Mikey Classic And His Lonesome Spur "Mikey Classic And His Lonesome Spur"

(Broken Neck Records 2016)

Feed The Fire

Climbing Up The Walls

Bow Down To No Man

ShameShameShame

Wicked Day

No More Games

Sun & Moon

The Oil Field's Burning

Heaven

Pass Me The Bottle

Y'All Motherfuckers Need Jesus

The End Of My Rope

As solo albums go this really is "solo" along the same lines as one-man band exponents like Bloodshot Bill and Hasil Adkins. Now reissued on heavy weight vinyl by Broken Neck Records, the album originally saw the light of day back in 2014 on Farmaggedon Records. Mikey Classic is a well known and highly respected artist across all facets of the sub-cultural music scene. Taking time out from his front-man duties with The Goddamn Gallows, Mikey sings and plays his heart out while exploring the more rootsy, stripped down elements of what can broadly be described as Americana. Featuring Mikey on vocals, guitar, banjo and kick-drum, it just goes to show what a talented artisan of all-things musically pure and raw he is. There's no over-production or polish to this album. It's heartfelt, honest music which ranges from folk to delta blues to bluegrass to Southern rock. For all the maniacal playing and singing, the lyrics show Mikey is a deep thinker and modern-day poet for the ordinary working class man (or woman...I'm not sexist...sexy yes, not sexist). There's a nice balance between the songs with loads of anger and those slower ditties with loads of raw emotion. What I really like about Mikey Classic's vocals are his tendency to go into a falsetto yodel every now and again and there's plenty of that to be heard here. This is the kind of record that makes me want to go for a few pints with Mikey and have a ballad session ensue where by the end of the night, after having a right knees-up we're all crying in to our Guinness. The album is available on limited green, limited red and good auld black vinyl for us colour blind gobshites.

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Doghouse Rose "Bourbon & Gasoline"

(Broken Neck Records 2016)

Intro

Lurking In The Dark

Dead Or Alive

Another Day Goes By

I'm Gonna Drink

The Working Song

Waiting For You

You Should Know

Wild West

Warning

The Carnival Show

40 Days

Rebel country, cowpunk, rockabilly, hints of psychobilly, it's all going on on this the second album from Canada's Doghouse Rose. More than likely you'd find it in the country section of your record shop but that would be an unfair, or perhaps untrue classification. You can tell there's a melting pot of influences and not just from the usual mix of genres associated with our underground scenes. They also branch out into pop, rock and alternative territory making the whole thing refreshing and different. I love bands that push the boundaries. Rule books are for arse-wiping purposes if you ask me. On this album we have 12 songs written on 12 sheets of rule book shit tickets with which the rule makers can cleanse their anuses and......I think I'll just shut up now. You get the idea with that. So, Doghouse Rose have the enviable ability of being able to slot in on the bill at a country, rockabilly, psychobilly or punk show and go down a storm. Of course there would be a strong male contingent up front ogling the ravishing Sarah Beth....I mean...listening to her velvet vocals. Yes, that's it. Seriously though, that girl has a fine voice. I especially like it on slower parts when accompanied by mournful fiddle and lap steel. Vocals are shared between our Sarah Beth and bassist Jefferson "MegaJeff" Sheppard. His vocal stylings remind me a lot of Waylon Jennings. As a matter of fact, this album reminds me a lot of the Jennings, Cash, Nelson, Kristofferson Highwaymen ensemble and their whole outlaw country thing, only to my ears Doghouse Rose are streets ahead of anything The Highwaymen did. But then I'm no county purist and am listening to this with ears that grew up on rockabilly, psychobilly and punk. Doghouse Rose are my new favourite rebel country cowpunk rockabilly psychobilly pop rock alternative band. There. I've said it. Eventually.

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Urban Pioneers "Feast Or Famine"

(Broken Neck Records 2016)

Maybelle's Farewell

Sunrise After Sunset

He Didn't Know My Name Back Then

High On A Mountain

Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss

Goliath Coming Down

Lazy Bones

John Brown's Dream

Never Had A Waffle At The Waffle House

Mary The Elephant

Do You Dream In Color

No Blood In The Stone

Wouldn't Garth Brooks be spinning in his grave if he heard this platter from the Urban Pioneers? Well, he would be if he was dead. Or maybe it'd be better had he never been born at all and then a lot of that "new country" bollocks would never have seen the light of day. But who cares about that when there are grass-roots combos like the Urban Pioneers sticking six collective v-sign fingers up at em. Unlike a lot of bands from the Broken Neck stable, the Urban Pioneers were not new to me. I have their Addicted To The Road and Vehicle In Transit albums so was filled with glee when I got this, the latest sonic output from the trio of talented troubadours. I like to classify my music collection and in the genre field for Urban Pioneers I have Bluegrass/Hillbilly/Americana/Rockabilly/Folk. That pretty much tallies the musical concoction they brew up...well, there's a bit of gypsy stuff going on too  but we don't want to get too bogged down in genres and just let the music speak for itself. Back in the early 90s there seemed to be a mini explosion of bands over this side of the pond and beyond trying to emulate all that was best about American roots music and to some extent Irish folk music. Bands like The Cropdusters, Ivor And The Engines, Tokyo Skunx etc. Now those bands were all great in their own right but you just can't top the real thing. That is to say, a band that are actually American, playing all manner of American roots music..with actual American accents! It's a bit like when I hear some American bands trying to do the Irish Folk Punk thing. No one can pull off an Irish accent and make it sound authentic unless you're actually Irish. I pull off a great Irish accent...because I'm Irish. But anyway, fuck me I go off on tangents sometimes, back to the music. It's not easy to sit down and listen to/review this album. It has that infectious quality of making you want to prise your arse out of the chair, slip in to some dungarees (or bottomless chaps) and dance a jig around the room. It is, for the most part, foot-stomping, good-time music. When I think of what most people (those brainwashed by the mass media) think is good music, and compare it what I know is good music (Urban Pioneers), I despair for the world and those brainwashed gobshites. I really do.

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