To stay out of the wilderness, you gotta keep one foot in The Tradition. America makes it tough: the conventional wisdom is, "You're new or you're nuthin'!" I'm not even gonna get into how hard it is to find new music motivated by anything other than the drive for obscene wealth--not yet, anyway--but, here, we are gonna explore the precious artifacts of the past, to keep 'em in our ears and hearts. Lotsa this stuff is way out of print, but if you haunt half.com (www.half.com) long enough you'll find it--and cheap at that! (See also Holy Mix Tape and our Review Archive.)

They say John Lennon had his Dakota jukebox stocked with Alexander 45s at the end, and when his hurting country-soul vocals grab ahold of you on classics such as "You Better Move On" (covered by the early Stones), "Anna," "Soldier of Love," and "Shot of R&B" (all three of which wound up on Beatles records), you'll understand why. The man gets short shrift when the names of soul giants are bandied about, probably because his approach often defies categorization--"Shot of R&B" and "Pretty Girls Everywhere" are rock and roll, "Detroit City"'s straight country, and "Everyday I Have to Cry" and "Where Have You Been (All My Life")? are pop Gene Pitney woulda sung--but the catch of choked-back sorrow in his voice was one of a kind. Ace/Charley and Warner/Reprise offer competing comps, but this is the gem.

Along with the Nomads’ Outburst, Axeman’s jarred me loose from my comfort zone and left me floating free in its world of weirdness. The best Cramps record the Cramps never made, it posited a world of graveyards and drive-in twins, of matricide and morte de Robbins (Marty, that is), of defiant drop-outs and sanctified truckers, against the banks ‘n’ bibles wasteland I was living in, and still makes me wonder if I oughtta move to Australia. The two ace covers that highlight the record sent me on a “Holy Grail” quest for the originals that ended only recently, leaving me in weirder worlds. Kittell’s slot-mouthed rendition of Leon “Lost Highway” Payne’s nutball “Psycho” (“…we were sittin’ on a bench, mama/Thinking of a game to play/Seems like I was holdin’ a wrench, mama/And my mind just walked away”) may be quieter than the Beasts’ slide-drenched version, but for deadpan horror it’s a musical match for Michael Rooker’s performance in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, and…I don’t hear any irony. Its closing guitar notes are pure poison. On the other hand, the Beasts transmute “Good Times,” an Aussie protopunk nugget, from a hilarious goof on punk poverty with all the bite of Bob Hope into a bitter, desperate, but proud cry from the gutter. Cut live, it opens with fuzz from Plato’s garage--an uglier, cheaper riff I’ve never heard--moves on through muffed lyrics (replaced by a yammer that just heightens the desolate hunger in Tex Perkins’ vocals), and climaxes with a classic add-on (“I got one good suit/That’s wearin’ mighty, mighty thin/For entertainment, we go out/And fuck behind the twin/Good times…” Some enterprising archaeologist needs to make all three of these more easily available: The Axeman’s Jazz and the Kittell 45 are out of print, as is Get Primitive, the Pebbles best-of where the original “Good Times” is best heard.

All three of the Blasters' ace studio albums on Slash/Warner have gone to the Big Cut-Out Bin in the Sky, as has the half-assed comp the big label issued to replace them. Ain't no justice, baby. They were only the best roots rock and roll unit of the '80s, boasting a front man who could sing out the top of his head, a rhythm section that could rattle the walls, a pianist who could actually roll, a sax man named "Walking with Mr." Lee Allen, and a shit-sharp guitarist who could write songs that'd knock your hat in the creek. They spoke the demon tongue of Big Joe Turner and Jerry Lee Lewis like they were to the jukejoint born. In 1997, fortunately, Hightone's Bruce Bromberg saw to it that this, the group's pre-Slash release (originally issued on Ronny Weiser's Rollin' Rock label in 1980), was returned to circulation, and--whaddya know?--it's still with us. The band isn't quite honed to its razor-edged rockabilly peak yet, but it was already in a class with the Stones, CCR, and Skynryd when it came to the title concern. If you already own the Slash releases, you'll have to hear "I Don't Want To," "Flattop Joint," and the original "Barn Burning," which hang with Dave Alvin's other classic originals, as well as hip covers of Bill Haley's "Real Rock Drive" and Magic Sam's "21 Days in Jail." If you don't have the Slashes, you don't have a choice: if you claim you dig American music without a Blasters record in the house, you're out there where the buses don't run. Here's hoping whatever the hell Warner is now gets a goddam clue soon. Inspirational Verse: "It can be sweet and lovely/It can be hard and mean/One thing that's for sure/It's always on the beam/That's American music/Right from the U.S.A."

Arlester Christian was the poor man's James Brown (James Brown Mach I, that is--pre-"Cold Sweat"). His screams and hollers didn't endanger the fine china; the Blazers didn't constantly threaten to lock into the Holy Rhythm and bring back Jesus. But, together, they could make the local folks boogaloo 'til they soaked their shirts. From the stutter-steppin' masterpiece "So Sharp" (Listen to the great James Gadson on the cans! Here and elsewhere!) to the original "Funky Broadway" to a chunka-chunkin' "You Are My Sunshine" to "Shotgun Slim" to the eloquently titled "Uhhh," this comp is full of down home, greasy party music. And if the music sounds like it's just itchin' to break into a jam, it was; the Blazers would metamorphose into the fabulous Watts 103rd Street Band, then power Bill Withers before he Flacked out (check out Bill Withers at Carnegie Hall for the hardest, folkest funk that ever hit that museum).

Seven years before his death, backed by his son Bubba and Jerry Lee’s Sun band, Feathers made maybe the best record of his life in 1991, even though few of the Feathers aficionados I know own it (you guessed it: it—and most of its companions in the series--is outta print, but scroungable for a pittance at half.com). It never gets quite as wild as “One Hand Loose” or as weird as “I Can’t Hardly Stand It,” but it never falls as flat as most of the man’s straight country stuff does. He just hiccups and wheezes and squeaks and booms along, with Roland Janes juicing the proceedings with some sharp chicken-picking every time they drowse toward sleepytime. The set list includes definitive remakes of Feathers classics (“A Man in Love,” “Uh Huh Honey,” and “Defrost Your Heart”), visits to the George Jones, Hank Williams, Jerry Lee, and Elvis songbooks, and even some cool traditional (“Cootzie Coo”) and pop (“Fraulein”!!!)

Answer to the question, "Whatever happened to Wreckless Eric?" Most rawkers who've laid ears to his "(I'd Go) The Whole Wide World" (which opens with "When I was a young boy/My mama said to me/There's only one girl in the world for you/And she probably lives in Tahiti..." and is intermittently punctuated with one of the all-time greatest yell-along choruses) would've thought he was eternal. But he was last seen ten years ago on Sympathy (I didn't say "heard," 'cause I sure didn't), and who knows how he was lured from his home in France to produce and co-write this witty little package of nuggets with an ex-Coolie in Austin and Atlanta. Harper is listed as singing lead, but it sure as hell sounds like the Wreckless One on the best cuts, and Tom Grey's performance on "clapped-out Vox organ" is punky pop stroke that has Eric's fingerprints all over it. Out of print, probably, though you might write Casino Music (881 Ponce de Leon Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30306) or e-mail the distributor (IchibanR@aol.com) if your interest is piqued.

Bob’s Cash-like baritone, an eye for tough-nut relationship conundrums, and one helluva six-string secret weapon in Tim Carroll (better known as an alt-country songwriter, but dissonantly digging in like Bob Quine gone to Nashville here) make this one of the great lost releases of 1997. His “Do You Think About Me?” bests the Waco Brothers’ cover, “Heaven’s Gate” serves Christers a knuckle sandwich, and “My Mother’s Husband” (a great existentialist tune) arm-wrestles his own conflicted feelings into reason. Don’t know what he’s up to now, but I sure wish he hadn’t gone away. Allison Moorer contributes ace background vocals. (See also Songs and Albums You Gotta Hear.)

This bloody chunk of garage glory from Sweden distracted me from the Holy Punk Triumvirate of the Minutemen, Husker Du, and the Replacements in ’84, which at the time was like separating white from rice. Savage covers of the Third Bardo (“Five Years Ahead of My Time’), the Standells (“Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White”), the Kinks (“I’m Not Like Everybody Else”), Alex Chilton (“Bangkok”), and whoever did “Don’t Tread on Me” surpass the explosiveness of the originals, and the band’s own “The Way You Touch My Hand” and “Where the Wolfbane Blooms” don’t embarrass the company. Plus “Rat Fink A-Boo-Boo,” one of the all-time great Thunders rips. I haven’t been out of the garage since, though I’ve yet to hear an American garagepunk record better than this. Still going strong, too: ‘94’s Powerstrip, on Sympathy, is what it says it is. This LP is out of print, so haunt the used palaces, but much of its contents are on Amigo’s 2-CD Showdown:1981-1993.

How this album sank without a trace after the initial (and atypical) hit "One of Us" (a sop to the slacker/grunge-leftover Alternarock crowd) while the smiling folks at Warners kept pulling hit after hit off Alanis Morisette's "Jagged Little Pill" is certainly beyond me. Part of it is probably Mercury's marketing faux pas...not a good idea to shoehorn a "hit" onto an album when the rest of the contents are so dissimilar they're bound to turn off the mass-ass audience. But Joan Osborne SHOULDA been the babe Bonnie Raitt for Alternative Nation. She had all the goods: the husky blues pipes; the looks (the ringlets of honey-blonde hair, the nose ring); the songs (the greatest of which, "Right Hand Man," is 1) a joyous celebration on the topic of "I just got fucked real nice and ain't it grand," 2) probably my favorite song of the last decade, 3) the most unselfconscious expression of female sexuality I've ever heard in song, 4) anchored by a riff from Captain Beefheart's "Clear Spot," for which Osborne righteously grants Don SONGWRITING CREDIT, and 5) shoulda been a chart-topping hit single - but it wasn't, of course); the band (buncha guys I never heard of with the exception of former Beefheart/Jeff Buckley guitar accomplice Gary Lucas, but they GROOVE). Kudos are undoubtedly due to Rick Chertoff, who produced.

The rest of the album's solid, too, from the ululating "Pensacola" and the junkie vignette "Dracula Moon" through the moody "Ladder," the rollicking "Spider Web," and a quirky minor-key cover of Sonny Boy Williamson's "Help Me," all the way up to the penultimate angst-filled suicide anthem "Crazy Baby" and the final benediction of "Lumina." ("Let's Just Get Naked" is, sorry, just silly, but I still appreciate the invitation, Joan.) Listen to me now and believe me later...you need to pick one of these up, and you can probably find a bunch at your local used CD outlet, the backlash against Joan having long since taken place