Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

It's been some time since I posted a "Track This," so I figured that discussing one of my favorite rockabilly songs by an underappreciated great, Gene Vincent, who does not get as much coverage as he should, would be an excellent return to form. Most of his career, he attempted to recapture his former rock and roll glory, and never completely turned country like his contemporaries Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. Elsewhere on this blog, I discuss his self-titled Kama Sutra album, which should also receive more accolades. In a perfect world, Gene Vincent's "Race With The Devil" would have been a bigger hit, but it never managed to capture the public attention like his first hit, "Be-Bop-A-Lula." I first heard The Stray Cats cover "Race With The Devil" on their underrated fourth studio album, 1986's Rock Therapy , and needed to track the original down as soon as I could. The countrified rhythms and frantic pace of the song leave the li...

While digging through my record collection, I found this gem, "Men Without Shame" b/w "Time is on Our Hands" -- a rock and roll record featuring Jim Phantom and Lee Rocker of the Stray Cats. Dig those threads. This 45 is the first single from their self-titled first album recorded on hiatus from their more famous band. With the addition of co-founding guitarist, Earl Slick, the band created hard rocking music that exchanged the rockabilly of their former project for an 80s rock approach that includes everything from ballads to mainstream rockers. While Brian Setzer was refashioning himself as a heartland rock-inspired solo artist, Phantom and Slick opted for rocking out. "Men Without Shame" is a 6 1/2 minute song that never outwears its welcome with Slick's impressive guitar chops front and center. The solo alone separates the song from the group's former projects. Slick's session work holds him in good stead as drummer Phantom and ba...

Jeffrey Lee Pierce was a blues man at heart, gifted with all the talent and power of a young Howlin' Wolf. His music borrowed heavily from the delta blues and other American roots music, but he took inspiration from these forms and created something new. Once president of the Blondie fan club, Pierce was a student of many musical disciplines, from reggae to progressive rock, but his commitment to the blues helped Gun Club, the band he formed in the late 1970's and continued with until his untimely death in 1996 at the age of 37, with varying lineups, become a powerhouse that ultimately released a few seminal records. Early Gun Club was a primal rush, often resembling Nick Cave's more manic output or slower Cramps sides, but its influences ran deeper than either. Pierce was a student of the blues form that followed his own muse and created records that are still far different than most of what is out there. Fire of Love draws primarily from blues with a heaping dose of ...

From the very first notes of the Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio's scorcher "You're Undecided," all bets are off. The trio makes rockabilly of the highest order -- raw, primitive, and serious. Burnette's deep voice aches with sincerity as the trio lays down a rudimentary groove. The guitar lines are juxtaposed with yelps that would fit nicely on a Hasil Adkins record or an early raspy Link Wray track. All their sides from this era are not just essential, they are mandatory. A far cry from Burnette's later pop singles, the energy that permeates each track by the trio is long due for reconsideration. Elvis Presley knew these boys and even played with them in the early days, but he never recorded anything so pure. Johnny, his brother Dorsey, and Paul Burlison made music thatwas, perhaps, too raw for Sun records, but each single got to the heart of the matter, and sound fresh even today. They made young, shocking, rock 'n' roll of pure, unad...

Many of Gene Vincent's early rock and roll peers turned to country in the 1970's. Jerry Lee Lewis had number one country hits as he mined the deep vein of country singer-songwriters, and rerecorded old hits in different styles. Johnny and Dorsey Burnette, who recorded some of the wildest rockabilly sides for Coral in the fifties as The Johnny Burnette Trio, became pop singers. Others like Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly, who each had already recorded pop and country songs before they died tragic deaths, would have probably also gone in a much more country direction. Gene Vincent's Self-Titled record, which was later reissued as If Only You Could See Me Today, has a slight country sensibility, but manages to effectively capture the zeitgeist of the time period, while showing Vincent in a much more adventurous light. Recorded in 1970, shortly before Vincent's 1971 death, at the Sound Factory in Hollywood with members of the Sir Douglas Quintet, the record is surprisin...

  My friend Brent recently directed me to Oxford American's excellent profile of Dexter Romweber. The author Aaron Gilbreath writes a very effective and cogent history of Romweber's musical career, most significantly his time with the rootsy lo-fi Flat Duo Jets, who are long overdue for critical reevaluation. Gilbreath intersperses his essay with live footage from YouTube, including some crazy early footage of Dex as rockabilly wild man in the Screaming Lord Sutch mold giving a tour of the mausoleum that the band practiced in. He also includes other early footage with just Dex and Crow, as well as a fairly sedate performance from David Letterman with a full band. Yet fairly sedate for the Flat Duo Jets is an understatement -- even at their most subdued, they are a rocking machine, capturing the magic and sound of early Sun studio sides, while maintaining their own signature sound. Dex is yowling into the microphone and playing guitar like a madman. Crow is flailing on drums, ...