs, Goodbye Girl Friday are good at what they do, tho’ what they do doesn’t really appeal to these ears. Slickly produced and crafted with some skill, Mr. And Mrs. is nevertheless too smart for MOR radio and too highbrow for low rent rockers such as the Reverend. (SUS4 Recordings)

HIGH BEAMS – Hallucination 
Every smart Jersey Beat reader has seen it happen dozens of times – a music style or scene bubbles up from the underground, grabs some mainstream attention and, sooner or later, the suits come sniffing around. They’ll offer contracts and tell sweet lies of fame and fortune. By the time the major labels begin exploiting a scene, tho’, it’s pretty much over. One of the unintended results of this corporate feeding frenzy, however, is that bands like High Beams, formed by ex-Mullens frontman Matt Mayo, often get a well-deserved shot at the brass ring. Now that “garage rock” (or whatever the boys in marketing finally end up calling it) is the flavor du jour, we’re seeing musical throwbacks like the Strokes and the White Stripes receiving all sorts of hype. It’s all rock ‘n’ roll to me, and High Beams kick out some righteous jams with Hallucination, the band’s debut hewing closer to the Dictators and the Dead Boys than to the skinny tie aesthetics of the Hives. High-voltage tuneage like “Lori Looker” or the blues-infused “Tell Somebody” scream to the heavens with crackling riffs and soulful vocals while “Hallucination” sounds like vintage ‘70s Clevepunk with a shot of Motor City Madness. Graced by the ghosts of Rob Tyner, Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith, and Stiv Bators, High Beams deliver the cheap rock ‘n’ roll thrills we all crave with Hallucination. (Dead Beat Records)

THE MICROPHONES – Mount Eerie 
Mount Eerie opens with a swelling rhythmic pulse, builds to a crashing crescendo and then, about halfway through the 17-minute opus “The Sun,” descends into instrumental chaos before hitting its stride with sparsely-accompanied, morose vocals. You have to respect a band that opens an album with what amounts to a funeral dirge, as the Microphones have done with Mount Eerie. One of many musical projects for the enigmatic Phil Elvrum, the Microphones have a reputation as fantastic purveyors of experimental psychedelic pop, but Elvrum has grander schemes in mind. Much as the band’s 2001 album The Glow, Pt. 2 was connected to its predecessor, so too is Mount Eerie part of the same thread, a concept album exploring the transitional nature of life and the finality of death. White noise and subliminal sounds introduce “Solar System,” dissolving into a melancholy folk-rock head-scratcher while “Universe” throws orchestral grandeur alongside droning decay. The lengthy title cut is the centerpiece of the album, clashing voices (including K labelmates Mirah and Calvin Johnson) providing fleeting and tantalizing scraps of lyrics while the mesmerizing “Universe,” with chanted vocals and rhythmic instrumentation, closes out Mount Eerie. A difficult album, Mount Eerie offers a surreal listening experience, reminding this writer of ‘80s-era mad scientists like Current 93 or Nurse With Wound, though without the occult trappings or industrial baggage. (K Records)             

THE MOUNTAIN GOATS – Tallahassee 
The Mountain Goats represent a departure from the typical 4AD modus operandi. Although Tallahassee opens with the title cut – a moody, atmospheric 4AD-styled snoozefest – most of the remaining tracks are a pastiche of alt-rock with folkish tendencies. Mountain Goat John Darnielle has been kicking around the indie rock hinterlands for over a decade now, prolifically cranking out lo-fi tunes that are long on lyrical retrospection and short on grand musical aspirations. Although slicker and certainly enjoying a larger recording budget, Tallahassee shouldn’t alienate any long-time Goat fans even as it recruits new listeners. Darnielle’s nasal bleat takes some getting used to, but delve beneath the surface and you’ll find a complex and interesting wordsmith. Tracks like the lovingly discordant story song “See America Right,” the whimsical “No Children,” with its lovely piano fills, or the bittersweet “Old College Try” witness a dark sense of humor and an intelligence sorely lacking from more commercial musical fare. Deeply personal, delicately crafted and about as far from the Billboard Top Forty as you’re likely to tread, the Mountain Goats’ Tallahassee is nevertheless an earnest effort, John Darnielle a troubadour for a new era. (4AD Records)

NAKATOMI PLAZA – Private Property 
Unabashedly hardcore, Nakatomi Plaza manages to soften the blow of its guitar-driven fury with some well-crafted melodies and thoughtful, acoustic-oriented vocal passages. An expanded CD release of the original 7-song album, Private Property builds upon the passion and intelligence of innovators like Minor Threat, Nakatomi Plaza’s odd time signatures and syncopated rhythms complimented by Hüsker Dü-styled melodies and spoken, sung and shouted lyrics. Songs like “Bike Rock Revolution” and “Next Bus To New Orleans” evince a certain social consciousness, but really attempt to lyrically reconcile the fragility of human relationships carried on under the spectre of ever-growing societal fascism. Private Property is a thought-provoking and intelligent record, Nakatomi Plaza the hardcore punk equivalent of System of A Down. (Immigrant Sun Records)

Archive Review: Delta Moon’s Clear Blue Flame (2007)

Many music fans may remember Tom Gray’s name from his early ‘80s band the Brains. Down South, ‘round the Nashville-Atlanta-Birmingham triangle, the band was a hot commodity back in the day. The Brains’ self-titled debut album for Mercury Records yielded a minor college radio hit in the bittersweet “Money Changes Everything,” which would later become a huge mainstream hit for Cyndi Lauper. After the monster success of “Money Changes Everything,” Gray moved to Nashville with an eye towards becoming a country songwriter. The talented scribe soon found that a songwriter’s life in the Music City is more about politics and relationships than about talent and, well, songs … so Gray hightailed it back to Atlanta. 

Gray’s Nashville tenure produced one positive, however, in that it interested the artist in traditional styles of music. Meeting up with fellow guitarist Mark Johnson, the two formed Delta Moon, a blues-rock band. A number of bass players and drummers have passed through the band in the decade since, as have a pair of fine female singers. With Clear Blue Flame, Delta Moon’s fourth studio album, though, Gray takes over as the band’s vocalist in a move that changes the texture, but not the overall direction of Delta Moon’s unique sound. 

Delta Moon’s Clear Blue Flame

Gray’s swampadelic guitar licks kick off the eerie “Clear Blue Flame.” A laid-back yet rockin’ tale of love and betrayal, “Clear Blue Flame” speaks to the heart-numbing qualities of well-made ‘shine. Gray’s gruff vocals and the song’s overall dark vibe reminds of kudzu dropping off the cypress trees in some deep, lost corner of the South. “Stranger In My Hometown” tells of the alienation caused by “progress,” a gentle rhythm supporting Gray’s soulful vocals, the tune offering some delicious six-string sounds. A wicked bad guitar lick hits your ears at the beginning of “Lap Dog,” a classically-styled blues song with Maxwell Street lyrics and a Bourbon Street soundtrack. “I’m A Witness” sways and stutters back and forth, a wonky rhythm supporting Gray’s testimony and some fierce slidework. 

The juke-joint holler “You Done Told Everybody” comes straight from the heart of the Delta, Gray and Johnson offering some tasty syncopated fretwork and Charley Patton-styled percussive rhythms beneath Gray’s best Son House vocals. “Jessie Mae” is a wonderful, heartfelt tribute to the late Mississippi Hill Country blueswoman Jessie Mae Hemphill. Gray and Johnson do this one up right, down tuning their guitars, pulling a nasty circular riff out of the Burnside songbook, and bringing it home with a steady, driving rhythm. The song tells of the triumphs and tragedies of Hemphill’s life, but it could also serve as the life story of many blues musicians. The duo’s playing on “Jessie Mae” is magnificent, twin guitars reaching across a smoke-filled juke-joint to grab you by the ears.

Money Changes Everything

With “Money Changes Everything,” Gray covers his own song and lays waste to his past. Whereas the original 1980 Brains version displayed a power-pop edge, and Cyndi Lauper’s 1984 chart-topping reading of the song carried with it a greater sense of yearning, this roosty remake of the song seems to hit the nail right on the head. Starting with a nice acoustic, almost Appalachian-sounding intro, Gray’s voice kicks in, more strained and hoarse than on any other song here, incorporating the emotion of Lauper’s version with a sorrowful acceptance. 

Although the song originally spoke of the factors that influence relationships and romance, better than two decades down the road, it could also serve as Gray’s life story, that of the creative wunderkind shooting his way to the top only to be dumped on when the gold rush didn’t pan out as planned. By slowing down the song’s pace, providing it with a sparse acoustic framework, and imbuing it with a worldly weariness, Gray has actually improved upon his already impressive original version of the song with this powerful backwoods doppelganger. 

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Anybody casually picking up Clear Blue Flame on the basis of Gray’s long-past work, expecting to hear the power-pop of the Brains, will be sorely disappointed. The savvy music consumer, however, grabbing a copy of this – or any other Delta Moon album – just to hear the band’s wonderful fusion of swamp-blues, roots-rock, and acoustic mountain music will certainly be entertained.
 
Tom Gray and Mark Johnson are skilled musicians, well-schooled in the nuances of the styles they’re working in, and both are fine slide-guitarists. Gray has aged well as a songwriter; his tales of ordinary folks, failed romances, and hopeful losers comprise a new Southern Gothic literature worthy of the bluesmen (and women) of the 1920s and ‘30s. Although firmly rooted in the Delta blues and hillbilly music of the past, Delta Moon delivers with a ferocity and passion that can only be expressed in the present. (Jumping Jack Records, released 2007)

Jersey Beat Archives: Audio Learning Center, Pole Position, World Inferno Friendship Society, "Down In Front" (March 2002)

March 2002

For several years in the early 2000s, the Reverend contributed CD reviews to Jersey Beat music zine. It was a heck of a lot of fun, with JB editor Jim Testa mailing a package of punk and alt-rock CDs that I’d work up reviews for every month. Some of these reviews deserve representation in this archive…

AUDIO LEARNING CENTER – “Friendships Often Fade Away” 
With veterans of two Sub Pop bands – Christopher Brady from Pond and Steven Birch from Sprinkle – Audio Learning Center has street cred to burn. Joined by drummer Paul Johnson and working with Seattle producer Adam Kasper, the band has created an impressive debut with “Friendships Often Fade Away”. Pairing the hard-rocking grunge ambiance of early ‘90s Seattle sound with an energetic punk attitude and a musical complexity unmatched by many of their Pacific Northwest brethren, ALC has delivered a multi-layered, multi-textured collection of songs. Brady is a solid wordsmith, penning emotionally charged lyrics that cut to the quick with surgical precision and a deceptive simplicity. “Favorite” is one of the better expressions of band fandom that I’ve heard while tracks like “Winter” and “The Dream” offer insightful commentary on the human condition. Should I also mention that ALC make a lot of noise for just three guys? If you want a disc that you can sink your teeth into, check out “Friendships Often Fade Away”, Audio Learning Center’s ticket to indie rock stardom. (Vagrant Records) 

POLE POSITION – XO 
An old rockcrit rule of thumb says that the more hyperbole you find lurking around in a band’s press kit, the less quality you’ll find in the record’s grooves. Pole Position certainly talks the talk, but do they walk the walk? Referring to their 8-song EP XO, the band’s press kit asks “is it too early to call it the album of the year?” It goes on to compare the band – the duo of the singularly named Daniel and Rui, actually – to Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Portishead, and a couple of heads to be named later. Where the rubber hits the road, or, more accurately, the laser hits the metal alloy, XO fails to excite. A mish-mash of turgid style and electronic ambiance, Pole Position fill every song with an abundance of synth squeals, cold rhythms, and muted vocals, music so laid back that you can’t tell if the band is coming or going. Once again turning to the press kit, Pole Position’s Daniel states that they are “contemporary musicians who believe in music as concept.” Maybe next time they’ll conceive of some more lively and original music. Is it too early to call XO the album of the year? Yes, it is… (Polar Music)

VARIOUS ARTISTS – Down In Front 
We’ve had all sorts of tribute discs and compilation albums covering just about every obscure songwriter or cult artist that you can think of. However, I don’t know of any project such as Down In Front, which pays tribute, of sorts, to punk figurehead/zine genius Aaron Cometbus ‘cause he’s the only common thread that ties together the various artists here. Down In Front offers twelve bands cranking out twenty-one songs that cover the complete gamut of punk musical theory, and I’m guessing that it’s Aaron kicking the cans behind every track. There’s lots of fine punkola in these grooves, too, with outfits like Pinhead Gunpowder, Sweet Baby, Shotwell Coho, and the Blank Fight providing the jams, Down In Front collected from ten years’ worth of low-budget 7” singles, obscure tapes and various EPs. If this sounds like your cup of tea, then I’d recommend that you get thee hence to No Idea and grab a copy ‘cause at a mere $6.00 for 21 slammin’ tracks, pure punk thrills have seldom been so cheap. (No Idea Records)
 

THE WORLD/INFERNO FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY – Just the Best Party
If you know from jump street that the music you’re creating doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of getting picked up by a major label, then why not have some fun with it? With Just the Best Party, the nine-piece World/Inferno Friendship Society does just that, commercial aspirations be damned, just raise a ruckus! Many of the songs on Just the Best Party have a sort of traditional Irish lilt to them, Jersey’s answer to the Pogues, but a careful listen to the dozen tracks here reveals a lot more. Arena-rock riffs stolen from Springsteen are paired with soulful horn-driven R&B, stately waltzes are delivered with punkish glee and staccato vocals punctuate new wavish pop rhythms and ragtime rave-ups. Songs like “I Wouldn’t Want To Live In A World Without Grudges” or “Zen & the Art of Breaking Everything In the Room” deliver cryptic lyrics while masterfully mixing musical genres – often within a single verse – providing the listener with food for thought. Amazingly, the World/Inferno Friendship Society pull off this grab-bag of styles and influences, every track on Just the Best Party snapping and crackling with manic electricity and barely-contained excitement. Musically adventuresome, stylistically maddening and yet entirely entertaining, Just the Best Party fires the first shot in defining a new alternative music for the new millennia. (Gern Blandsten Records)

Archive Review: Delta Moon’s Black Cat Oil (2012)

Over the past decade and half a dozen albums, Atlanta-based roots ‘n’ blues outfit Delta Moon has quietly made a name for itself as a sturdy, Delta blues-inspired outfit. Driven by the creative vision of singer, songwriter, and guitarist Tom Gray (who, in another life, wrote the Cyndi Lauper hit “Money Changes Everything” while fronting 1980s-era new wave band the Brains) and his musical partner, guitarist Mark Johnson have built upon a hallowed Mississippi blues tradition by heaping on roots-rock, folk, and gospel flavors.

With the band’s 7th album, the refreshingly-erudite Black Cat Oil, Gray and Johnson continue to expand the band’s trademark sound by imbuing their already heady musical brew with a little bit o’ soul and some old-school rhythm & blues. The scrappy acoustic Delta blues influences from which the band takes its name are still obvious and ever-present, as are Gray and Johnson’s well-written and whip-smart lyrics, but in expanding their musical palette, if only a little, they open new doors of possibility for the band in the future.   

Delta Moon’s Black Cat Oil

A big drumbeat and locomotive rhythm opens “Down and Dirty,” a working-class tale of romantic woe featuring Gray’s slinky guitar lines and gruff vocals. The backing accompaniment is sparse, but the guitars are layered in thickly and offer a bit of swampy malevolence not unlike John Campbell’s trademark haunted blues sound. “Blues In A Bottle” is equally Mississippi muddy and kudzu-clad, with a smoky buzz ‘n’ rattle emanating from Gray’s six-string drone. Lyrically, the song is a clever but deceptively simple construct, but the emotion swells as violently as the song’s jarring fretwork, the instrumental break three-minutes in shattering the trancelike quality of the performance as Gray and Mark Johnson swap fiery guitar licks.

The album’s title track veers off only slightly from the first four, mixing up the previous swamp-blues ambiance with a little Memphis soul and a minimalist funk groove courtesy drummer Darren Stanley and bassist Franher Joseph. Gray’s solos here shine brightly, taut and wiry like a rockabilly king from the 1950s, reminding more of Jimmie Vaughan’s hot licks than Stevie Ray’s incendiary riffs. The song is low-slung and greasy, spiced up a bit by Gray’s Booker T-styled keyboard notes. The romantic turmoil continues with the story-song “Wishbone,” a gripping narrative where Gray’s gravel-throated vocals hypnotize, riding high above his barbed-wire guitarplay. The following “Black Coffee” picks up on the previous song’s late-night vibe, Gray’s fretwork resonating with bluesy echo on a semi-biographical diary of life on the road. Drummer Marlon Patton lays down a slight rhythmic shuffle as Gray picks out the lonely tune.    

Write Me A Few of Your Lines

“Neon Jesus” is the album’s roots-rock heartbeat, the song evincing more of a high lonesome Bakersfield vibe than a Nashville/Music Row commercial ambience. Gray sets his considerable songwriting skills to work on a salvation-seeking, soul-searching hymnal, his yearning vocals backed by jangly guitar and a brassy drumbeat. It’s an introspective number, something you’d expect from, say, a Guy Clark type of scribe, but Gray pulls it off admirably. The lively “Jukin’,” by contrast, is a jaunty lil’ houserocker with an undeniable spirit and spry fretwork that blends the best of both juke-joint and honky-tonk traditions with a sly groove and a barely-subdued performance.

“Applejack” sounds a lot like Memphis to me, or a James Dickinson sort of bluesy, blue-eyed soul to be more specific, a fluid groove rolling out beneath Gray’s deep-fried vocals and Southern rock guitar that draws upon Duane Allman (reckless R&B) and Marshall Tucker Band’s Toy Caldwell (Dixie jazz-rock) but with plenty of Gray’s own unique vocabulary thrown in to mark him as a vastly-underrated stylist in his own right. The album’s lone cover, of Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “Write Me A Few Of Your Lines,” bolsters this guitar argument, Gray’s fretwork crackling and popping like a downed electric line above Patton’s steady drumbeats, the singer capturing, and building upon the hypnotic North Mississippi Hill Country riffing style that McDowell passed on to R.L. Burnside and, by association, Luther Dickinson, Jack White, the Black Keys, and a generation of contemporary blues-rock players.        

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Tom Gray’s songwriting skills have never been at question, and he excels at the sort of lyrical and melodic stories told by the songs on Black Cat Oil. Small-town life and romances, the rigors of the road, the old South slipping beneath the steamroller of modern life – these are all grist for Gray (and Johnson’s) wandering pen. Musically, the album builds upon past triumphs, cautiously fusing the band’s trademark swamp-blues sound with other significant influences, creating an entertaining and engaging work that honors blues traditions while nodding vigorously towards new musical horizons. (Red Parlor Records, released May 22, 2012)

Jersey Beat Archives: Black Cat Music, Munition, Saturday Supercade, Winepress (February 2002)

February 2002

For several years in the early 2000s, the Reverend contributed CD reviews to Jersey Beat music zine. It was a heck of a lot of fun, with JB editor Jim Testa mailing a package of punk and alt-rock CDs that I’d work up reviews for every month. Some of these reviews deserve representation in this archive…

BLACK CAT MUSIC – “hands in the estuary, torso in the lake”
Punk rock supergroups seem to be the rule rather than the exception these days and Black Cat Music are as much to blame as anybody. Hailing from the thriving San Francisco Bay music community, BCM was formed by former members of such beloved thrash-and-bang outfits as the Criminals and the Receivers. Unlike those long-gone outfits, these Black Cat boys seem as likely to mimic some black-clad Goth posse as they are to namecheck the Sex Pistols. “hands in the estuary, torso in the lake” is the band’s erstwhile debut, and if you’re looking for the trademark brand of bubblegum punk that Lookout! Records has built their reputation on, you won’t find it here. Songs like “The Valentine” or “The Cipher In the Snow” offer the sort of dark-hued poetry that Jeffrey Pierce created a legend with, Brady Baltezore’s existential wail revealing a tortured psyche and a lyrical obsession with life’s less pleasant moments. The band creates a nice ambience, hypnotically deceptive, steady rhythms sharply punctuated by Travis Dalton’s screaming six-string. Call it “thinking man’s punk” if you will, the sound of Black Cat Music heady sonic brew of noise, emotion, and passion. (Lookout! Records) 

MUNITION – The Black Wave
Chicago has a musical vibe all its own, from the city’s legendary blues clubs to a punk tradition that dates from Rick DiBello and the Swingers in the 1970s to Naked Raygun and the Effigies in the ‘80s. Munition is just the latest in a long line of talented Chicago bands and from the monster tunes they created for The Black Wave, their debut, these ears tell me that they’re poised on the brink of a major league breakthrough. With a tight musical chemistry and three-dimensional sound that belies their relative youth as a band, Munition mixes the aggression and attitude of punk with populist lyrical leanings and a massive, take-no-prisoners wall-of-noise that suggests that somebody has been listening to their Husker Du records. Axeman Donovan’s guitarwork hits you between the ears like a pneumatic hammer while Mark’s vocals chisel away at your subconscious with intelligently worded songs that tackle such heady themes as consumerism, alcoholism, and television. Most of all, Munition rocks with the reckless abandon of a young gunslinger who has yet to earn the first notch on his gun. (Failed Experiment Records)

SATURDAY SUPERCADE – Everyone Is A Target 
Remember a few years ago, when, in the shadow of No Doubt’s inexplicable success, ska-punk became the commercial flavor of the month? Now jump forward a couple of years to 2001, the year of the punk odyssey, when snotty, lightweight commercial punk won the hearts and minds of young American teens flush with cash and willing to feed the hungry maw of the rabid trendmongers that run the industry. Well, take equal parts of Blink-182, Sum 41, and Fenix, Texas and you’ll have Saturday Supercade, a band that predates the current major label obsession with marketable teen sounds but plays right into the hands of the starmaking machinery nonetheless. Everyone Is A Target is filled to the brim with cheap, faceless three-chord wanknoise that, while not unpleasant, doesn’t challenge your heart and soul the way that, say, Bad Religion or Rancid does. Saturday Supercade and their ilk are like a bucket o’ Halloween candy – familiar, pleasantly sweet, and partially satisfying. Inevitably, though, this sort of disposable punk will end up rotting away your mind much like the candy corrodes your teeth. (Liberation Records)

WINEPRESS – Complete Recordings
The history of rock ‘n’ roll is littered with the aspirations and intentions of thousands of bands that deserved some modicum of success but found only indifference beyond their small but loyal following. Chicago’s Winepress was only around for a couple of years during the early ‘90s, but they left an indelible mark on the city’s punk legacy. Offering every Winepress recording made, collecting the tunes from 7” singles and album compilations, the Complete Recordings CD offers the former teenage band a chance to get heard outside of their hometown and adds a bit of legitimacy to their brief career. From a critical perspective, Winepress cranked out generic punk rock with pop overtones. From a music lover’s viewpoint, however, in their day and in their own way, Winepress was an impressive band. The youthful enthusiasm and kinetic amateurism found on songs like “Revenge of the Nerds” and “You’re So Punk” sounds absolutely refreshing in comparison to the slick, over-produced dreck oversold to us these days. Although there’s nothing on Complete Recordings that will make you toss aside your copy of London Calling, you’re looking for unpretentious cheap thrills and some satisfying tunes, check out Winepress. (Harmless Records)

Archive Review: Dave Specter’s Spectified (2010)

Chicago blues guitarist Dave Specter has flown under the radar for much of his considerable career. Mentored by Sunnyland Slim’s great guitarist Steve Freund, Specter honed his skills by apprenticing under giants like Hubert Sumlin and Son Seals. When he finally stepped out on his own to launch a solo career, Specter continued to play in the shadow of larger-than-life vocalists like Barkin’ Bill Smith, Jesse Fortune, and Tad Robinson.

Throughout it all, Specter has quietly created a solid body of work, with eight acclaimed studio and live albums to his credit, as well as well-regarded contributions to recordings by Al Miller, Steve Freund, and Lurrie Bell, among others. Spectified, the guitarist’s first studio effort since his 2004 collaboration with Freund, Is What It Is, is an inspired collection of instrumentals that showcase Specter’s talents and place him firmly among such rarified company as Freund, Ronnie Earl, or Duke Robillard.   

Dave Specter’s Spectified

Spectified opens with a bang, the soulful and slightly funky “Stick To the Hip” featuring an engaging recurring guitar pattern, a solid rhythm, and below-the-horizon horns from the Bo’ Weavil Brass, led by former Tower of Power trumpeter Mike Cichowicz. Keyboards, courtesy of John Kattke and Pete Benson, evoke the wonderful glory days of Booker T & the M.G.’s and Stax soul, the resulting mix a sheer delight, the song a rambunctious rave-up that stays polite while proving the listener and the band alike no little amount of joy.

By contrast, Specter’s “Octavate’n” could easily be mistaken for a Stevie Ray Vaughan outtake, the song resounding with slinky Texas blues-styled fretbanging, Specter’s lively tones jumpin-n-jivin’ like the parking lot of a Jack-In-The-Box drive-thru in suburban Dallas on a Saturday night as the keyboards add some energetic riffing of their own. “Soul Serenade” is another engaging instrumental, with a hint of Southern rock and a little twang in the grooves between Specter’s jazzy tones and hot licks, the shuffling rhythm complimented by a subtle horn arrangement. This is the kind of warm and fuzzy tune that, in more adventurous times, could have topped the charts; instead it will be embraced by blues fans with good taste and an open mind.

Rumba & Tonic

With the indigo-hued “Blues Call,” Specter delivers what he knows best – a dusky instrumental that perfectly fuses a blues aesthetic with the imagination of jazz guitar (I’m thinking John McLaughlin or Al di Meola). This is break-of-dawn music, best heard by candlelight and preferably with something strong to drink…blues to the core, but sophisticated in a way that belies urban, urbane influences. The keyboards chime in around the three-minute mark with an extended solo that sounds fresh and yet familiar, influenced by the work of folk like Booker T and Isaac Hayes while adding something new and exciting to the vibe. “Alley Walk” is another rattletrap electric blues-burner with strutting rhythms and some of the raunchiest guitar Specter has ever played. 

David Hidalgo of Los Lobos lends his talents to the “Rumba & Tonic,” creating a Tex-Mex atmosphere, the song a spry little sucker with great echoed guitarwork and some south-of-the-border pickin’, tinkling honky-tonk piano, ringing accordion, and a strong rhythm that will set your feet to moving. Specter and gang jump back to the Windy City for “Lumus D’ Rumpus,” a strutting Chicago blues shuffle with a walking rhythm and dashes of piano and drums on top of which Specter embroiders his imaginative fretwork, which ranges from jazzy licks to ringing riffs. Spectified closes out with “Alley Walk Acoustic,” revisiting the earlier number with far different effect, Specter plucking the strings Delta-style, sounding more like Son House or Charley Patton than the seasoned Chicago bluesman that he is. It works like magic, creating a mesmerizing sound that sticks in your mind long after the album has stopped playing.    

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Dave Specter is a phenomenal talent, to be sure, but he’s not a musician that is content to rest on the laurels proffered his earlier work. Spectified stretches out the guitarist’s repertoire with some daring new styles and tones, Specter revealing a few new tricks to tickle your eardrums while still providing quite a few moments of old-school blues that the fans of come to expect. While he doesn’t have a shelf full of awards to bolster his reputation, Specter lets the music do all the talking with the realization that if you play this well for this long, the accolades will come when they come. If you’re a fan of blues guitar, you owe it to yourself to check out Spectified. (Fret12 Records, released September 2010)

Also on That Devil Music:
Dave Specter - Live At SPACE review
Dave Specter - Live In Chicago review

Archive Review: Grateful Dead’s Rocking the Cradle: Egypt 1978 (2008)

Let’s be as honest as churchmice here, shall we? The corpse that once was the Grateful Dead has long since been flayed, flogged, and laid to rest along with the hopes and dreams of so many ‘60s-era flower children. With better than fifty – count ‘em! – fifty live albums on the shelf (many consisting of two or three discs, or more), even the Dead’s long-standing reputation as a great performing outfit that typically underperformed in the studio is questionable in light of the growing body of evidence.

In the annals of hardcore Grateful Dead fans (a/k/a “Deadheads,” which the Reverend’s dictionary defines as “one who has smoked so many flowers as to make their musical judgment suspect), no live performance by the band is more legendary that the Dead’s journey to the sands of Egypt during late 1978 to play three nights in front of the Great Pyramid. Outside of the historical significance of the performances, there’s little here to recommend, however. A two-CD and one-DVD set in a nifty fold-out pop-up package with images of the pyramids, Rocking the Cradle: Egypt 1978 is a document of the band’s experience, but offers little else.

With audio culled from two of the Egyptian nights for the CDs, and video from one night’s concert on the DVD, the band sleepwalks through performances of songs from the upcoming Shakedown Street album along with a few older chestnuts. The usual spark of the Dead’s free-form live performances seems to be missing here, however, and highlights are few and far between. The band gets behind a cover of the New Orleans Cajun classic “Iko Iko,” slowing down the pace to that of a strutting fly-by with a loping groove and a couple of solos full of rich tones. “I Need A Miracle” offers a few hot licks threaded throughout the longform jam, but an obligatory performance of “Truckin’” suffers from a too-mellow vibe, reducing the song’s innate anarchic spirit to a hearty bassline and rushed vocals. Sadly, much of the rest of the album’s 18 tracks (and their DVD doppelgangers) are entirely somnambulant.   

Don’t get me wrong here folks, and please don’t deluge Blurt editor Fred with barrels of hate mail – the Reverend simply adores GD albums like Workingman’s Dead, American Beauty, Blues For Allah, even In the Dark – but methinks that you should spend your lunch money on one of those stellar efforts rather than waste your hard-earned coin on this snoozefest. You’ll thank me later… (Rhino Records, released September 30th, 2008)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine...

Archive Review: Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials’ Roughhousin’ (1986)

The creation of Roughhousin’ was one of those happy mistakes that sometimes occur in blues music. Invited into the studio to record just a couple of cuts for an upcoming Alligator Records’ compilation of young blues bands, Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials cut loose with the same sort of energy and electricity that they brought to their frequent Chicago-area live performances.

While they might have been studio neophytes facing down the daunting recording process for the very first time, Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials were seasoned veterans of the competitive Chicago blues scene. With better than a decade of performing under their collective belts, Lil’ Ed Williams and crew had forged their houserockin’ sound in the same West Side blues cauldron as such musical idols and influences as Hound Dog Taylor, Elmore James, Magic Sam, and Williams’ uncle, bluesman J.B. Hutto. They may not have known studio etiquette, but they knew how to grab a stage and squeeze out sparks, and that’s exactly what they did one cold January night in 1986. 

Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials’ Roughhousin’

Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials’ Roughhousin’ was born out of a free-for-all studio jam, and it sounds like it. “Old Oak Tree” leaps from your speakers like a saber-rattling buccaneer with plunder on his mind. Lil’ Ed’s rattletrap fretwork is met by a shambling, rambling rhythm that drives away any pretense while Ed’s vocals are almost an afterthought, pleasant but overshadowed by the intense back porch swing of the song. If “Old Oak Tree” sways with the wind, “Midnight Rider” tramples like a runaway freight train. Ed’s rapid-fire vocals are paced by scraps of white-hot guitar, and a locomotive rhythm that is as reckless as it is invigorating. Ed achieves a great guitar tone here, sounding like Hound Dog Taylor mixed with Chuck Berry, and the song could have just as easily heralded from the 1950s rather than the mid-1980s.

The first couple of songs on Roughhousin’ are just a warm-up for the machinegun staccato to follow… “She’s Fine, She’s Mine” is pure swaggering blues Sturm und Drang, a meaty Bo Diddley backbeat married to a dark Delta undertow, Ed’s malevolent vocals complimented by flurries of scrapyard guitar and the meanest drumkit tango you’ll ever hear, courtesy of Louis Henderson. While Henderson smacks the skins like a World War III bombing run, bassist James Young lays down a steel-beam rhythm and rhythm guitarist Dave Weld provides tactical support for Ed’s soaring notes. By contrast, “Everything I Do Brings Me Closer To the Blues” stomps and stammers at a snail’s pace, a potent blues dirge with Ed’s mournful vocals creeping into your ears and down your spine like an icy, windy Chicago morning. While Young and Henderson lay the smackdown on a solid houserockin’ rhythm, Ed lights a fire with some of the smokiest, greasiest, sharp-stick solos that will ever grace your eardrums with their presence.

Mean Old Frisco

“You Don’t Exist Any More” is a modified blues boogie with rock ‘n’ roll undertones, Ed’s vocals taking on a blustery tack, the rhythm section duckwalkin’ recklessly through the performance. Ed’s guitar is somewhat subdued here, a few nasty slide licks thrown in now and then above the fray, but when he cuts loose with a slam-bang solo, he does so with authority, and even second gitman Weld is invited in for a short, sharp shock. A pair of well-worn but inspired covers help round out Roughhousin’, the first being a bluesy, forceful take on Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s R&B rave-up “Mean Old Frisco.” Ed’s heartbreak vocals are accompanied by a wall of sound, scraps of Henderson’s shuffling drumbeats and rattling cymbals heard in the thick mix alongside Young’s throbbing bass line. Ed’s slide-guitar mangle here is simply stunning, cutting like the knives you see for sale on late-nite TV, imbuing the song with some non-verbal emotion. 

Memphis soul giant Rufus Thomas’s signature song “Walking the Dog” is provided an appropriately raucous interpretation, the Imperials’ sly, funky rhythms peppered with Ed’s hot guitar licks like a shotgun blast. Young throws in a walking bass solo that kicks serious tushie, Henderson kicks the cans for a short solo, and the band altogether sounds like they’re having as much fun as a Friday night club gig. Nearly hidden in-between the two aforementioned covers is Ed’s original and excellent “Car Wash Blues.” Opening with a bluesy intro that channels every hard-workin’, hard-times Chicago bluesman from Muddy Waters and Elmore James back to Tampa Red and Big Bill Broonzy, not to mention Uncle J.B., Ed’s autobiographical tale of woe is a true streetlife serenade, hardcore West Side blues from a man and a band that have lived them. Ed’s vocals are dramatically anguished, his slippery slide-work sounding as world-weary and defeated as every man and woman who has ever had to get up before the crack of dawn to make a dollar. The band mostly stays out of the way, providing a sturdy foundation for Ed’s powerful performance.   

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials’ Roughhousin’ lives up to the hype, a career-building debut album that would launch a longstanding career. Lil’ Ed and his crew still crank out righteous, houserockin’ jams on stage and in the studio, but while they’ve made some good-to-great records in the 25 years since the release of Roughhousin’, they’ve never been able to match the sheer electricity of these unfettered performances. Serving as a bridge between the Chicago blues of the 1950s and ‘60s and the contemporary blues scene of the 1980s, Roughhousin’ was the album that proved that blues music knows how to party. (Alligator Records, released 1986)