VARIOUS ARTISTS
Kicksville! Vol. Two (Norton)
Reviewed by Shaun Dale

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This is rock music so rough your ears might pick up a splinter or two, but it's worth the risk. When the best known artist on a compilation is Hasil Adkins, you know you're talking rarities, but this one isn't rare, it's raw.

That's not to say there's not some outstanding musicianship contained herein - why Joe, Ron and George, for instance, never became rockabilly legends is a mystery to me, but it had nothing to do with the quality of their performances, as the three J,R&G tracks here clearly demonstrate. Mostly, though, you get the home grown musical anarchy that made rockabilly the original punk rock. These tracks are drawn from acetates that are generally too ragged to qualify even as demos, but even the roughest of these no-fi nuggets make up in attitude whatever might have been lacking on the part of the artists or the engineers they employed to document their mania.

If you've got a hankering for some music you've never heard by some people you've never heard of from a century you no longer live in, this is as good as it gets.

Track List:

The Crew/Red Chevrolet * Don Dell & The Montereys/Honey Doll * Eddie McCall & The Three Shades/You Rock Me Out Of This World * Morty Shann & The Morticians/Movin' In * Hasil Adkins/Can't Help It Blues * Joe, Ron & George/Come Back Baby * Joe, Ron & George /My Special Girl * Unknown Wombat/The Place * Unknown Wombat/Bongo Guitar * Jimmy Sysum & The Rockin' Three/Big Time Mama * Morty Shann & The Morticians/Red Headed Woman * The Crew/Why Did You Leave Me Baby? * Ferris Coffey/Teen Queen * Walter Brown & The Wildcats/ Cherry Lou * Jimmy Sysum & The Rockin' Three/Tears Of Happiness * Joe, Ron & George/Half Ton Mama * The Jokers/I Found My Baby * The Jaguars/Railroad Drag * The Dynatones/Fender Rock

© 2003 - Shaun Dale