THE BLASTERS
The Blasters are a rock and roll band formed in 1979 in Downey, California, by brothers Phil Alvin (vocals and guitar) and Dave Alvin (guitar), with bass guitarist John Bazz and drummer Bill Bateman. Their self-described “American Music” was a blend of blues, rockabilly, early rock and roll, punk rock, mountain music, and rhythm and blues. They have a devoted fan base and have received largely positive critical reviews, but have earned only limited mainstream success. Critic Mark Deming wrote of them: “The Blasters displayed a wide-ranging musical diversity [and] were a supremely tight and tasteful band with enough fire, smarts, and passion for two or three groups.” (More from Wikipedia)
The term “rockabilly” – the word is an amalgamation of rock and hillbilly (an early term for country music) – was thrilling to me even before I actually knew what it meant. It was one of the earliest forms of rock and roll and the first to be played primarily by white musicians, going all the way back to “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and His Comets. The roster of rockabilly stars over the years starts of course with The King, Elvis Presley, along with Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and most of the other artists at Sun Records in the 1950’s, plus Wanda Jackson, Eddie Cochran and others. There was also a rockabilly revival in the early 1980’s led by the Blasters and the Stray Cats. To this day, when a band wants a rawer sound, they will incorporate rockabilly into their music.
The 1980’s rockabilly revival was sadly short-lived. Only 2,000 or so copies of the debut album by the Blasters, American Music were originally pressed in 1980 (though the CD reissue did much better); their later albums were critical faves but never sold all that well. Their wonderful song “American Music” became the theme music for the cult classic New Wave Theatre. Blasters front man Dave Alvin edged into pure roots music; the fine album I have is called Public Domain: Songs from the Wild Land (2000).
(May 2011)
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Bruce Joyner began hearing about the growing punk rock scene in Los Angeles – the Dils, X, the Blasters, the Weirdos and the Zeros are bands that he cites – and he quickly put together a band called the Unknowns.
(June 2011)
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Besides their own albums and popular concert appearances throughout Southern California, the Beat Farmers collaborated with numerous musicians; Allmusic lists Mojo Nixon, John Doe of X, Rosie Flores, the Bangles, Los Lobos, Katy Moffatt, blues singer/pianist Candye Kane, and guitarist Dave Alvin, formerly of the Blasters. For his part, Country Dick Montana had several side projects over this period, including the Incredible Hayseeds, Country Dick’s Petting Zoo, Country Dick’s Garage, and the Pleasure Barons.
(January 2015/2)
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Madeline Ridley of SS-20 has a short performance called “Monitoring Madeline for Two Decades and Other Scenes” on a double-LP compilation album of alternative rock, spoken word, and poetry called English as a Second Language (1983) that has an amazing 84 cuts. Others represented on the album include Charles Bukowski, Dave Alvin of the Blasters, John Doe and Exene Cervenka of X, Henry Rollins and Chuck Dukowski of Black Flag, Tito Larriva of the Plugz, Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles, Jeffrey Lee Pierce of the Gun Club, record producer Craig Leon, prominent DJ Rodney Bingenheimer, and Kim Fowley.
Her work is also on two other similar compilation albums, Voices of the Angels (Spoken Words) and Neighborhood Rhythms (Patter Traffic) that feature many of the same artists and were released in the same time period.
(December 2017)
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Over the past few years, I have found the first two albums by Country Dick Montana’s best known band, the Beat Farmers, Tales of the New West and Van Go; under his real name Dan McLain, he was the drummer for the Crawdaddys. The Beat Farmers are known as one of the best country-punk bands, and it is easy to see why. Then I noticed on Amazon.com an even better album by another Country Dick Montana band, the Pleasure Barons, called Live in Las Vegas.
The Pleasure Barons could be described I guess as a super-group, composed of Country Dick Montana, Dave Alvin of the Blasters, and psychobilly legend Mojo Nixon. Besides three Mojo Nixon classics – somewhat toned down from the original recordings and illustrating how well crafted Nixon’s music actually is – the other songs are mostly over-the-top covers of a wide variety of numbers, ranging from Mickey Gilley’s “Closing Time”, to R. B. Greaves’s “Take a Letter, Maria”, to Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love?”, to Joe South’s “Games People Play”, to Jerry Reed’s “Amos Moses”, and finally to “The Definitive Tom Jones Medley”: “It’s Not Unusual”, “Delilah” and “What’s New Pussycat?”. That album is more fun than any record that I have bought in a long, long time.
(Year 10 Review)
