Short Rounds: 6 String Drag, the Doors, Nick Moss Band & Jack White (2018)

New album releases in 150 words or less…

6 String Drag – Top of the World (Schoolkids Records)
Americana pioneers 6 String Drag released two classic “No Depression” LPs during the ‘90s, the second of which – High Hat – recently receiving a 20th anniversary reissue. By the end of the decade the band, fronted by Kenny Roby and Rob Keller, had broken up. Fifteen-plus years later, the pair put together a new band and picked up right where they left off. Top of the World is their second post-reunion disc and, kids, it’s a scorcher! “Reckless country soul” best describes the new LP, a fierce stew of simmering country punk with British Invasion roots and more than a few honky-tonk ghosts bursting out of the grooves. If songs like the rockin’ “Small Town Punks” blend the Who with the Bottle Rockets, the grandiose “Waste of Time” matches lush ambiance with bluesy lyrics while “Wish You Would” lopes along like Roger Miller with a hipflask of Jack Daniels; highly recommended! Grade: A   BUY IT!

The Doors – Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (Rhino Records)
The hardcore Jim Morrison faithful have to be dizzy with glee about the release of the Doors’ Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970. A two-disc set with CD and Blu-ray, the album represents the last Doors concert ever filmed, a better-than-average performance in front of more than a half-million fans at the Isle of Wight Festival in England in August 1970. The concert tracklist is about what one would expect, with inspired readings of “Roadhouse Blues,” “Light My Fire,” and “Break On Through,” as well as an extended medley of “The End” that perfectly captures the death throes of the psychedelic rock revolution. Eight months later, the Doors would release the smash L.A. Woman; a few months after that, Morrison’s death would effectively end the band. As an archive releases go, this one is aces, and if you’ve ever loved the Doors, you’re going to want a copy. Grade: B+   BUY IT!

Nick Moss Band – The High Cost of Low Living (Alligator Records)
Bluesman Nick Moss has been kicking around the Windy City for better than two decades, making his bones playing with legends like Jimmy Dawkins and Buddy Scott. Breaking out on his own in the early ‘00s, Moss has released nearly a dozen critically-acclaimed studio and live albums on his own Blue Bella imprint. Hooking up with skilled harp wrangler Dennis Gruenling, Moss signed with the esteemed Alligator Records and delivered The High Cost of Low Living, the traditional-styled Chicago blues LP we knew he could create. Layering his fiery guitar licks alongside Gruenling’s raging harp, the two crank out a joyful noise on original tunes like the jump-n-jive “Get Right Before You Get Left” or the swinging title track, while “Count On Me” is part honky-tonk rave-up and part juke-joint jam. With their Alligator label debut, Moss, Gruenling and a talented crew update the Chicago blues for the 21st century. Grade: A+   BUY IT!

Jack White – Boarding House Reach (Third Man Records/Columbia Records)
Too much of Jack White’s third solo album, Boarding House Reach, sounds like the former rock ‘n’ roll innovator has lost his fuckin’ mind. It’s not that I mind noisy music – when used properly as an accent or punctuation, noise can be an effective tool in an artist’s arsenal. But White sounds like he discovered the special effects button on the producer’s board and gleefully litters his songs with electronic beeps, harsh sirens, and other unnecessary aural irritants. Combined with nonsensical narrative voice-overs, altered vocals, and embarrassed attempts at “rapping,” White creates a sticky musical morass that is neither edgy nor entertaining. There are some interesting things going on musically in songs like the funky romps “Corporation” and “Ice Station Zebra” or the rockin’ “Over and Over and Over,” and White’s fretwork still bites like a hungry gator, but there’s too much clutter and not enough butter in these grooves. Grade: C   BUY IT!

Previously on That Devil Music:
Short Rounds, February 2018: 6 String Drag, Tinsley Ellis, Mabel Greer's Toyshop & Wishbone Ash
Short Rounds, January 2018: Ethiopian & His All Stars, Gladiators, Moloch & Phil Seymour
Short Rounds, December 2017: Flat Duo Jets, Focus, The Original Blues Brothers Band, Uriah Heep & John Wetton

Third Man’s The Rise & Fall of Paramount Records, Volume 2

Nobody has ever accused Jack White of subtlety. The former White Stripe and Raconteur has built a successful career – both solo and with his various band side projects – based on his musical creativity and keen business sensibilities. When it comes to the literal “labor of love,” nobody embraces a project like White, which was proven by the ingenuity and experimentation that went into the special features found on the vinyl version of this year’s solo release, Lazaretto.

White’s Third Man Records label has been reissuing recordings by blues legends Charley Patton, Blind Willie McTell, and the Mississippi Sheiks from the Paramount Records catalog on vinyl for the past couple of years. In 2013, however, the label released a monster box set, The Rise & Fall of Paramount Records, Volume 1, which featured six vinyl record albums, a pair of profusely-illustrated books, and thumb drives featuring some 800 re-mastered tracks from the enormous catalog of the legendary Wisconsin record label, all packaged in a beautiful, hand-crafted oak “cabinet of wonder” designed to look like an antique Victrola record player (and sporting a price tag nearing $500!).

It was an impressive labor of love and a critically-acclaimed, if commercially dubious collection, but that’s never stopped White in the past. So what does he do for an encore? How about The Rise & Fall of Paramount Records, Volume 2, a second enormous box set which covers the years 1928 to 1932, when Paramount was the undisputed king of “race records” (i.e. blues music). Like the first, this second box set was released in collaboration with Reverent Records, which released its own massive Charley Patton box set some years ago.

This second volume also includes six 180gram vinyl LPs and a high-capacity USB drive that includes all the music (800 songs) and more than 90 vintage Paramount Records ads that originally appeared in the African-American newspaper The Chicago Defender. A pair of big books (250pp and 400pp) features artist biographies and visual representations of the Paramount advertising art.

For the packaging this time, the label went with a shiny aluminum and stainless steel case that reflects the evolution of not only Paramount’s sound at the time, but also the American industrial revolution. Stylistically, the box is meant to mimic not only the hollow-body National Resonator guitar that was popular among bluesmen at the time, but also the radical design and function of the RCA Victor Special Model K portable record player that became popular in the 1930s. 

Of the boxes design, in a press release Revenant’s Dean Blackwood says, “we didn’t want Volume 2 to be a strict bookend to Volume 1. That’s not an honest reflection of the design themes. The ’30s was the beginning of industrial design coming to the fore with its own brand of modernist design; rather than embracing exotica, our version was around this streamlined modern version of Art Deco. The machine was the source of America’s might and standing in the world, our capacity as an industrial power that connected the vast plains of our country and even other nations – that’s really where we found our sweet spot.”

The Rise & Fall of Paramount Records, Volume 2 includes some of the most essential and influential blues recordings in the history of the genre, including tracks from legends like Son House, Charley Patton, Skip James, Tommy Johnson, the Mississippi Sheiks, King Solomon Hill, Willie Brown, and literally hundreds of others. Like its predecessor, the second volume is priced well north of $400, but it’s an incredible feat – historic music packaged in style and with no little love.

White and Third Man Records have taken some heat for these Paramount sets, with an alleged rights holder filing suit against the label for copyright infringement. It’s hard to believe that these 80 to 90 year old tracks aren’t in the public domain given their age, but there’s no doubt of their influence, and I commend White and Third Man for taking the risk to bring this music to the label’s young audience.