It’s cold as a penguin’s patootie outside as I write this – a measly four
degrees with a minus seven wind chill here in WNY – so it’s time to crank up the
Victrola and spin some hot tunes to melt the ice from your eardrums and push
away frostbite for another day. Here’s some of the Reverend’s picks for winter
playlists, every one guaranteed to get rid of yer ‘winter blues’!
The Continental Drifters
were easily a decade ahead of their time, or maybe a decade too late, depending
on your perspective. Featuring a brace of skilled songwriters – Peter Holsapple
(The dB’s), Susan Cowsill (The Cowsills), Vicki Peterson (The Bangles), and Mark
Walton (Dream Syndicate) – and a slew of talented noisemakers, the Drifters were
an ‘80s-era college rock dream band with the jangle to prove it. They released
four albums over a decade (1993-2004), their final album actually recorded as
their first, and they danced at the intersection of pop and rock at a time when
musical culture was dominated by some of the ugliest and most brutal sounds one
could capture on tape.
As shown by
White Noise & Lightning: The Best of the Continental Drifters
(Omnivore Recordings), music this intelligent, creative, and oftentimes
beautiful is timeless, a magical talisman just waiting for an audience to find
it. With this collection – and the band’s recent biography of the same name
penned by Sean Kelly – the door to rediscovery by a younger generation is wide
open. Pulling material from all four of the Drifters’ albums, and including a
previously-unreleased live track in the form of the electrically-charged “Who We
Are, Where We Live,” White Noise & Lightning offers up everything from the
gorgeous pop ballad “Mixed Messages” to the hard-rocking “Don’t So What I Did,”
as well as the band’s folkish ‘theme song’ “Drifters,” beautifully sung by
Cowsill. Dig into the Continental Drifters, the best band you never heard!
Grade: A+
BUY!
[Omnivore]
Old Town Crier
(a/k/a Jim Lough) has received digital ink here before, notably for the 2023 LP
A Night with Old Town Crier, which Lough used to raise money for The Pine Street Inn, a Boston-area
non-profit fighting homelessness. The four-song EP
Motion Blur (self-produced) was recorded in the winter of 2004, the tape
promptly lost, and then rediscovered last year. Keeping with his usual ‘modus
operandi’ Lough has released Motion Blur on Bandcamp, with half the proceeds
going to the Plymouth COPE Center at bamsi.org, a pretty cool and worthwhile
non-profit that is creating “equal opportunities for individuals with
developmental disabilities and mental and behavioral health challenges.”
Motion Blur
depicts the imaginative rocker in a different light, with a bit of twang in the
grooves and a rockabilly heart. The short, sharp shock of “Back Door” swings on
the hinges of a truly reckless guitar lick that eats at your brain like a
politician’s promise while evincing a cowpunk aesthetic. The toothier “Rebecca”
welds a standard honky-tonk dancefloor rhythm to a slinky Exile-era
Stones soul groove with wiry, madcap fretwork and a joyous spirit while “Country
Boy” is a hillbilly rave-up with clamorous instrumentation and revved-up vocals
that go down like a Mason jar full of ‘shine (smooth, with a finish that kicks
yer ass). Closer “Real Good Friend” injects a ‘60s-era garage-rock vibe into the
mix, like Sky Saxon riding a mechanical bull at Muhlenbrink’s Saloon in West
Nashville, with some mighty fine git pickin’ driving the vox. The EP is a
delightfully lo-fi affair but nevertheless displays plenty of heart and soul
with its performances.
Grade: A
BUY! [Bandcamp]
Any outfit with a name like
The Big Ol’ Nasty Getdown
is certain to get the Reverend’s attention, and the band’s spicy debut,
RepurposE Purpose Vol. 1 (Org Music), lives up to its billing. Masterminded by producer/bassist John Heintz, The
Big Ol’ Nasty Getdown has been bubbling under the public’s consciousness for
better than a decade, but the seven-song RepurposE Purpose Vol. 1 EP
(which delivers all of the energy and cheap thrills of a full-length LP!) should
raise the band’s profile and deserves every dollar you throw out for a copy.
Digging into a long-lost funk goldmine with a veritable ‘who’s who’ of musical
talent, the EP features name players like Jack Irons (The Red Hot Chili
Peppers), Angelo Moore & Norwood Fisher (Fishbone), Jimi Hazel (24-7 Spyz),
Larry LaLonde (Primus), Leo Nocentelli (The Meters), and Ra Diaz (Korn), among
many others. Of course, it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got the swing, and
superstar studio party times have been known to go awry before, but it’s all
good with The Big Ol’ Nasty Getdown.
Opener “All Together Now” is a
solid musical statement, an energetic instrumental with jazzy horns blasting
above a hardcore funk rhythm and embroidered by the legendary Nocentelli’s
bluesy shards of jagged lead guitar. “Body Magic” offers up P-Funk’s Ronkat
Spearman delivering his silky vox above a spry, space-age funk ensemble that
mixes brass and percussion with a soul undercurrent to booty-shaking effect. The
throwback vibe of the instrumental “420 Ocean Drive” displays echoes of prime
‘70s-era Funkadelic with P-Funk axeman Eric McFadden leading the charge with
imaginative and powerful leads, yet still manages to explore new and exciting
musical territories. Fishbone’s Moore takes the microphone for the low-slung,
raunchy “Spirit Stain” with Jimi Hazel weaving some devastating guitar licks
beneath one of the boldest, nastiest, and entertaining cosmic grooves to ever
tickle your cerebellum.
The avant garde instrumental “Ten Hits” may
be the most intriguing and fascinating cut on the EP; led by Primus
guitar-wrangler Larry LaLonde and featuring Fishbone bassist Norwood Fisher and
Mike Dillon (from Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade) on vibes and
tabla, the performance definitely digs into exotic turf to deliver a gem of a
lysergic fever dream. Instrumental versions of “Body Magic” and “Spirit Stain”
are as engaging and electric as the vocal versions, but possible with more heft
given the change in focus. Blessed by the almighty Godfather himself, George
Clinton, The Big Ol’ Nasty Getdown is the real deal,
RepurposE Purpose Vol. 1 a stone-cold killer with big funk energy and –
most importantly – the undeniable sound of a bunch of musical brethren making a
joyous noise just for kicks.
Grade: A
BUY! [Bandcamp]
Tommy Castro
has been knocking around the blues world for 30+ years now, but has never gotten
the mainstream recognition his status deserves. Since his 1995 studio debut
Exception to the Rule (and with the Dynatones before that), Castro has
been preserving, yet pushing blues music to new heights. He’s won a slew of
‘Blue Music Awards’ from The Blues Foundation, including the coveted ‘B.B. King
Entertainer of the Year” award an unparalleled four times. He’s an electrifying
performer, an underrated singer and guitarist, and yet he wouldn’t be picked out
of a lineup if he stole a ham sandwich from Carnegie Deli.
It doesn’t
matter, tho’, because what pop music ignores, blues fans heartily embrace and,
as shown by Castro’s latest effort, Closer To the Bone (Alligator Records), the man still has a lot to say. As usual, Castro’s guitar playing in the
grooves is sharp, clean, and concise, reminding of B.B. King but with a little
toothier bite to his solos. Even after decades of shouting the blues, Castro’s
vox remain strong, soulful, with a touch of grit. “One More Night” is a
swinging, Texas-flavored blues romp a la Stevie Ray, but with less six-string
pyro (but still some…) while “Keep Your Dog Inside,” a duet with the
multi-talented Deanna Bogart, evinces Elvin Bishop’s sense of humor while still
managing to sizzle like a steak on a hot grill (and name checks the jocular
Bishop in the outro).
“Ain’t Worth the Heartache” rides an exotic
backing rhythm and Billy Branch’s harmonica wizardry to nirvana while on
“Freight Train (Let Me Ride),” Castro channels Johnny Winter with his wicked
Resonator play. The old-school, West Coast jump blues of “Bloodshot Eyes” jumps
right out of the speakers and grabs you by the ears and, really, all of
Closer To the Bone is pretty much guaranteed to put a smile on the face
of any blues fan. Castro is more of a traditionalist than, say, Joe Bonamassa or
Walter Trout, but neither is he afraid to mix a little rock or jazz into his
blues sound. Neither is he hesitant to call upon his influences (B.B. King,
Albert Collins, Stax Records) when needed to make a point. As such,
Closer To the Bone is both an amalgam of everything that has come before
in the blues world with Castro still managing to put a contemporary spin and
energy to the sound.
Grade: A
BUY! [Alligator]
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