LEFT LANE CRUiSER: GiT SOME! (Retro repost from 02/15/07)

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Left Lane Cruiser hail from the source of most all good things: Indiana. 

Fort Wayne to be exact. No where near Turkey Run State Park but named after Gen. "Mad" Anthony Wayne. As cool as Indiana is (except for the summer when it's hot like a freakin' cast iron skillet with a beautiful cloudless thick blue glass lid on top) it's not the place one might think of when one thinks of the good ol' Punkass BluesBut then hell neither is Indianapolis which boasts of being the home of the early late punk blues band Chickenleg. And other than some river bluffs it ain't exactly much like Mississippi's legendary hill country. That does not stop Joe and Bren, the two-headed-four-armed-six-legged thing that is Left Lane Cruiser from draggin that ol' Fat Possum'esque sht thru the Black Swamp mud like a Brown County tornado til' it shakes and rolls and hunches full up of Deep fried chicken Blues, 1970's f150s with a Larry Brown cooler on the floor, broom stick n' wire slide and a couple of tubs and old skins maybe stole from Othar's back shed. It's greasy hot, shaved dry, and crazier than yr smokin' methd-up ex-girlfriend who keeps singin' Down By The River I Shot My Baby thru a two-dollar pawn shop mic she jerry-rigged thru that ol' gunshot b/w tv in the backyard and dedicating it to you with love mthrfckr. 

For fans of Black Diamond Heavies, T-Model Ford, Chris Johnson, Rev. Peyton, Scott Hiram Biram, Deltahead, Hillstomp, Honkeyfinger, Me, and all that mess.






Just buy the whole damn catalogue, Cracky.

Have Y'all Heard The New LEFT LANE CRUiSER album Rock Them Back To Hell Yet? In a word, HOTDAMN!

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This is Left Lane Cruiser's new bruiser.  Another step forward from that little ol' punk infected blues band from Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Heavier than the Mid-west, this is what you jam when you get some beers and go muddin' in the mountains on Saturday afternoon. This is what you jam from your Chevelle by the campfire at night. This is what you jam alone in an airport strip motel. This is the 8-Track tape in your Kustom van.

Distorto blues howlers and boogies get beat down and

spanked in to shape by the great Brenn Beck on tubs n' skins, and his buddy and yours, the righteous Freddy J IV throwing down some simply savage slide guitar and vocals. Recorded (analog) in Ft. Wayne by Jason Davis, and produced by Jim Diamond, this is the sound of what Iggy and R.L. hath begot. 

If you miss pre-Rocks Aerosmith, early Seger filtered thru ninety-thousand miles of highway, you miss the rough blues they used to play at that nasty little bar in Downtown, Anywhere. You wish somebody was playing something like that shit? Then you need this. Rock Them Back To Hell? Mission accomplished.

LEFT LANE CRUiSER - New Single :: Juice To Get Loose from Rock Them Back To Hell! Due 9.17.13 via Alive Records!

Heavy southern blues sludge done just the way we like it - raw and kickin' hard.


From Left Lane Cruiser's new studio album "Rock Them Back To Hell!" (out on CD, Vinyl & Digital Sep. 17, 2013 through Alive Naturalsound Records).

Left Lane Cruiser's Freddy J IV and Brenn Beck are back with an album of voodoo hillbilly punk-blues. Recorded in Fort Wayne IN, and mixed in Detroit by renown producer/engineer Jim Diamond, "Rock Them Back To Hell!" sees the duo expanding their sonic palette by adding bass, harmonica, organ and “trash percussion” (that would be a cardboard box, a paint tin, trash can and an electrified five-gallon bucket). The result is an album to wake up the dead, and rock it back to hell! The “hell-billies” cover art is the work of renowned artist William Stout (Return Of The Living Dead, Invaders From Mars, Pan’s Labyrinth).

"ROCK THEM BACK TO HELL!" TRACK LISTING:
01 Zombie Blocked
02 Electrify
03 Neighborhood
04 Juice To Get Loose
05 Overtaken
06 Be So Fine
07 Jukebox
08 Coley
09 Paralyze Ya
10 Righteous

PUNKASS BLUES WiCKEDNESS in PARiS :: BLUES RULES FESTiVAL 2013 - Left Lane Cruiser w/Lightnin' Malcolm and more!

"Truth is truth. Roll with it." The LEFT LANE CRUiSER VS JAMES LEG Super Sessions: An Interview About Painkillers.

LLC @ Facebook // James Leg @ Facebook // Alive Records // iTunes- LLC & James Leg // Amazon - LLC & James Leg

Left Lane Cruiser and James Leg have released a snarling little cur dog (balls intact) of a party album called Painkillers. Ten wicked cover songs. Mama told Papa...This is the summers rock n' blues wigout, man...got to boogie! 

Painkillers is the soundtrack of a beer and Scotch-sodden county-line joint. It vibrates with dirty, 'stonesy, grinder blues. My classic rock. Hell fire, not only do they cover Seger's Come To Papa, but they have the brass to do  Zep's When The Levee Breaks. Trying to breath new life into half these war horses, let alone a song like Red Rooster would be an undertaking for any band but Team Leg-LLC fatten it up, wring it's neck and kill that chicken like Scott H Biram would kill that chicken. 

These guys start out by throwing down a heavy super-rockin' cover of Junior Kimbrough's Sad Days And Lonely Nights that gets hotter'n a she-wolf in a pepper-patch on fire.  From there it's on to Hound Dog Taylor, Hooker, 'Stones, Taj Mahal, and that Robert Johnson guy.  You know it takes some skills to cover Hendrix and them and not sound like a shitty wanna-be cover band. An imitator. A pretender. But this road-seasoned trio, backed by Painkillers engineer Jim Diamond on bass (Yes! The return of bass!) and Harmonica Shah (on guesswhat) makes a fat and burly yet lean and tough racket that testifies to the almighty raw power of rock and blues. 

In a perfect world, y'all would be rollin' downtown blasting Painkillers from your Camaro's and Kustom vans, bumpin' it at every beach picnic and kegger in the woods around the world.  Rockin' Painkillers as you sit on the bonfire-lit tailgate of your girlfriends stank ol' F150, down by the river surrounded by all your friends, James Leg's organ like a soulful siren, his voice a south Texas hail storm. Joe's slide guitar a backwoods whip saw, Brenn's buttcentric drum grooves hunchin' on Jim Diamond's fat bass throbber as the sound howls through the humid hot night. I could carry on but look, this stuff right here is what your kids'll be diggin' in some Nuggets box set of the future. 

I got ahold of Brenn and Joe aka Dr. Freddy J IV and Dr. Sausage Paw from Left Lane Cruiser and Rightous Reverend Doctor of the organ Mr. James Leg to see how those  Painkillers went down:

How'd this album come about? Did y'all jam on the road and think Hmm...we should do something with this?

James Leg: We've toured together many times over the last several years....and have played together on stage as well as in the studio for Left Lane Cruiser's last release, "Junkyard Speedball"...so it was just a matter of time till we wound up in the studio for a collaboration.


Brenn: Yeah, every time we've jammed with John (aka James Leg - His Government name is John -rs.)  its been great. We fit together great, so it only made sense to do it on tape. Now we just gotta do an original album together.

Joe: We have definitely had some epic jam sessions with John on the road, both in the states and overseas. I have always dug the way John plays the keys, never heard anybody play 'em like that, nasty but soulful.

What was the process of weeding out? How many songs did you start with and how hard was it to cull it down to ten? Did you record other songs that didn't make the cut?

James: We prolly started out with around ten additional possible songs. Before we went to Detroit to lay it all down, we got together in Fort Wayne for a couple days and ran through several tracks to see what felt best. There were a couple that we recorded that didn't make the record. Also, a couple of the tracks on the record were last minute choices in the studio. 

Brenn: Some of them we had planned just didn't seem as fitting after a few whiskeys`.

Joe: We wanted a good mix of blues and classic rock. We also wanted to stay away from tunes we cover live so people could hear something new. There were some songs that didnt make the record but might be released down the road.


Who's idea was it to cover Bob Seger's Come To Poppa? You got taste, dude. Even if people don't care for Seger (my brotherinlaw swears he lives a Seger-free existence) you cannot deny that Come To Poppa is Thee Seger Jam. 

James: I'm a member of The Church of Bob Seger. Especially and specifically the first several records...when he sounded more like Detroit than L.A, though I can get into that shit as well. We toyed with the idea of doing "Ramblin Gamblin Man"...but its been done a few times and done well...in fact recently by Jim Diamond's band, Seger Liberation Army..."Come To Poppa" seemed like a lil bit of a deeper cut...and apropo...pritty sure i've said those words in conversation.

Joe: Seger rules! John picked that one so he deserves the credit. That slowed down version is sick, good call Rick. 
( I like to take forty-fives and slow 'em down to thirty-three rpm -rs)

What's the story behind the Painkillers album title?

James: Hehe...again, apropo of those four days we were tracking....I think we were goin through a litre of Jameson a day as well.. (not sure if that ought to be common knowledge...Brenn?Joe?)

Brenn: Truth is truth. Roll with it.

Joe: Its a party record and we were partying when we recorded it. 

What was the recording process for this like? Where/when and how long did it take to record?

James: Easy...and loads of fun. Like I say, we've all the four of us worked together several times so it was easy to lock-in and groove...made it a lot of fun to just be playin' these songs together in the same room with good sounds. I believe we cut the most of it in four days last December, then Brenn and Joe went back in January for a couple days and polished it off. We tried not to overthink it or make the process so long or meticulous that all the spontinaity and soul was lost. Most of the record was all live and got in one or two takes..

 Brenn: Like John said, little to no preperation to keep it spontaneous, and not mimicking the original versions note for note. You put the four of of us in a room together with plenty of whiskey, and a bottle of pills, grooves are gonna flow easily. I think we were all on the same wavelength with where it was going, so that made it easy.


Joe: Recording was a blast. We did it at Jim's studio (Ghetto Recorders) in Detroit, a block away from Tiger Stadium. We just went in there everyday, got tore up and let it rip. 

One last question: 
What's next? Whats on your schedule for the next 3 months?

Brenn: Well, right now Joe and I are fine tuning the songs for the new album. Figure on recording it in the next couple of months. Tonight we are opening for Helmet and The Toadies at big fest up in Michigan. We got Muddy Roots comin up at the end of the month, back to Europe in Sept/Oct, and then we are headed down south for a quick run in Nov. Keepin' busy on the road, but really focusing on getting LLC's new album finished up.

James: Just got off a four month straight tour in June...gonna sit (relatively) still for a few minutes. I'm in the early stages of writing/recording a couple of records right now...not sure at the moment what name will be on 'em, James Leg or Black Diamond Heavies,.... that will depend on the material and schedule. Other than the Muddy Roots Festival at the end of August, I plan to do no shows till around January or so. Even the devil got to put it in park and kick back sometimes.

Now doubt Left Lane Cruiser and/or James Leg will be coming to a town near you at some point. If y'all wanna see a serious live show played by dudes that play like it might be their last show you got to get out the house and go out of your way to see these guys. Give them your money. You know you need the orange vinyl! 
Dig:

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 

Deep Blues Festival gets press just like the big kids.

Downbeat, that venerable monument to hi-brow grow'd up jazz and otherwise goodness gave us mention the other day and included a very brief blurb from our close personal friend Van Campbell of Black Diamond Heavies. It's his reminiscence of our 2007 fest. Sadly they did not include the whole quote (and it doesn't appear online at all) so I'll lay it for you here. It's probably the nicest thing anybody has ever said about us. Thanks Van!:

"It was almost perfect that it rained so relentlessly at the first Deep blues Festival... It was the most uncharacteristic weather I had ever seen for July... more like November......More than "rained out" we were all "rained in" together. It was a family reunion of lost relatives. We had no idea that there were so many people that were doing a similar thing to what we were doing. It was like finding the land of misfit toys.. We were all there together braving the rain, playing our songs and a lot of time playing different versions of the same old songs! It was the beginning of something we all knew was special. Rick Saunders has been the sort of poetic voice of this festival that seems to have become more of a movement. Rick has been responsible for gathering people together from all over the place. Chris Johnson seems like a "regular guy". In fact he is just that....a regular guy with a house and a sweet family, he just happens to also be somewhat of a visionary. That dichotomy has us all pretty stupified, as you can hear in songs like 'Mr Johnson" by Left Lane Cruiser.......a modern tribute to the man that we hope is making history. It doesn't matter though how big it gets because its just all done out of love and anyone involved could attest to that..."

Here's a new track from the forthcoming BDH album A Touch Of Someone Else's Class
Bidin' My Time MP3

The Black Diamond Heavies will rock us all to hell and back on DAY TWO of The Deep Blues Festival Saturday July 19th 2008. Their new album, recorded with Dan Auerbach of Black Keys will be available June 6th. Tickets are still available!

http://www.downbeat.com/festivalguide.asp