THE NEW BLUES
for a list of artists that, like our Mojo Magazine writin' pal
Joe Cushley's Balling The Jack: The Birth of The Neu Blues and Beyond Mississippi: Blues That Left Town cds, fall out side of Trad Blues but are blues TO ME as well as new found or younger artists that aren't doin' the white boy fake texmexihat bottomlip bitin' eyes to the sky gitar behind the head bullsht show-off blues. and YES Mr. n' Mrs. Marsalis we are playing fast and loose with the term BLUES. and YES there Ain't nuthin' sacred but what's in my heart and soul. That's ALL that matters.
What I like. Here are their and my suggestions:
Click on the Artist name...that'll take you to Amazon.com
Links below the Artists name go to the Artist's web site.
Yr kindness in purchasing thru this site supports
PS: There is a really exciting movement happenin' UK wide right now. Rupert Orton, ex-guitarista of the
which is a NuBlues nite roving thru various London and surrounding area venues and features many of the bands below and their ilk LiVE as all hell.
Our friends in Leicester are rockin' a similar vibe and calling it SNAKE DRiVE. Please Help yr Brothers and Sisters out! Lend yr ears and support my people.
Keep it live M.F.s !
READ MY REViEW OF NTSOBC's
NEW CD COMPILATION called
BIGASS THANK YOU to the lads at NTSOBC and at SNAKEDRiVE for
keeping me on top o' the tip and allowing me the kindness of filching from
their lists of links and sooper rockin' reviews. I bow down.
which lies halfass between San Antonio and Austin. That ain’t too far from Hondo but far enuff from Big Foot. Biram and his truck got flat creamed by a semi doin’ 75. One month later he’s back on stage at Austin’s famed Continental Club in a wheelchair with an IV hangin’ out his arm and flailin’ that ’59 Gibson hollow body like a man born again. Scott plays like a man possessed by the thought that this could by-gawd be his last gig ever and if he’s gonna die afterwards he’s takin’ yr ass and soul with him.
You’ll be praying fast for Hiram to hit you again.
That kid from LOW slap it down on the side
gonna straight slap the taste out yr mouth
and y'all be the better for it.
Duluth puts the hammer down...on yr head!
That kid from LOW slaps down on the side
DtoTheQ n' Mr.Pat gon' fck it all up y'all! ain't that right?
Combo destroyed the woods and mountains around their tiny hometown of Mustio Finland by carving their guitars, drums,
and harmonicas from whole ironwood trees with their bare hands and using John Henry's twelve pound hammer (with four foot handle) they beat those mountains down for the brass ,
silver , and iron (and coal to fire this thing) to fashion the rest of the parts they needed. When they were finished they stomped their thirst with a bottle of R.L. Burnside's Bloody mthrfckr and sat down in the full moon light at that muddy crossroads between Holly Springs Mississippi , Mustio and County Kisko to
play Their raw dirty beautiful Blues.
CHiCKEN LEGS WEAVER
the new blue from Sheffield to you via NOWHERE baby!
Yr enemy cannot harm but watch yr close friend.
One boot firmly in the Piedmont...the other solid upside yr head!
I flew to the future on my Dickel fueled rocket one night but I missed it and had to come round the horn via 1927 where I crashed landed in a maelstrom of hail and hellwater into a basement somewhere's near Murfreesboro which is where I found Creech Holler. They'd done the same which explained them amplimafiers and that. They were playing their own music and when I asked what it was about they told me to check their myspace page when I got back to the present and so I did:
Dock Boggs, Charley Patton, Hobart Smith, Blind Willie Johnson, Harry Crews, Cormac McCarthy, Roscoe Holcomb, R.L. Burnside, Clarence Ashley, Otha Turner, Son House, Nick Cave, Black Keys, 16 Horsepower and Hank III in a railroad boxcar, passing around a guitar, corn whiskey in a fruit jar, a dagger, a bible, a revolver, a rattlesnake, a tambourine and a live hand grenade.
they rock much harder and groove far deeper than
But then you realize....Oh Yeah! Solleftea is a sister city to Madison Mississippi and it all makes sense!
Their album is the best 34 minutes i've spent in a very long time. mere words cannot do it justice. Only volume can.
You'll soon find out why Soleftea is home
to the worlds longest 2X4!
Rulin' the roost from Ft.Worth to Pauls Valley.
I ain't checked but there's got to be some kinda tunnel been
built deeep down 'tween New Orleans, Mississippi,
and Budapest!
of Kick and bring it harder, sexier, and heavier.
You'll see stars.
"A haunted road hog with a brimstone growl and guitar mixed hotter than Lucifer. Road Angels and Torrential Rain imagines Nick Cave waking up on the wrong side of the bed, fighting cottonmouth and arrest warrants in several Southwestern states."
-Christopher Gray. The Austin Chronicle.
"Minor chords into the dark trails of the night, the best new artist of the 2000's."
-Dexter Romweber
Ghostwriter has the stamp of Dexter FKN Romweber which
is as far as i'm concerned is Pure Platinum Butter. Check him.
RE'Presentin' the Dark Blues and lettin' it roll straight and low outta the bad side of Seattle! Like if when the pressed the button to blow the dome a GRAVEL ROAD song played instead. BOOM!
Y'all seen this cat play with Boobie Barnes
in the documentary Deep Blues.
What else do you need to know?
none of these M.F.'s would exist.
I've got a live Rev.James Cleveland record where he admonishes the crowd to "go home, get yr bible...and dust it off! and turn to the 150th Psalm."
"They don't want the gospel to go into nightclubs and [concert] venues. But I know that is where Jesus would have done his preachin'...," he says. "The 150th Psalm says to 'Praise the Lord with string instruments [and] praise him with the drum and praise him with the tambourine.' It don't say 'Be quiet.' "
-Clarence Fountain
Hells Kitchen crawled out of the dank forests and steamin' stankass swamps of Geneva Switzerland aka the Land of Dirty snowy fkdup blues. Sure as the twist in the devil's tail you'd never hardly know it. Their 2005 release Doctor's Oven Combinine's the most diabolical and base elements of Mssr's Waits and Beefheart with the shtbug rollin' styles of Mr. Rural Burnside and the unspeakable grease , grime , and bits of rotten fruit, blue tainted loose meats (possibly fattened possum), noodles and metal shavings found in the bottom of their sodden black ceramic sink Hells Kitchen whomp up a stew that is deep, satisfying and darkly thrilling if not downright dangerous. In short one of the best cds of the last couple years.
PS-My four year old Roscoe sez that when he looks at the cover of this cd
he thinks that it's a cool kitchen that cooks dead fish in a stinky house and
roasts it into a square of garbage. indeed.
ok...lets get this straight up and send this out as a warning to every penny-ante-two-bit two-man band out there...It's Go Time. all y'all need to go out and get yrselves suspenders to wear with yr belts and start walkin' backwards and then just go ahead and get yr ass a bass player. If not I guarantee you suckers that
The High Plane Drifters and those savvy enuff to dig them will be hunting the rest of you with dogs by 2006. Mark my words.
it's over. No more Floridas. High Plane Drifters are Kings of the two-man universe. a stoogian wrayesque sonic powernuthouse guitar vs swangin' slayerific rumpus pounding beatdown drum ackackackshun + songs sung blue not writ for/by ex-10yr olds. REAL. and for the first time since everybody rightfully started giving up on bass players I almost don't miss it. Git 'em.
in those west Oregon valley blues
crisp and grimey
those old hill(side)country
rainsoaked side alley pot holes
John/Henry's two man team
Half Fred with Faulkner's adze
clatter HWY 7 riverside. stop.
to haul up blowers, banjers, yellers & dawgs
tracking Columbia mud 'cross
my gawdblamed kitchen floor loudly
Welcomed 'til all hours day and night.
I believe.
Men cover yr nuts and ladies cover
yr other nuts and don't let the children
smell the Honkeyfinger. i'm calling somebody right now to demand
lead x-ray aprons be issued at the door. and put somethin' in yr mouth so you don't gnaw yr own damn tongue off let alone somebody elses.
Duck and cover hit and roll. Unchained. Changed.
The one man band hand of Jawbone can not be touched. It ain’t no damned monkeypaw. No man’s desert sound. Ol’ timer came down from the old country Detroit carcrash mountaintop of tortured thieves and jilted lovers pre-stripped. Unmined. Holler’d out. Jawbone eat and Jawbone talk. Jawbone eat you with knife and fork. Don’t go huntin’ for Jawbone down in the dark. You’ll have trouble on your doorstep. Jawbone got snake in his blood, blood on his hound. Wormwood whiskey women and war. A 1000 year old foot of burnished brass comin’ down running like a man. His healing hand holding a hatchet. Like Jesus everybody wants to know his name. Some call Bullcat. Some call on Rooster. Big Chief. Daddy. Jawbone call down Dr.Isaiah, and Charlie, and Rankin’Jeffrey Lee. Rice. Sonny. Dock. Woody. Poole. Emmett. Takes all them to blow out that candle and make that big ol’ tombstone hihatbassdrum rock down moaning low and ride that steel slide downtown. Jawbone strap up that blue harp, that wind blown pine, that Hillstomp, that ol’ possum, that black noon Wolf howl that all kin of earth, hill-folk, city-folk, and country-folk alike will wail because of him.
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 Blues. But 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 album cracky.
Fronted by Col. JD Wilkes who is perhaps 'Merica's Greatest Frontman and Showman and hailing from Nashville TN Th' LSS will destroy yr mind (what little bit you got left), snuggle yr baby sister, and heal yr by-gawd heathen hamsuckin pea-pickin' soul. I can hold in half my paw the bands the put on a live show with the style, power and hump buckin' rollin' in beer and loogies good time-ness. First time I heard 'em was on a boot of a live show in Scotland where they were booed endlessly. Th' LSS would take none of it and sonically kicked Scotland's ass in a full reverse Braveheart. Oh Gee...what do they sound like? They say it best th'mselves: "Field hollers, funeral marches and murder ballads...amped up to eleven. Sounds Like Southern Gothic / punk blues" . Throw in some Elmer Gantry b'damned heavy metal parking lot marching band sideshow barker beer barrel polka rump chaffin' covers of Slim Harpo and you got a taste in
yr mouth that won't quit. Simply? Stunning. Can't touch this.
a just shy of legendary sideman for the likes of Misters Cedell Davis, Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside (incl various mutations involving R.L.'s boys) , T-Model Ford, Robert Belfour, Odell Harris, LC Ulmer, Afrississippi and many others whose names should hardly be spoken out loud out of respect. At home on the tubs and skins as he is on his six string razor strop this home is a one-man North Mississippi Hill Country wreckin' Krewe.
oh right. I'm supposed to come up with something that vaguely describes B.L. 3? you been drinkin' boob scotch buddy
Lord Vagrant are a gang of White Lightening addicted, cow tipping reprobates based in South London and Brighton. Debuting at the London NTSOBC Punk Rock Blues Festival in August, they unleashed their "Punk Fried Hayride" on an unsuspecting crowd, created a stage invasion during Clambakes set and then rounded the night off with a Tombola raffle to give away more White Lightening !! Beware!
perfecter of the 1,2,3,4 string electric Lowe Bow Diddley Bow
and all around one-man band menace.
have done what many of the bands here have done. They made a life changing pilgrimage to the Mississippi Hill Country and delta region. As luck would have it they hit Memphis on a night that had the great Richard Johnston rockin' one side of Beale and the vastly underated and highly deadly Robert Belfour cuttin' heads on the other. Their liner notes read " Needless to say, we were never quite the same afterward." Damn straight they weren't. From roping their new pal Johnston to guest with his Lowe Bow gitar on the deep N. MS groove of Long Past Midnight to their Black Keys rivaling cover of Junior Kimbrough's sweet Meet Me In The City these Kansans (Kansas? Kansas!) have learned their lessons. See, that Hill Country sound can't be done by most blues players. It's too loose and open and sexy. One can't wank it. and that is the difference. You gotta take 'er easy and just let it go. You cannot pound it. Moreland, Arbuckle and Floyd get that. You just gotta roll in it. and they do. They got the stank , the vibe, the skills and the kansas-sized mudboot to stomp down on the neck of every precious kandyass that spells the Deep Blues with two O's and a Z. Go see 'em and Buy 'em!
Gawdamn I love a band with a horn section! That said it's the 1st
track Catherine Wheel that I think sets the tone on this 6 slice ep.
Spare and TENSE as hell if the UK has some sorta CrossRoads equivilant like a road just over the hill from the Westbury Horse on a black cold wet night at 3am...that's where i'd like to hear this song sung. Chilly. I kept waitin' for the whole thing to explode with horns but no Mudlow is smarter than that. The guitar rings and calls Mudlow out to the 2nd track which is the rompin' stompin' arse whoopin' of Down In The Snow. That's when they drop the other boot. Tobias pulls out Tom Waits' vocal cords to flog a horn section that eye gouges and pulls hair while his swangin'mud covered gitar cuts throats like Nugent. Bass and drums are right where they oughta be bobbin' and weavin' and drivin' Mudlow to the next bar on the way home.
Brother Owens racked 45 years with the Flying Clouds before going it alone. Deeply alone. alone-r than Hasil Adkins. alone with the Lord and Ann Talbert. you can not handle The Truth. You Without Sin Cast The First Stone comprises 14 songs selected from original radio broadcasts and multi-track studio recordings of performances from 1998-2001 and at the age of 69,
this is Isaiah Owens’ solo debut.
When a thousand foot tall tree falls in the woods does it make a sound? Hell yeah it does and it sounds like The Pack. What’s that Barbara Walters? What kind of tree? While I’m gettin’ all dendrological let’s say when it falls it makes the same sound the last Golden Spruce on the Yakoun River made when that psycho bastard cut it down…if the Yakoun was running thru the turpentine woods of North Mississippi. Can you not love a band that lists the Confederate prison 