50,000 watts out of mexico……
Out the window cars roll over, the undone streets so quickly…
I should hate James Apollo. He’s younger than me, is effortlessly debonair and my girlfriend has the hots for him. But damnit Mabel, this guy is just too good to allow my petty jealousy get in the way.
Born in Libertyville, Arkansas Apollo fled the coop at 16 and has been riding the range ever since. A 49er with no mine, Apollo writes of heartbreak, loss and desolation and couches his words in vaudeville velvet. He takes aesthetics seriously, does James and his records have a fine hand crafted feel to them, which is also transferred to his live show. I first saw him play at the Ryman auditorium of Europe: Darvel Town Hall. As he took to the stage I was aware that something different and unique was afoot. Not only did Apollo and his band look different, like a prom group dragged through a hedge backwards, but they sounded different. (So different I don’t have a cheap and dirty analogy) It was very dramatic, even cinematic with Apollo switching between a normal mic and a retro style one full of feedback. He dipped, bobbed, weaved and stamped his way through the then current album ‘Good Grief’ I snagged a copy of said album that night and have been hooked ever since.
Good Grief is a nightmarish tumble through the America of Steinbeck and Fante. Harking back to the Civil War with ‘The Alamo’ and ‘All the Pretty’ Apollo shows he aint your normal hack. The follow up ‘Hide Your Heart In a Hive’ built and expanded on this splintered vision, check out the video for my favourite track, ‘Bad Old Buzzard’, below. He has recently released an EP ‘Angels we have grown apart’ and will be back this way in early October
I’d like to say Glasgow has been kind to James Apollo, but other than providing some interesting road tales, Scotland’s premier city has been a lonely furrow for our hero. I detect a change in the air though, and hopefully Apollo will see a difference on his forthcoming tour.
Terror Has Some Strange Kinsfolk
Is the title of one of his numerous recordings, it has that mixture of weird biblical voodoo southern gumbo mystic that may be the only way to describe Eugene Chadbourne’s music. The good Dr. Chadbourne first came to attention as a member of Shockabilly, a New York trio that included avant- noise producer Kramer. They played a bizarre mutant mixture of folk, space rock, jazz and pre grunge thrash. Listen to their cover of Cash’s Tennessee Flat Top Box and see what a Martian’s view of country music might sound like.
Chadbourne went on to release a series of solo albums and collaborations with the likes of The Violent Femmes and Camper Van Beethoven. With a sly wit, political jabs and an obvious knowledge and love of old time American music his is an acquired taste but well worth persevering with. The official albums vary wildly, side long covers of Tim Buckley songs, nasty blues with Evan John and reworkings of old timey stuff such as of Spike Jones pisstake on the Nazis. In addition Chadbourne has produced numerous live recordings of improvisation, often accompanied by the late Jimmy Carl Black from Zappa’s Mothers.
Apart from being able to apparently whip up a fresh and topical version of Country Joe’s Fixin’ To Die to suit whichever war America is currently waging Chadbourne invented the electric rake, an amplified garden tool which he uses to terrorise lazy daytime TV chat hosts. His version of the Billy Ray Cyrus stomp that was Achy Breaky Heart” (accompanied by Evan Johns) is transformed by his unique use of the electric rake. A unique individual and a bit of a treasure.
Quincy and the punks
Wasn’t Quincy everyone’s favourite medical examiner?
He certainly was quite the man, noticing foul play where others didn’t, haranguing the police, arguing with his boss, solving the crime and hitting on the victim’s widow. Every episode.
In this clip Quincy gives the 911 to the scourge of society: punk rock kids. In return for trying to stop a girl being pushed into a codeine overdose, Quince feels the crowds wrath with several stock anarchic epithets aimed his way. How come they spat on Henry Rollins, but not the square in the sweater?
Bloodstains on the wall
Bloodstains on the Wall
It seems today that any blues artist worth a shit has been anthologised to death. Records you would have killed for years ago are now available at the press of a button. We know just about everything about anyone that mattered, fights, divorces, jail terms and, when it comes to the music, all sorts of out takes and versions 1 2 and 3 etc etc….. So when it comes to a song that apparently only appears on one anthology and seems to be the only recording known by the artist, the ears perk up. That song is the spooky mystery that is Honeyboy’s “Bloodstains on the Wall,” a genuine chilling slice of urban blues. Honeyboy has a mess to deal with, the aftermath of some terrible event. What, why and how is never explicitly addressed, all we seem to know is that something happened and the guy is pissed. The title makes the listener think of abattoirs, a mess (or one that will do until a real mess comes along). The guitar sputters over a sleazy barrelhouse blues piano, is the singer a pimp or a messed up working man who finds out strange things are happening when his back is turned. No matter what, the detectives are coming and he has his alibi.
Honeyboy is not to be confused with Honeyboy Edwards but is instead Honeyboy Frank Patt (go on, Google him). According to what I could find about him he was born in Fostoria, AL on Sep. 1, 1928 and he sold about 50,000 copies of this single so there should be some attics somewhere that have this gem lurking underneath the boxes, detritus and cobwebs of someone’s life. Recorded for the Speciality label this is a sleazy, murky piece of work with a dense claustrophobic sensibility. If you don’t believe me ask Bob Dylan who included it in one of his recent radio shows.