THE PACK A.D. - Meet The Tour Van!

R.L. BURNSiDE - Jumper On The Line (1978)

ROBERT "BiLBO" WALKER

BLACK MEKON iS YR DADDY!

BLACK MEKON @ Facebook // Cold Rice Records

 

Via their record company---> About Black Mekon:
These two vicious bastards (Black Mekon and his brother Black Mekon) were named after the legendary Black Mekong, illegitimate children of prostitutes visited by missionary preachers, abandoned to fend for themselves on the banks of The Mekong River.

Raised in a whorehouse by drunk dockworkers in a town called Christ's Gasoline, they were born with only one arm between them and grew up selling sand to sailors and wrestling vermin and wives for the amusement of the locals. The rest of their upbringing is steeped in myth and told mostly in sea shanties, according to legend they escaped on a raft made of old Cramps and Doo Rag 45s using John Lee Hooker and Pussy Galore vinyl to paddle themselves to more familiar shores.
 


Somewhere along the line they acquired 3 more arms, a gypsy curse, drumsticks and a guitar, and ran into a fellow bluesman on the lam, Stunt Pussy, who agreed to help them whenever they needed to sing for their supper.
 


The live show? Blistering in-the-red punk blues, their travelling club (The Tight Pussy) has graced shores all over Europe and the US, 2 successful tours of South America and has designs on planting itself firmly in your lap next.
 


"We do not sing tales for tales sake, we can only approach this at 300mph with no regard for personal safety or truth. Your party needs us, as every good party does, for insecurity, tightrope-ing and hot lava. Black Mekon is your daddy, baby."

CHAD NORDHOFF :: He Got It!

Is Chad Nordhoff the new Jerry Reed?
Maybe not be he's awful damn close.   Which may mean nothing to you but stands for all around quality in my book.  Like Reed, Nordhoff is as strong a songwriter ( seven of the ten tracks on Good Work, If You Can Get It are self-penned ) as he is a picker.  Nordhoff plays and sings with the ease, strength  and confidence that set Reed's work apart.  Country blues seems to be kind of a dying art these days but don't tell Chad.  Nordhoff personifies what I hear in my mind when I think of a classic Memphis sound, his adopted home. Part  Blues, part Country, a breath of the gospel, and a soulful hunka burnin' Elvis with a dangerous sense of humor that'll cut you if do him wrong.  Chad Nordhoff is a natural and potent performer and it takes his kind of seemingly effortless talent to make you forget his covers of Haggard's Workin' Man Blues and Muddy Water's Just Can't Be Satisfied are in fact covers.  Recorded and mixed at Sun Studios in one four hour go 'round, Good Work If You Can Get It represents a man confident in his skills and comfortable in his delivery, and able to throw it down.  
I'd betcha ol'Jerry Reed would say "Show 'em, son!" 

Mr. Nordhoff is kind enough to let you steal these three unreleased tracks from his Sun Records sessions. 
Least you can do is friend him and say Thanks like yr mama taught you.
Chad sez these tracks are:

"Howlin' for my Darlin'" - Willie Dixon mp3
"Train Fare Blues" - Muddy (sort of) mp3
"Walkin' Blues" - Robert Johnson perhaps mp3

Send Chad yr money. 
He'll send you a CD.

Chad Nordhoff @ Facebook // ReverbNation

KiTCHEN SiNK GUiTAR

OTiS TAYLOR on NPR's TiNY DESK CONCERTS

MiX&DORP - A New Video

 i heart MiX&DORP.

Ethan Daniel Davidson- Ghosts of Mississippi

 I posted this track a long time ago but i've been listening to it a bunch lately and thought I should remind you of it. In the song, Davidson, a jewish/native american singer-songwriter, tells the story of traveling to Mississippi in the hope of finding a gig. Ends up at Thompson Grocery / Juke Joint in Bobo, Missisippi.The story presented is backed by a sample from R.L. Burnside. Dig it:

 Ethan Daniel Davidson - Ghosts of Mississippi - MP3

You might dig this track, too:

HUSKY BURNETTE in Saint Augustine @ Ann O'Malley's

Got to see Husky Burnette and his drummer Tony Jones play the tiny Ann O'Malley's tavern this week. 

Terrific show and the staff at Ann O'Malley's treat musicians right. I encourage all my musician pals to give 'em a holler when they head to FL. Husky plays all out/full on hard blues and I pity the fool that missed the show. 

Here's a short video shot by photographer Dan Florez. 

Dan's camera mic seems a little janky but you'll get the idea:

LEFT LANE CRUiSER - junkyard speedball kills!

       Reading reviews for the new LLC while waiting for the mailman to drop Junkyard Speed Ball in my lucky mailbox, was an interesting exercise.  It seems there's a lot of weaktitsuckingscaredycatpussybabies out there who think Ft. Wayne's sky is falling because LLC is stretching out their legs and junque.  I tell you what, haters and hiney biters, y'all need to bust back into yr mama's L7 where it's safe, cozy, and cuddly, where nobody challenges yr earholes perceptions of what rocks and what doesn't.  Go back to your darling early White Stripes albums where King Jack was making music about, and writing lyrics for ( as he mentioned in an interview ) ten year olds ( not that there is anything wrong with that ).  This new Left Lane Cruiser is made of grown up grooves, burly sounds and hollers for the big folks. 
      I don't know if Brenn and Joe have been in the tour van gettin' Experienced and listening to old worn out tapes of Skynyrd and early Nugent, Let It Bleed-era Stones or maybe even Cursed Diamond by Black Crowes or what, but something has sparked a change...a sonic expansion...a deepening of the thing that is LLC.  And i'm loving it.  It's heavier, thicker and more soulful than previous work, yet still the utterly righteous, filthy and holy Fat Possum t-shirt rockin', worn down boot stompin' blues of Left Lane Cruiser we know and love. 
     Detroit producer Jim Diamond (The Dirt Bombs, White Stripes, James Leg) buffed the LLC blast to a classic, afferent, and massive arena rock luster while keeping the Indiana dust and diamond grit and road patina intact.   Certainly a modicum of credit for that vibe also goes to the addition of the Muscle Shoals organ of James Leg (Black Diamond Heavies) on four tracks. Brother (and label mate) Leg adds a whole new dimension to the LLC's stomp and pound sound and as a result, Joe's slide work has never been more moving.  I'm guessing that's a direct result of playing off of James Leg's Church of Allman keys work.  Brenn's always been a thrilling and totally committed drummer, the type of dude who'd pound 'til he kicked if it served the song.  But, as with Joe there is an extra deep swing this time out.  Not to suggest that LLC lacked any of this previously, they've always been a very tight, sexy wicked dirty blues infected beast, a three headed blues hydra, if you will.  Left Lane Cruiser's musical growth and expansion, conjoined with a Hi-er-Fi'd production, and a hard thoughtful attack bring all elements together to cause the stars to align and explode all over Junkyard Speed Ball. GET iT!

File Under: Ass Pocket of Feel Good Hit Of The Summer (so far).

 Left Lane Cruiser @ Alive Records // Facebook // MySpace // iTunes // Amazon 

OLD GRAY MULE in Living Blues Magazine

Cool to see Old Gray Mule get a positive review in Living Blues Magazine!  
Listen & snag their disc from CDbaby.

Old Gray Mule @ MySpace // Facebook // Blog // Twitter // CD BABY

GUADALUPE PLATA!

I spieled about these guys awhile back and at the time I referred to them as "Creepy Hi-LO-Fi swampy espanafied punkass monster blues." Ain't a damn thing changed. A pal in the UK went ape for them recently ( thx HJ! ) so I thought i'd see what's up. Guadalupe Plata just played SXSW for one thing, where Austin Music Source said:

From: Andalucia, Spain. In 50 words or less: Like the Cramps, only more into Delta blues than Memphis rockabilly, this Spanish group is looking to trash Austin out.

Could share a bill with: Flametrick Subs, Dax Riggs, Gories

Produced by: Former Austinite Mike Mariconda, who’s been working with bands in Spain the past four years.

Sadly, I don't do spanish but their Bandcamp page says (and I know you'll get the jist): 

Puede que sea su capacidad para generar sensaciones, algo que cualquiera que haya asistido a uno de sus conciertos habrá experimentado. Es esa mezcla de tensión, hipnosis, obsesión y sexualidad contenida que se te clava hasta el colon. Un collage sonoro construido con parches arañados de la cara pantanosa del Rock & Roll: Hound Dog Taylor, Billy Childish, Captain Beefheart, Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins… Aunque no les basta con explotar sus cualidades revisionistas, también ponen de su parte explorando guiños propios de la tierra en la que crecieron (sus letras delatan una tradición).
“Su único pecado es la fidelidad a un género que se quiebra entre guiños de chulería rural y espasmos de blues resacoso”, publicaba la revista Ruta 66 hace casi un año a la espera del lanzamiento de su primer disco largo.

.
Download The Ep and New LP FREE! @ Bandcamp then friend them @ Facebook // MySpace

A nod of the noggin' to Chris "Wisconsin" Johnson for hipping me to these kids in the first place!

BLACK JOE LEWiS & THE HONEYBEARS ~ Mustang Ranch (SXSW 2011)

TAMiKREST play Sahara Desert Blues

Tamikrest has a new album coming out April 22nd called Toumastin. 

iTunes doesnt have it posted yet but you can listen/pre-order @ Amazon.

Tamikrest @ Facebook // iTunes // Amazon // MySpace