We are most definitely in a time of slim pickings in rock and roll--a fact, unfortunately, to which this site's recent attention to not-exactly-rock-and-roll attests--and, combined with Our Rockin' Congregation's oft-demonstrated predilection for Next Big Things, that's a by-God dangerous situation. We want something to kick our asses so bad we'll settle for a mere approximation of the Real Thing. Why else would, say, aping the MC5 or Patti Smith, or, more specifically, trying to pass aura (read raw-sounding) as a substitute for pure, sincere expression (read awopbopaloobopawopbamBOOM!) be sung as cutting-edge when it oughtta be laffed outta town?

A lot of us. I myself have been unmoved: besides the profusion of gimmicks (unchanging peppermint-schemed stage gear, siblings-or-lovers relationship, drums-and-guit-only format), Jack White's singing reminded me alternately of puking infants and a teen-tonsilled Robert Plant writhing in the throes of groupie-tendered fellatio. No soul. Which, when applied to songs by Son House or Robert Johnson or Blind Willie McTell, equalled another major annoyance; just when echoes of Jon Spencer's snide minstrel irony had seemingly been vanquished from earshot--'bout fucking time!--they're back with a vengeance. Yep, the boy wrote his own stuff, too, but it was yechhy cute. Yep, the boy's guitar was "explosive" and "raw"--his'n about 100 others in the National Garage (personally, I'll take the Hard Feelings' John Schooley's, the Neckbones' Tyler Keith's, Tim Carroll's, or any of the Oblivians' any day). No, he didn't let his gal/sis sing--why the hell not? So, my response was, "What's the big deal?"

The new White Stripes release on Sympathy, White Blood Cells, has purt-near every rock and roll rag in spasmodic rave mode, ensuring that major labels are gonna be doing back flips to sign the Newly Anointed Ones (already, the band's reportedly turned down fairly long green for a mere $20,000 from SFTRI--to their immense credit, if true, but what real rock and roller doesn't wanna get their shit across to the real masses, deep in their hearts...now really?). Even Grandpa Greil Marcus has weighed in with a plug in the pages of (va-va-voom!) Salon. As for the Reverend Coomers, he never gives up on anybody: anybody can see the light at any time, that's the nature of the beast, as much as it's forgotten by our schools, churches, families, and governments. Some folks never glimpse it, it's true, but that's no reason to give up hope for the whole lot of us. To the point: Is spasmodic rave mode the justifiable response?

Well, no. Though the sound's just as blunt as ever, with only a little pianner and acoustic folkstrum to teasingly signify the never-to-be-trusted "musical growth," the material's slouching toward heart-on-yer-sleeve pop reverie at its edges. Nothing wrong with that, per se, but a good chunk of such songs are of the teeny-bopper variety, and since the Jackster's in his twenties, it may not be his heart he's sporting on his red vestments. Reminds me of Big Star's #1 Record, where Alex Chilton, whose experiences even at that time surely had moved beyond holding hands at the malt shop, composed lyrics about walking his baby home from school. Cheese--scratch that, processed cheese food. Still a little too precious.

However, one can bite into just as juicy a chunk of winners here, such as the crunching, tortured lead cut, "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground," and "I'm Finding It Harder to Be a Gentleman," where White builds a bridge to that legendary mourner of manners, Ray Davies, whose quirky warble White's singing conjures at its best. "Fell in Love with a Girl," despite the generic title, would mop the floor with any guitar-driven love song being played on any frequency anywhere in America. A few quasi-political statements of stance also make the cut ("Union Forever" and "Offend in Every Way," which doesn't, unfortunately), and these, along with the above-mentioned and the rollicking "Hotel Yorba," show that the boy's got plenty of potential that's yet to be exploited. He's even gaining firmer control of his vocals. His writing and singing aren't unique and deft enough enough of the time to consistently avoid The Matthew Sweet Syndrome (blazing guitars disguise soft-headed words), but if he can lighten up on the schmaltz, he will be a force. At least he's moving away from blues covers--a very good sign.

My eardrums are swollen. Not necessarily because of the White Stripes (there were two opening bands, both loud and obnoxious), but they certainly contributed their fair share. The Whites displayed some admirable traits before their set, and I (although sorely in need of an aspirin) am suitably impressed that the hype hasn't turned them into ROCK-STARS quite yet. For one thing, their merchandise was cheap, something that is very nice for those of us who don't want to spend all twenty of our dollars on a t-shirt. Also, Meg (she signed my notes, even though I was shouting at her) and Jack were seen pacing in and out of the dance floor, mingling with the assembled Future of America with surprising ease. Of course, no one ever said Detroit didn't raise 'em all populist-like. When the Green Hornes (who abused waaaay too many old Blue Oyster Cult licks) left the stage, several abortive attempts at a "White Stripes" chant were fielded. None of them took, but probably because the audience was still reeling from Cincinnatti GUITARS!mania.

What impressed me about their live show was the sheer energy. I suppose that can be translated into some kind of "showmanship" analogy, but energy is really the only way I can describe it, and it was infectious as hell. Jack White rammed the loud-fast-desperate blues down his audiences throat, and they damn well ate it up on credit alone! I mean, punks and emos (who were there JUST for something that was loud and fast) were seen dancing something besides the pogo! Christ be praised! Maybe it was the guitar-slinging, frentic and honest. Maybe it was the beat, rock-steady and awe-inspiring (Meg White's stage presence is as laconic as it is absolutely spellbinding). Maybe it was the lyrics (my personal favorite), but that wasn't likely. Jack White's voice would often go up into the "only dogs can hear" registers, making his words inaudible. Not to say that he's a bad singer. Unlike so many of his punky contemporaries that have voices only psychotics could love, White sings the hell out of his, evoking at his best moments an absolutly hilarious (yet aesthetically satisfying) Ray Davies and at his worst a (much-better-than) Robert Plant.

I was sitting around the house, chatting with Peta online, trying to decide whether or not to go catch Mike Watt in Dallas (wound up not...too beat, waiting for my daughter to come home, no beer money), and wound up listening to a coupla promos I got in the mail (watch for those tell-tale signs of anthrax, oddly shaped parcels, grease stains, too many pieces of tape on the package). The first one was a typical Tim Kerr production - all live-sounding blare, with "free jazz" saxophonage. Feh. I took it off in the middle of the becoming-obligatory Stones "Exile on Main St." soundalike, and put this on.

"The Razzels," I said. "A three-piece punk band from upstate New York...Buffalo, to be exact." (When I was six years old and going to school in Urbana, Illinois, for a year, I was asked what part of New York I was from. "Are you from the city?" my teacher asked. "Uh, no," I replied. "Then where?" I figured it'd be too hard to explain to them the particulars of my nowhere little town on Long Island, so I took a gander at the Empire State in the U.S. map on the wall and said, "Buffalo.")

Chances are you’ve heard by now that Rhino’s sequel to their titanic and ultra-essential Nuggets garagebox gathers rawky little Sixtiesongs from outside our borders, 109 of ‘em in all. Gary Stewart, Rhino’s helmsmen, didn’t want to do the obvious and sweep our oilstained floors for more (and probably less, though their two doo wop boxes don’t dip) inspired American amateurism; he wanted to illustrate a smashing, bashing global village at work. He couldn’t have picked a better time for this brainstorm, what with Japan, Sweden, and Australia currently waxing the hardest rawk in the world. So: should we have foreseen being pinned to the musical mat by fabulous foreigners, based on this box’s contents?

Not exactly. If I had to hie it to a deserted isle with one or the other, I’d have the first one in my rucksack. For one, it doesn’t fade on Disc 4. For another, its guitars and lyrics and (especially) singing bite down deeper. In addition, the little time-bomb surprises (I’m thinking specifically of the Golliwogs, the Monks, and the Nightcrawlers) are more plentifully spread, and the poppy stuff swerves to doucheville much less often. That being said, though, I’m not going to a deserted isle and neither are you (yet, and even though it sure feels like it at times), so save your samoleans or find someone to burn a copy from, ‘cause Nuggets II is extremely cool. The sheer volume of loud stuff you probably haven’t heard is enough justification for purchase, the inevitable 100-page book, written by experts like Mike Stax and Greg Shaw, will keep you busy, entertained, and enlightened for hours, and the sonic punch of the drums (Moon’s legacy?) and rhythm gits prove more than a match for their U.S. counterparts. Let’s tour the box, shall we?

Disc One leads off with the box’s secret weapon, the Creation, who were to the Who as the Count 5 were to the Yardbirds. Their “Making Time” and “Biff! Bang! Pow!” are two of my faves in the collection. One of the spiffy things about Box 1 was the appearance of future stars like Zevon and Fogerty, and Box 2 continues the tradition, only with a difference: here, future nimrods show they were once cool. The root-ends of none other than ELO, the Move and the Idle Race, cut some hard psychedelia in “I Can Hear the Grass Grow” and “Imposters of Life’s Magazine,” and even soon-to-be Yes guitar pussyoso Steve Howe contributes some actual mean stuff to Tomorrow’s “White Bicycle.” Oz’s Easybeats, whose “Friday on Your Mind” you probably know (it’s here if you don’t own it) and whose lil’ brothers in AC/DC you better love, contribute the fast-riffing “Sorry.” Les Fleur De Lys expertly approximate our own special three-chord petulance in “Mud In Your Eye.” The Pretty Things, for whom you have to go through fucking hoops just to hear their great shit otherwise, land three tracks on the box, the best of which appears here, “Midnight to Six.” It’s nice to know that Spain’s Los Bravos weren’t just one-cut wonders when they hit with “Black is Black” (which oughtta be here instead of, at the very least, Disc Four’s wretched “Dance Around the Maypole”) in ‘66; their “Going Nowhere” rocked even harder. And I better not forget the already-famous “125,” by the Haunted, which I bet they thought about for the first box but ruled out because it was made by Canucks. I’m not gonna do a track-by-track tick-off, but the opening disc is great fun. Give ‘er a 10!

Disc Two smacks you upside the head with The Misunderstood’s (not Billy Thorpe’s) “Children of the Sun,” fired by Glen Ross Campbell’s wild-ass guitar and Rick Moe’s go-for-broke skin-bashing (I’ll say it again: the goddam drumming that powers this set--maybe it’s just the production--is enough to make you go buy a kit and light into it), and Wimple Witch’s witchy “Save My Soul.” It’s nice to see the underrated John’s Children make the cut with “Desdemona” (she “pick[s] up her skirt and fl[ies]”)--though their pilled-up “Smashed, Blocked” is conspicuously missing (you’ll have to buy Orgasm or Richie Unterberger’s Unknown Legends of Rock and Roll for that mad masterpiece). Repeat appearances by the Pretty Things, The Move, and The Easybeats (“Friday On My Mind,” the ultimate working-stiff carrot-on-the-end-of-the- stick anthem) cut deep, and while you may question whether Van Morrison (representing Northern Ireland with the explosive “I Can Only Give You Everything”) and the Troggs are (odd to say this) obscure enough to be here, they fit right in; in fact, that the former doesn’t blow everything else on the disc all the way to Pluto says a helluva lot for the standards of the comp. Also of note: The Craig’s ugly “I Must Be Mad” needs to be covered pronto by somebody on Estrus or Crypt; Caleb’s nutty “Your Phrasing is Bad”’s phased guitar is all the way good; lil’ David Bowie does a limp Roger Daltrey impression (and reveals that that opportunistic eye was there from the gitgo) as Davy Jones on the otherwise-rocking “You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving”; limey douche-pop begins to creep into the proceedings with Rupert’s People’s “Reflections of Charles Brown” and The Mascots’ “Words Enough to Tell You.” Still, there’s enough to keep you bouncing around the house. A 9 for leaving a little splash upon entry, upgraded a half-point for ending tuff, with The Boots’ riff-notic “Gaby” and The Creation’s aforementioned “Biff! Bang! Pow!”

Just when your average big-box-behemoth starts to lose its erection, Nuggets II kicks into overdrive and careens toward a climax. Disc Three is really what your undeviating three-chord Stateside primitive is waiting for: it bristles with pugnacious riffs, anarchic production, and angry singing, with only a few sidetracks into unadulterated pop and psychedelia. Picks to click: Cuby and the Blizzards’ straight- shooting “Your Body and Not Your Soul” (from the Netherlands), Les Fleur De Lys’ dynamite cover of the Who’s “Circles,” The Matadors’ “Get Down from the Tree” (mad Czechs discover rock and roll!), Q’65’s raging-bull-in-a-china closet “Cry in the Night,” The Bluestars’ pure-punk “Social End Product” (Standells go to New Zealand), The Syndicats’ “Crawdaddy Simone” (a flat-out raving studio wig-out produced by none other than Joe Meek; Shel Talmy, George Martin, Giorgio Gomelsky, even Robert Stigwood twiddle the knobs on other selections here), The Missing Links’ “You’re Driving Me Insane (from Australia), and the provocatively titled “Who Dat?” from Canada’s “The Jury.” That run, the strongest on the whole set, is compressed into the opening half-hour. The middle of the disc ain’t so shabby, either. Everybody loves (but few own) Status Quo’s phase-crazy “Pictures of Matchstick Men.” The Guess Who were rockers before “These Eyes,” as “It’s My Pride” demonstrates. Several tracks, most notably The Elois’ “By My Side,” indulge in not necessarily painfully prolonged psychojams threaded with feedback (which is why they’re not necessarily painful). Then...it comes again, with four brief, mean little rawk tantrums in the last six tracks: the accurately-named “The Train to Disaster” (exactly what the song sounds like--and that’s a compliment), by The Voice, The Slaves’ “Slaves Time” (from Austria--did these guys see The Monks perform?), The Red Squares’ “You Can Be My Baby,” and the Downliners Sect’s “Glendora.” Another 10 for Disc Three (I played it twice in a row myself!).

As I listen again to the final disc of Nuggets II, it occurs to me that I might have been too tough on it earlier in this review. It has its share of delights, many of them transcendentally zany (such as Japan’s The Mops, whose fuzzed-up “I’m Just a Mops” warns that “I don’t care of them/’Cuz I’m just a Mops”--shades of Thee Michelle Gun Elepant!--Uruguay’s Los Shakers, rocking their instruments furiously but barely clinging to English, and Brazil’s Os Mutantes, who...well...let’s just say you ain’t ever heard garage played like this). It opens aggressively (these guys know how to program openers!) with early Pretty Things (the best Pretty Things, to my mind) and one of Australia’s most popular early garage bands, The Atlantics, moves on to The Creation’s crunching, ominous “How Does It Feel to Feel,” The Mops, more Downliners Sect (coulda thrown us a few more of theirs, guys), Canada’s Ugly Ducklings, and Los Shakers, before that tributary of twee begins to trickle in. Twelve experts put this collection together, but damned if I can understand how dreck like “The Bitter Thoughts of Little Jane” and the indescribably horrid (I’ve mentioned it twice, so now you’ll want to hear it--caveat emptor, motherfuckers!) “Dance Around the Maypole” made the team while a few more a piece by The Downliners Sect, The Pretty Things, Los Bravos, The Creation, or John’s Children--or more obscure-but-rawkin’ stuff--were sent packing. But, hell, it’s a box set--you’re gonna bitch unless it’s Star Time you’re listening to. Anyhow, as you step lightly around the occasional cowpatties that bespatter the last third of Disc 4, don’t miss The Smokes’ rowdy, mopy, fantastically fuzzed “No More Now,” The Chants R&B’s cover of John Mayall’s “I’m Your Witchdoctor” (New Zealand makes few foolish moves on this set!), The Zipps’ concert-in-a-cave “Kicks and Chicks,” and a couple of blasts from Germany, The Boots’ “But You’ll Never Do It, Babe” and The Rattles’ “It’s My Fault.” See--it really doesn’t sound that bad after all, does it? An 8.5 is pretty snazzy for the last of four discs.

There you have it. Nuggets II is a good deal for the price (it lists for about $59 at CDNow), though, if you know someone who’s got it, you’re lucky enough to be able to burn, and you can’t take the sillier strains of psychedelia, you could compress it to three discs that’ll never stop rattling your backbone (can’t you always?). The revelations for me were (again) the sheer volume of great stuff I’d never heard/heard of, the high aesthetic quality of the Who’s influence abroad, the knack of British producers for punching up a song’s rhythm, and--a related revelation, methinks--the itching suspicion (had it before with the Who) that power pop starts here. Like its predecessor, Nuggets II is chock full of great riffs, pissed vocals, surprise appearances, and nutty fun. Hey--ask for it for Capitalistmas, punko.

A stunning surprise, this...a throwback to an era (ca. '68-'70 - oops, I'm dating myself now) of interesting, THOUGHT-PROVOKING rawk rekkids like the White Album, "Beggar's Banquet," Traffic's "Mr. Fantasy," or, uh, maybe the Pretty Things' "Parachute." From a Canadian band that I thought (based exclusively on some vid of 'em I'd seen) had pretty good garage-punk energy and not much else. This rec shows them as more of a ROCK'N'ROLL band...they actually vary their dynamics and develop their material. Look how wrong ya can be!

There's a lot to like here - the songwriting is interesting and varied, ranging from mellow acoustic interludes (with strings!) to jazzy bits to jam-worthy riff-rock. Dickson uses a wide palette of diverse gtr textures, from pristine clean tones and countryish chicken-pickin' to wah and slide, to color the sound...often in the space of a single song. The riddim boyzzz follow wherever he leads and make the music whisper and scream. The voxxx (by Dickson and bassman Eric Larock) are as passionate and blues-drenched as Zen Guerrilla's.

There's no greater living tragedy in American music than the obscurity of Gary Stewart's work. "Who?" you ask. Only the wildest and most intense honky-tonk singer of the last quarter century. Only the penultimate poet of bottom-of-the-glass, last-cigarette sinful wages. Only a performer so powerful neither country choirs nor Jordanaires could drown his laser vibrato. Excuse the hyperbole, but, dammit, anybody that knows me knows I swear by George Jones, whose genius is hard to exaggerate, and Mr. Stewart's stuff--though he's suffered two long silences, one brought on by a combination of industry idiocy, consumer apathy, and coke 'n' whiskey, the other current and mysterious--cuts his (we're talking post-'75 Possum, of course, still no mean feat). He's had two NASTY best-ofs go outta print already, with a third probably on the way, but some sensate individual at Koch Records has seen fit to issue Gary's two best albums, 1975's Out of Hand and 1977's Your Place or Mine, together on one CD. Buy it now if you've got blood in your veins and a head full of brains.

"If he's so damn good," you're asking now, "why wasn't he famous?" Well, he was. He actually scored several hit singles on the country chart for RCA, including a #1 with "(I've Got This) Drinkin' Thing," the lead cut here, and a more desolate barroom lament can't be found. The song epitomizes his classic ballads, of which no fewer than six are included here: with quiet intensity, Stewart drags his heart kicking and screaming through Wayne "The Letter" Carson's verses ("If I wait up at home/She'll only ask me questions/She'd probably tell the truth/So I don't even ask/So I sit here on this barstool/Feelin' helpless/And wonder just how long/A man can last") before exploding into the chorus ("I've got this drinking thing/To keep from thinkin' things/'Bout where you been/Who ya been with/And what you done!"), his Jerry Lee-like wild country tenor razoring through layers of backup sugar (fortunately, Stewart's longtime producer Roy Dea, usually kept the ornamentation confined to the choruses). Later on downdisc, your socks will also be knocked off by "Drinkin' Thing"'s twin, "She's Actin' Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)," where Gary's delivery of the line "My heart is breaking/Like the tiny bubbles") vies with pre-'75 Possum. If there's any explanation as to why the man didn't conquer the world, it may be that the torn whiskey vibrato that graces these blood-lettings in song's clothing was a little much for the music-as-background crowd, and it's in prime form on this cut.

I wouldn't be writing about Stewart if he couldn't rock and roll. Though he's most often in weeper mode here, "Out of Hand" and "Your Place or Mine" deliver ten times the energy-jolt of your average country-rocker. The latter celebrates a naughty dabbling that liberates the old boy from a static marriage ("I never intended/For it to go this far/Now I don't think I can get off/From where we are/Some time to waste/So just a taste/Was all that I had planned..."); the former's sung as the protagonist knee-walks out of a bar, his equally drunken gal in a head lock. Sin's never far away from his mind, it's just that the fast ones, unsurprisingly, are about living it up, and the slow ones are about living it down. One wonders why the Killer himself didn't latch on to any of these songs, though he wouldn't have been able to match Stewart's careening desperation.

This release is one of the great 2-on-1's, along with X's Los Angeles/Wild Gift and Howlin' Wolf's Howlin' Wolf/Moanin' in the Moonlight. There's but one or two mild cuts, and you DON'T want to listen to it if you've had your heart stomped--you'll just do more damage. And as soon as you buy it, move on to the still-available Essential Gary Stewart, where you can sample the bleakest, bitterest divorce song in country music history, "Quits," as well as "Single Again" ("Now he's got you/And I've got two/Divorce lawyers on my back") and "Whiskey Trip." Better yet is the apparently out-of-print Gary's Greatest, which combines his best RCA music with the cream of his comeback on Hightone, including a long look into the abyss titled "An Empty Glass." It also doesn't cheat on Stewart rockers like "Little Junior" ("You mothers and fathers better be on guard/And keep your little girl in the yard...") and obscurities like "She's Got a Drinking Problem" ("...and it's me"). And for you garage sale/E-Bay junkies, stay alert for You're Not the Woman You Used to Be, a Kapp LP Gary disassociated himself from but which includes wonderful performances of truly nutball rockabilly songs--many written by Stewart--including "Sweet Tater and Cisco," which features a gang bang, "The Snuff Queen" (the traditional country name for groupies), "Big Bertha, the Truck Driving Queen," and "Caffeine, Nicotine, Benzedrine" ("...and wish me luck!").

I might as well confess. I fucking hate live music. Besides the fact that any band with heart and soul avoids the local landscape like the plague, besides the fact that, when somebody great actually does show up, half the audience is there to be seen in their post-slacker duds and yell at each other at the bar (at one of the few shows I've attended in recent years, Steve Earle yelled at just such a coolclot, "Yeah, I remember my first beer"--blissfully ignorant of a show going on, they kept yelling at each other), besides the fact that I am an asshole magnet extraordinaire...I'd just as soon get some real rawkers together for cards and beer inside The Church itself and crank up the vastly superior studio recording. I'm not even sure I'm gonna check out the White Stripes next month for $5.

But when my ace boon coon Deacon Pike offered Mrs. Coomers and I free tickets and a ride to a Friday the13th show in the mid-Missouri boonies, we didn't turn 'em down. Why? 'Cause they were free, motherfucker, and the honorable Deacon Pike and Mrs.Coomers are damned good company. Plus there's just so much of the inside of The First Church of Holy Rock and Roll that the good Reverend can stand looking at for too long. Plus the featured act was Del McCoury and his crack bluegrass band, playing in the middle of Missouri bluegrass country.

It's not that we didn't have our misgivings. Though every album McCoury's put out since the late '80s has been a killer diller, as is true with a lot of bluegrass artists they're SUPER PROS, thus perhaps given to doing ho-hum "Xerox" shows. Also, besides a few TV appearances we'd never seen 'em live: Would they play more than 45 minutes? Would they lean too heavily on Jesus Christ and instrumental band member showcases? Though an asshole magnet is much less likely to attract among good common folk (I'm not shitting you here), would the Steelville asshole magnets attract us? Finally, though we packed the new McCoury Family album as we loaded up the official Church van, we'd yet to hear it. After a string of miraculously excellent albums and some major outside exposure thanks to Steve Earle (who supposedly Del's washed his hands of 'cause he says "fuck" too much on stage, but who we believe has become such a big shot (again!!) that Del couldn't stand being around him), would the mundanely titled Del and the Boys be the inevitable eventual dog, and would we get treated to a double dose of it? The mental hell of uncloistering yourself...it's a wonder we ever do.

The show left us wondering whether we should really get out more. Surrounded by a bunch of humble, eager fans who often knew as much about the music as McCoury did, and acted damned committed to it as well, we experienced the aural equivalent to getting our ashes hauled. On record, McCoury's lost-dog-lonesome tenor is penetrating, as instantly recognizable and affecting as Willie, Hag, George or John; live, it's a thin, high, hot ray of concentrated hurt right between the eyes. The Reverend generally looks askance at anything modern religion touches, but when Del dug deep into Bill Monroe's "Get Down On Your Knees and Pray," I damn near did. Feh on the Christian concept of sin, but the way McCoury sang, I could feel in my bones the reality that, yep, we are capable of such horrible acts our mothers would disown us, and that redemption is something you just gotta beg for sometimes, from someone, somehow. On record, the band's expert and usually inspired; live, fired by son Ronnie's gangster mandolin, they vie with the Scruggs-Flatt edition of Monroe's Bluegrass Boys as the best mountain music unit I've ever put an ear to. The skeptical rawker might view these guys' speedy instrumental virtuosity as anathema, but PUH-leeeeeeze: you know you like it when the music's fast. Think Sonic's break on "American Ruse," Bob Mould's on "Punch Drunk," Alvin Lee's climax on "Goin' Home," Chuck's on "Too Much Monkey Business." Though Ronnie isn't about mess, he ain't about clean, either; he roughed up his solos just enough to give 'em that sandpaper texture we adore. When an audience member called out for another Monroe classic, "Rawhide," an instrumental Big Mon used to wield like a cat-o'-nine-tails, Del initially demurred: smart guy. But we pushed, and he set the band loose. Ronnie shook the tune like a dirty ol' rug, leaving it like you'd never heard it before. Rob McCoury's jack-of-all-styles banjo and Jason Carter's haunted fiddle made a lasting impression as well.

The two-hour set, over which Papa presided with genial good humor and a grinning pride in his boys, his band, and their music, shone with gems extracted mostly from their last three albums. Among the many highlights were "Henry Walker," a Mike O'Reilly tune about the triumph of native intelligence over modern law enforcement techniques which updates the Harry Smith anthology, and Ray Price's "I'll Be There" (both from 1996's masterful The Cold Hard Facts); the creepy, cautionary Invasion of the Body Snatchers-like "City of Stone," and one of their many off-the-wall covers, the Lovin' Spoonful's "Nashville Cats" (both from 1999's The Family; and a perfectly cherry-picked bunch from the solid new record: Richard Thompson's "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" (unlike your garden-variety bluegrass unit, the McCourys have a taste for rebellion), "Learnin' the Blues," (a cover of--you guessed it!--Frank Sinatra), and "Recovering Pharisee," an I'm-saved song that casts a cold eye on judging others (sounds radical, don't it?). Interesting, specific, varied songs put across with intense vocal and instrumental conviction, the kind that had us muttering to ourselves and shaking our heads. Not what we expected from "folk music," and a helluva lot more than we've been getting from "rawk music" lately.

After the show, the three of us couldn't believe what we'd seen. Deacon Pike, dazed, remarked, "I loved 'em before the show; I didn't expect to love 'em even more afterwards!" We bought four CDs plus other merch between us. I even asked for...an autograph! We motormouthed all the way home, played more of their music during the entirety of the two-hour drive back, and kept playing it after we got home. In fact, we went to sleep to it. I woke up and e-mailed all the church elders to make sure they NEVER missed a McCoury Family show.

If you don't know Billy Joe Shaver, you certainly know at least a few of his timeless honky tonk compositions: "Georgia On A Fast Train," "Honky Tonk Heroes," "(I'm Just an) Old Chunk of Coal," "Black Rose," "Restless Wind," "Ride Me Down Easy," "You Asked Me To," "Fit to Kill (And Goin' Out In Style)," and "It Was Fun While It Lasted" are just a few of 'em. Take a tour of them, then read up on the ups and downs of his life, and you'll witness one of the best examples of the old adage that you have to live a little to write something durable.

For the better part of his career, Shaver was best served when icons like Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Tom T. Hall, John Anderson, and Sir Doug covered his songs. His uncertain vocal delivery (better than Kris, worse than Waylon) and slightly folk-oriented musical leanings frequently worked against the grit and hard-earned wisdom of his words, as one can hear on the frustrating Razor and Tie comp Restless Wind: The Legendary Billy Joe Shaver 1973-1987 (still ever-so-gingerly recommended).

Then something just right happened to his music: his son Eddie. The boy's loud, raw, blues-suffused guitar cut deep, adding a shock of reality that fit his dad's songs like a pair of favorite socks. The best place to check the results out is the now-hard-to-find Unshaven: Live at Smith's Olde Bar (Zoo), where the two performed miraculous CPR on the cream of Billy Joe's back catalog and made one wonder, "What the hell have I been missing?" Unshaven and the band's other albums didn't sell diddly and barely got reviewed, but the word was out that The Earth Rolls On, completed in late 2000, might just fix that.

Unfortunately, Eddie Shaver shuffled off this mortal coil, ushered out by a shot of junk, on New Year's Eve 2000. It's a goddam shame, because The Earth Rolls On is the best earthy thing to hit the ear in 2001. Not only has Billy Joe put together his best set of new songs since Waylon's Honky Tonk Heroes in the mid-'70s, but Eddie's guitar (and singing, on the moving "Blood is Thicker Than Water") provides the marrow to make 'em live and stand unbreakable. Talk about heart-breaking.

The record leads off with the chunk-a-chunking, love-affirming "Love is So Sweet." No, the title doesn't bode well, but the cracks and crevices in Shaver's voice, rendered in glorious detail by Ray Kennedy's post-Earle production, and the homely, homespun lyrics ("Love/Is so sweet/It makes you bounce when you walk down the street") lift it to glory. It's followed by "Evergreen Fields," the tale of an old man whose "seasons are numbered by three." He's angling towards that everlasting sleep, but the song's a call to get out in the sunlight, however harsh it may be. Eddie delivers a crackling solo to light a fire under the codger's ass; you expect a return to the lyric, put the kid (OK, he was coming up on 39) says all that needs to be said with fingers and strings.

Next up is "Hard-Headed Heart" (they're not hard to come by, "just like a frog slides off a log"), the further adventures, musically and lyrically, of Shaver's famous "Honky Tonk Hero," who's viewed with a shade of apology by the composer. Again, Eddie leads his father through the song with snapping six-string lines, in a near role-reversal--lead guitarist as Dutch Uncle, a conceit which'll pick up some conceptual force as the album proceeds, then some tragic weight by the end.

After visits to a "New York City Girl" ("She played a guitar/Like a man between her knees") and the ol' canon (the definitive "Restless Wind"), the Shavers dive headfirst into some slightly naughty 12-bar--where Eddie always shone--on "Sail of My Soul." Like his father's singing, Eddie's guitar glories (man, this present tense is killin' me) in the ecstasies of simplicity: no showing or jacking off, just goosing the nooks and crannies of the everyday--once more with feeling. He's gonna be missed, by those lucky enough to know him. " "You're Too Much for Me" hews to the autumnal themes prevalent throughout the record, if it ain't exactly special, but it's "Blood is Thicker Than Water" that impales your heart on a spike. Pop's having woman problems, the kid nails his ass ("I seen you puking out your guts/And running with sluts/When you were married to my mother"; even harder, "I need a friend/I'm your son/And you're always gonna be my father"), then Dad retreats to Jesus' eminent (?) return. In light of what would follow the completion of the record, it's almost unbearable.

Right at the point where most modern albums start sucking bad gas, the old pros reach deep inside for a strong finish. "It's Not Over Till It's Over" is made-to-order for Sir Doug, 'cept he's dead, too; it's a shining, simple rocker about not cashing it in early, powered by some nasty Eddie slide and some imitation-Augie Farfisa. "Hearts a' Bustin'" is just some powerful emoting that shows up the current emo crowd (Elliot Smith, et al) for the fakers and spoiled babies they are. "Leavin' Amarillo" is another course ("She's got an ass about 13 axehandles wide/And to stay here with her would be suicide"; if that don't move you, how 'bout "Screw you/You ain't worth passin' thru!"?), bottlenecked blues that seems to be about a woman, then levels a pithy shot at Nashville: "There's a whole buncha cookie-cutters waitin' up in Tennessee/They're making stars every day/And one of 'em could be me/I may buy me a hat and learn to sing through my nose/And I may even buy me some sequined clothes/But I'm leavin' Amariller and I ain't coming back again!" Amazing, but he went through that once before; if you haven't heard the story of his "apprenticeship" with Bobby Bare in the early '70s, you gotta. "I Don't Seem to Fit Anywhere" ask the question, If he was an outlaw then, when George Jones was one of the naysayers, what the hell is he now, in the world of Faith Hill and Brad Paisley? The record closes on a turbulent note, Eddie slant-quoting "Paint It, Black" as the song opens, with the title tune, which on paper's about gone-love but when it hits the heart and ear is clearly about time (or the fucking universe) not caring a whit about the pain life itself inflicts on you. I say without a bit of sentimentality that the stinging notes Eddie plays to carry the song out--the last recorded ones he'd play--will bring real tears to your eyes. Don't know how Billy Joe can listen back to it today, to tell you the truth.

What’s happened to the Old 97’s recently represents one of my favorite archetypes in rock and roll: ultracool specialty band grows--plays better, writes smarter--becomes more open to the whole wide world, pisses off its cult audience (“Sell-outs!”--translation: “You’re only good if we like you!”), and makes the greatest albums of its career. You only have to look at previous examples of this archetype to see how ridiculously pertinacious the good ol’ cult’s viewpoint is: Dylan (fake-folk protester evolves into electrifying surrealist ), Stones (white-boy blues purists into, well, uh, the Stones), the Clash (pilled-up punks into global humanists), the Replacements (falling-down drunk roots thrashers into leaning-into-a-headwind power poppers), and Nirvana (post-metal indie sludgerockers into, well, uh, Nirvana). That’s just a few. Not to disparage the early output of any of these giants; try saying no to the import version of The Clash and it’ll knock your front teeth out, and The Rolling Stones Now! is what every band of white-boy purists shoots for and never hits. It’s just that calling albums like Highway 61 Revisited or London Calling or Nevermind sell-outs is like calling Tiger Woods a hype. In the words of Allen Ginsberg (speaking of Dylan plugging in), the artists in question “sold out to God.”

The Old 97’s ‘99 release Fight Songs was the first album I’d heard since can you fly? or In Utero that I literally played days on end without tire, mainly because it was studded with hooky but spiky gems that would have been chart-toppers in a perfect world. The bells (and lyrics) of “Oppenheimer” were like a sudden, surprising erection. “What We Talk About” harked back to the tough love songs of Rubber Soul and remained standing upon comparison. “Murder (Or a Heartattack)” rode an indelible chorus as it mourned runaway love (or was it a pet?). Though Rhett Miller’s vocals occasionally courted wimpiness, Ken Bethea’s guitar smacked ‘em upside the adenoids if Miller’s own darkly-shaded and painfully vivid lyrics didn’t beat it to the task. I couldn’t imagine programming out one cut if I put it in right now, but neither would I categorize any as alt-country. Exciting, evocative, and addictive rock and roll designed for the great popular audience that’s out there--yeah. Purists said feh, but feh on them: the impure always have more fun.

Which brings us to Satellite Rides and the hard reality that the follow-up to such records as we’re speaking of is really the better indication of either godhood or mere mortality (think of Blonde on Blonde and The Basement Tapes, the amazing run of Stones records that followed Aftermath, Tim and Pleased to Meet Me, or In Utero...or think of Sandinista! and Combat Rock). The new one passes the test by a hair. Like its predecessor, it’s rife with beaten ‘n’ bruised love songs the catchiness of which reminds me of prime Steely Dan: you hum along cheerfully until you’re caught up short by the content. “King of All the World” rolls out on a primo guitar line--and take a look at that title--but the guy’s pondering wandering out of a picture window at song’s end. “Rollerskate Skinny”’ features one of Miller’s trademark erotic metaphors (“Do you wanna meet up at the Picwood Bowl/We can knock nine down and leave one in the hole”) and compares good love to kicking your feet up and getting high, but the girl can’t make a commitment. “Designs on You” and “Book of Poems” close the record in hummably effervescent style, but in the former Miller’s trying to talk someone else’s fiancee into bed, and in the latter, well, he’s got a feeling that book of poems (yet another seduction card from a serial lady killer with multiple decks) won’t be enough. This tension and complexity is the stuff from which durable rock and roll is made, and it seems to be getting easier for Miller. Even bassist Murray Hammond pitches in with “A Bird in a Cage” (“at least it’s your cage”); there’s gossip about the front man splitting, of course, but the whole is still greater than the sum of its parts. In the rockaroll world, the difference between tough and witty and wimpy and (merely) clever is often a crackling backbeat and a loud, ugly guitar.

What keeps Satellite Rides from achieving the level of consistent artistry of Fight Songs and moving beyond it is the growing preciousness of Miller’s singing. At times, it’s so laden with self-involvement that it screams out “callow, spoiled middle-class white boy.” Ain’t nothing particularly wrong with white, folks--no self-hate here. It’s just that at its extremes--look around--it’s so in and of its own willed-to-win fortress-world. Rock and roll was designed to correct that, not reinforce it. The “yeahs” and “right on, right on”s of “Weightless” nearly trigger projectile vomiting every time I hear ‘em (though Bethea’s guitar break is absolutely ace, it ain’t enough), and a couple of other songs are pock-marked by the same tendency. Could be the boy’s getting laid too much or reading too many of his own reviews (the Steve Earle Syndrome), though he has taken a few potshots from the No Depression crowd. He better get his shit together if he thinks he’s heading for rock and roll’s Elysian Fields. Jim Morrison’s still wondering why he can’t get in.

Speaking of the No Depression crowd, the Old 97’s revisit their roots not only on Satellite Rides’’ “Am I Too Late,” but on a loud, rowdy, limited-edition live CD that serves as a mini best-of (no extra charge--way to go, guys). Pretty cagey, since they’re keeping one toe in the roots-pond and doing their best to counteract the inevitable backlash effects of the serious hype the record’s getting from Elektra. Me, I’m glad they’re getting label support and hope they break a hit off the record--’bout time long green backed something good. And let’s get outta the purist cave, take off our blinders, and savor a great band in flower. Face it: it’s the dream we all have.

I've been listening to Williams since 1988--in fact, my wife and I courted to Lucinda Williams back in the day--so this ain't reactionary backlash. It also isn't "Now that she's yours, she ain't mine no more" hipster/cultster bullshit, because I've worn out many an ear trying to spread the gospel. But the liner photo of Lucinda adjusting her cowboy hat in the mirror does not bode well--Narcissus is hell on singer-songwriters. And sure enough, the album's loaded with self-involvement, oversinging, and mope (yep, the last couple of albums have had their share of depressive cuts, it's true, but somehow they opened veins, whereas these just inject 'em with liquid codeine). Of course, she's scattered a couple of gems in the torpid tide: "Get Right With God"'s a song of rebel spirituality we damn sure need--plus, whaddya know, it RAWKS--and the title song puts both PJ Harvey and Liz Phair in a roots-rock headlock and teaches 'em a few lessons about eros. Let's hope she slaps herself upside the head quick.

Most readers of this page will remember Muldaur from her '70s atrocity "Midnight at the Oasis," but before and aft she more than capably applied her big voice and open heart to blues music. Lo and behold, she's delivered the best record of the post-Harry Smith Anthology folk revival; I'd call it a companion record to David Jo's record, except she blows his minstrel ass away with her simple, impassioned soul singing. The material ranges from Mississippi John Hurt to a few dips into the Memphis Minnie and Bessie Smith songbooks to Blind Willie Johnson (on whose "Soul of a Man" duet partner Taj Mahal does a spot-on imitation of the author), and there's at least one guest per cut. The latter should be a bad sign, but Mahal, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Roy Rogers (the master slide guitarist), and Bonnie Raitt (who serves much-needed notice that she ain't just some mega-sellin' corporate rockstar) all invest such commitment in the selections that everybody's pushed to an inspired level. Even Dave Matthews just shuts up and plays solid piano. Play it back to back with Essence and see which one you go back to first.

Warner just can't quit repackaging the Ramones. Now they're trotting out the first four albums, with original artwork and lyrics and bonus cuts and Bill Inglot remastering (remastering?), for you to buy all over again. Well, this one's worth it, thanks to a half-hour '76 show at the Roxy in LA that's tacked-on. Do we really need another live Ramones album, you ask, and I don't blame you. It's Alive, if you can find it, is a goddam punk rock bullet train; Loco Live, Ramones as rock (versus punk) band; We're Outta Here, a mere souvenir. However, 1976 Ramones is the guys in prime DIY mode: they don't quite have their shit together, which creates a bit of an insecure and thus more exciting aura. You can really here why kids heard 'em and started bands the next day. So lay those greenbacks down one LAST time, brethren, and hope some of the profits are going to cancer research.

I've never been a big fan of Malkmus. He as much as anybody represents what I call the "Merit Scholar" contingent of today's rawk scene: spoiled, too clever for its own good, revoltingly cute, contemptuous of anybody outside of its craptic in-jokes and deliberate obscurity (excellent for concealing a lack of anything to say, and currying favor with big-gun critics). Yeah, I know that, in rock and roll, it takes all kinds, even precious smarties, but for me, it also has to reach out rather than wall out (a typical Pavement album reminds me of nothing so much as a covenant neighborhood). When Stevie dissed the Smashing Pumpkins and Stone Temple Pilots on Crooked Rain, everyone about pissed themselves giggling, but no matter how much both bands might have sucked, they cast lifelines out to the kids in their audiences, an activity I've always believed Malkmus thought was corny, or beneath him (talk about a "rock star"!). If you're gonna pick on other bands, you better be sure they ain't got NOTHIN' to do with The Rawk: compare the above dig to Tonio K's legendary verbal assassination ("I wish I was as mellow/As for instance Jackson Browne/But 'Fountain of Sorrow' my ass, motherfucker/I hope you wind up in the ground") and it suddenly doesn't seem so "gifted." I have to admit, though, that Malkmus' guitar has made a very strong impression on me; when he's plugged in and plugged up, he actually does some fierce connecting. But the last Pavement albums seemed concentrated with ballads--ballads--and I can't think of anything in music I'd least like to hear than sour, gnomic Mensa-tivity. Where's Tonio K when you really need him?

Eric Bachmann, however, is another story. While he and his former band Archers of Loaf share much with Malkmus and his crew (high IQ, stop-and-start structures, non sequitur lyrics, a love of dissonance for its own sake, major indie cred), they always made a difference to me. For one, they had a penchant for swelling rock anthems, and even when the lyrics were free-associative, the songs felt like VICTORY! (It may be corny, but I'd rather win than sit and mope and navel-gaze). Since their classic Vee Vee was released in '95, "Harnessed in Slums" has been ringing in my ears (if we're talking desert island here, I'd trade all my Pavement records--curiously, given my loathing, I damn near have them all--for Vee Vee and the vs. The Greatest of All Time EP). I'll bet three consecutive days haven't passed since I bought it without me consciously or unconsciously mouthing its rabble-rousing lines: "...Thugs and scum and punks and freaks/They're harnessed in slums but they wanna be free." For another, Bachmann wasn't afraid of clarity, and was one funny SOB when he wanted to be. "The Greatest of All Time" might be the greatest song about Indie Land ever written, a laff riot despite a lynching in one verse and a plane crash in another (which take the lives of the front men of the world's worst rock and roll band and the greatest of all time, respectively). "Power walker/Power walker/Why don't you fucking run?"--less world-historic, just as funny. Finally, and most importantly for me, Bachmann's singing-- hoarse, croaking, fatigued, wry--was the perfect antidote to Malkmus' strangled, self-regard-slathered, Lou Reedy quaver. I've never been able to put my finger on it, but that voice just has my number, so much so that it still makes me hang on every second of the lengthy title dirge that closes out White Trash Heroes, the Archers' last studio album before the break-up. The closest I've been able to come to explaining it to myself is that I miss Richard Butler, and Bachmann sounds like a sincerer, smarter version of the old Psych Furs front man.

Which brings us to the fantasy (you still with me?): though Bachmann had already done a couple of solo projects (two quirky, mostly-instrumental albums as Barry Black, and the essentially one-man Crooked Fingers), the roughly simultaneous release of Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks and the 2nd Crooked Fingers album, Bring on the Snakes, got me wondering--would Bachmann knock Malkmus to the mat in an East Coast vs. West Coast indie-rock square-off? As I carried that cassette around last week, I prayed the answer would be an anthemic "YES!"

Bachmann rides a lava flow of dissonantly-charged cathedral-drone, a mournful but rocking "end of the affair" piece, with lyrical gems sprinkled like grass seeds: "...We'll kick the booze and blow/And one day go make something of ourselves"; "We'd take what we want/When we knew what we wanted/When we wished we had something to lose"; "You were a fine young thing/Crimped in your red vinyl jeans." Mournful, yeah, but rocking, soulful, specific.

Some pretty pickin', with those omnipresent keyboards, a fascination since White Trash Heroes, moodily shadowing the line all the way. That weird voice is getting weirder: Richard Butler under the influence of Leonard Cohen, as sung by...whuh?...yep!...Neil Diamond! I kid you not--and it sounds good. Themes emerging: dipsomania and loss of identity. More nice lines (no cryptology here): "...Drank too fast...fell into a coma state/And dreamt of everything you hate"; "...Now the ocean fills your lungs...drowning in a sea of strangers."

More pickin' (in a bed of keys)? Two dirges in a row ain't good strategy, champ, but at least you have a game plan: exploring those themes, keepin' it real, trying to connect in more ways than one. More decadence ("...Wasting your flesh/To salvage your soul"), more lurking separation from self ("...Be what they want/Or be what you say"), but...hey, let's pick up the tempo. He's also exploring that 2nd- person viewpoint, interesting...but it needs to be more than that.

Also known as "The Yul Brynner Song," sure to be quoted to death (I'll probably be the first or second in line) by every rawk scribe in the country. Again, he's chipper, faux-charming, cute, quite a contrast to his somber opponent, and it's starting to make a difference. Plus he's definitely exercising his electric guitar and annoyingly deft way with a melody. A Dylan quote at the bell, eh? The guy was a bit of a cryptic writer himself...but worth the brow-furrowing and digging.

That title bodes no good. Another dirge. OK, I'm bending over backwards for rationales here: the Buckleys are gone, we don't need another (talk about Jackson Browne! and Bachmann's from North Carolina...well, James Taylor County's not far away), but maybe we got a song cycle or a valiant struggle with mental chaos (ala Skip Spence) or hymns to existential romantic despair (Cohen again). Musically, Bachmann's still writhing miserably about in a puddle of acoustic melody and codeine wasteland keybs. You gonna make a move, or what?

Not really a thrilling tussle so far, but, by God, this is nice, really clever--sometimes you just gotta give Malkmus his props. "The Hook" is right, in more ways than one: amusing story of pirate kidnap, musical lift right from Elton John's super Seventies smash, "Island Girl," thematically apropos as well. Add in a hilariously horrible "Tumbling Dice" guitar solo intro, and Bachmann's got a knee on the mat! This isn't my idea of a fantasy made flesh, folks!

His head's still clear, it's his legs that ain't steady. Really, Bachmann's done some of his best writing on this record, and he's really sustained some ideas. That turncoat skin? He's just shed it "to start again." That second-person sez she's an angel; Eric knows she was "a liar/'Cause [she] was burning long before/[She] crept into this fire." But the music just ain't happening. Some cool little micromelodies, but they're wet-blanketed.

Stick a fork in his ass and turn him over. But Bachmann does go out on a note of hope: thrown in the water, floating down to the blue light on the ocean's floor, he's "burning away these dead days/Poisoning [his] sorrow 'til it slips away." He's got that right, because you gotta go through that depression to put yourself (your self) back together. Made concrete with guitar and pen, though, it isn't always great art (is it ever?), and it's not gonna win you the Indie 500.

Some fantasy, huh? Though this was certainly the Leonard-Duran "No Mas" fight for the Indie Kingdom, I'm sure Bachmann's only down, not out. Malkmus surprised me and earned some serious respect, though he's still too smart for his own good, and not smart enough to be compelled to say something. Now...let's see him offer a title shot to some crafty but unsung indie (and major) veteran like Ed Hamell, or a currently unsigned ex-champ like Wayne Kramer. Might be, uh, too difficult to pull that one off (my new fantasy?). But long as he's wielding that witty (and juiced) six-string, I'll pay attention. Better pony up with the backroom noise boys....

Surely you're growing tired of being bludgeoned with studio-perfected slab rock. Surely you miss dissolution, mess, perverse fashion choices, Chuck Berry and Johnny Thunders guitar steals, goofy optimism in the face of a yawning void, sloppy melodies, and surging tempos, these things having formerly been the essence of white-boy rock and roll. Yep, there are well-known bands (who shall remain nameless according to the John Waters Law: "You wanna kill something? Ignore it.") who pretend to drink from this teeming river, but they're no less freeze-dried than the latest Nashville hat act or airbrush-eroticized nubile. It's a cold, hard world out there, and these mannequins just make it harder.

Which is why I dig Detroit's Trash Brats. Perfectly named, these Motor City rebels beat Green Day, Blink 182, Offspring--Shit! I named 'em!--and their ilk at punkpop coming and going, while honoring the best aspects of glam rock, primarily a willingness to make an utter but charming fool out of oneself in rebellion against the sensible world and a preference for psychic and romantic chaos over order. What's more rock and roll than that, I ask you?

The boys have a new record out called American Disaster (on Storm Records), which blows out of the gate with the put-up-yer-dukes challenge of "Rocket to Heaven" and doesn't let up til a couple of slow ones late in the record. Among the many highlights of this noisy little collection are "Imitation Generation" (they ain't kidding), "Sentenced Man" (feel that way, too, guys), "A Nice Girl to Visit (But Your Wouldn't Want to Live with Her)" (love the line about designer tits, love the breakneck Thunders rip), the raving "Must Be the Cocaine" (surprisingly, satire not celebration), and the relentlessly hooky "Who Put the Words in Your Mouth?"

Not to belabor the point, but the 'Brats ain't perfect: they're silly, sloppy, derivative, fucked-up, but...but...but: I don't fucking find myself being suspicious of their motives and sincerity, like I do with about 98% of the shit I listen to involuntarily each day. They're alive as can be, they've found something they like and they're sticking to it, they've got a sense of humor about themselves and this junk called rock and roll, and they're gonna do it 'til they die. Also, they have a secret weapon on six-string named Ricky Rat in back and a ballsy, cross-dressing clown named Brian O'Blivion in front to hold off all comers.

They've been doing this shit for a long time, too! On the terrific comp Songs in the Key of F U, you'll be flat knocked out by 12 years' worth of fast, catchy, assy punktoons (and some convincing ballads) you'll swear you should have heard. The Brats can cover the Stooges and come out alive and pinch rock's big fat butt while still celebrating its lifestyle (when these guys mention suicide, they always seem to be suppressing giggles). And through 22 songs, they prove that they haven't merely survived (it doesn't get much mere-er than that): they've triumphed. But not so much that you shouldn't seek out both these records now and buy buy buy.

O'Blivion's just put out an accurately-titled solo record on Brazen Overtures Records. Can't quite say I'd recommend this one, though, as I said before, the motherfucker has balls. Badly Beaten opens with a born-to-losin' little rocker called "Financially Embarrassed," which I'd sub in for one of the ballads on American Disaster, then proceeds to dive headfirst into a country-folk bag (covers Johnny Rodriguez and a 19th century poem called "Mortality"!). Hmmmmmmm. He really doesn't have the vocal chops or the songwriting pizzazz to pull this off, but I'm sure he knew it would be insane to try...and that's why he did it. I'd love to hear about half of these Trashbratted, but he must be hearing that to death right now.

Riding a thick, loud wave of guitarstorm, Bellrays vocalist Lisa Kekaula knows how we feel. Caught in a moment that won't end, clawing through evil mornings, doing battle with stupid fuckin' people, steppin' lightly down the sidewalks of Snake City, she doesn't swallow a drop of enmity: This woman's yawp is a cathartic wonder. Imagine mid-'60s Tina kidnapped by the MC5 and braced by Stockholm Syndrome (a musical Tania...that's it) and you have an idea why so many rawk-lifers are hanging "Next Big Thing" signs on this band.

There's no decrease in political wrath; it informs nearly every song. It's just that it seems a little more personal, a little more real than last time out. You get the feeling that, unlike The 5, who, after inspiring you to think progressively, would inevitably interrupt your train of thought with displays of what pussymasters they were--"Kick Out the Jams" feels and sounds like social revolution, but check the lyrics!--the Bellrays think less about fucking than they do about fucking up the System. Which has been known to fuck bands up, actually, but I imagine that if and when Kekaula gets around to exploring her sex life (and I bet she does), it'll be just what the band needs to go all the way (so to speak). What she has to say will have to be more interesting than "Miss X" or "Let Me Try." Also, the lyrics are a little too vague to suit me; I mean, we're all "Stupid Fuckin' People" a lot of the time. You start getting specific, people start suspecting you of having a program, and may hold you to it. That's what makes political rock and roll so tough to pull off. But let's give the kids a chance to grow, OK?

Jim Rinn is a man with a mission: Save the world from digitalized, soulless, corporate-taint sprout-rock by shoving the metallic legacy of the Motor City right up its ass with the fuse lit. Besides recording like-minded rawkrats and putting out their albums on his fabulous label, I-94 Records (visit this independent music mecca at http://community.webtv.net/i94rec/I94Recordings), his vessels for this urgent insurrection are two stuffed-to-bursting compilations, Drunk On Rock, Volume 1 and 2. Perfect for sweeping those Grammy cobwebs out yer memory--believe it.

The beauty of these comps is they convince one that rock and roll ain’t dead by a long shot--there’s plenty of hard-working, underrecognized, and explosive combos out there waiting to charge onto the scene. 52 cuts, 52 different artists (the Kevin K. Band appear twice, once in a backing role), 52 songs that never once go soft or navel-gaze. Of course, a few need a little more minor-league seasoning, but that just adds to their charm. However, some have no doubt already battered their way into your earshot, The Bell Rays, Electric Frankenstein, Nashville Pussy, the Trash Brats, Jeff Dahl, Texas Terri (the female Ig?) and the Stiff Ones, and the Chinese Millionaires, for example, and I don’t think any of their tunes are available on their records. In between those two poles are multiple surprises like Dimitri Monroe and the Naked Flames’ anthemic “Nostalgia Kills” (somebody sign these guys!), the Hookers’ “Hell Bent and Glory Bound,” and the Golden Arms’ “Street Trash.”

The stylistic attack of these songs is also surprising in its variation. For some, it may be as difficult as guessing a Ramones song within three notes, but, let’s face it, those dullards are never gonna get it anyway. We have flat-out three-chord punk rock (biggest surprise for me--some of it’s even a little poppy, and that’s a compliment coming from this Buzzcocks lover), metallic left-right Deee-troit combinations, born-to-lose-beautifully glam-orous declamations, a splash of straight metal, and a few laff-rock riots. We have some neato covers (Dahl’s “Born to Lose,” Rocket 455’s “Cock in My Pocket,” Nashville Pussy’s “Sock It To Me, Baby”), come-hither band names (the Candy Snatchers, the Short Fuses, the Morning Shakes, the Wonderfools, the Clone Defects, the Dimestore Halos, all of whom live up to their handles), and four killer live cuts.

It’s no wonder a lot of folks hate country music. Every calendar cowboy and cowgirl on the radio sounds interchangeable with the one before. Their “songs” appear to be written by slumming ad agents and played by Nashville’s version of Toto (steel and fiddle so clean and by-the-numbers they must have been digitally downloaded from the Hollywood Central Casting Symphony Orchestra website). It’s music designed specifically to avoid disturbance, which, if you know anything about country’s history, is a sign that foxes are in the henhouse.

That’s why this indie album, by a 63-year-old ex-con, quadruple divorce and bypass survivor, and country legend who’s been riding on his laurels for long about two decades, will shock the shit outta the unsuspecting (including those already familiar with Merle’s work). It’s alive, and there’s nothing more disturbing than that in this day and age. Right out of the gate, Hag, whiskey- and nicotine-soaked voice caught in aural zoom and negotiating every emotional nook and cranny of the lyric, confesses to “watching while some old friends do a line/Holding back the want to end my own addicted mind.” By the end of the song (the best original he’s written since maybe “Kern River” in the mid-’80s), after he’s mourned his roaring days (while looking askance at Cops and sparring with his kids over his smoking), one can’t help but ask: “Can he possibly keep this up for an entire record?”

Big difference between Ol’ Blue Eyes and the Branded Man is Hag himself’s written every song but two here (a “traditional” rewrite of “Deep Elem Blues” called “Honky Tonky Mama” and the title song, maybe the weakest on the album)--makes inhabiting those lyrics damned easy. They mostly focus on his love for his wife and kids, which might not initially get your blood up, but when they concern things like explaining to the rugrats that you’ve been in jail, coping with the ol’ marital age difference (and the fact that you’re grizzled and ugly, while she’s coveted by those calendar cowboys), and contemplating coming off the road--your true home for over 35 years--for good, you realize this ain’t The Family Circus. Plus, in the ones that aren’t about husband- and fatherhood, he loses his “brand new padded shoes,” mixes his liquors, and gets arrested; warns his mama that, while he’s “still up there riding every night,” he’s wearing a jimmy hat or she’s just gonna have to leave; and blames his rough and rowdy ways on learning the E chord from his Uncle John. Is that undomesticated enough for you?

More important, and more intoxicating, is the intimate, immediate, and uncluttered way the recording (producer uncredited: initials MH?) captures Merle’s famous head-singing and country-swing band. Those listeners familiar with the production work of Ray Kennedy (Steve Earle), Rick Rubin (Johnny Cash), and Daniel Lanois (Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan) will detect their influence in the quality of If I Could Only Fly’s right-in-your-living room miking. This is what the dipsticks in Nashville just don’t get: one of the lasting qualities of great country music is the skill with which a regular guy with seemingly unimpressive pipes--Ernest Tubb comes to mind as the classic example--can think his way through a good lyric right into your heart. No punch-ins or “air-brushing” necessary; democratic as hell, as close to the real thing as you can get, and perfect to get drunk and sing along with (and maybe it’s then you can really appreciate guys like Tubb, Frizzell, Williams, Nelson, Cash, Jones, and Haggard: seems so easy, but you can’t come within shouting distance of ‘em, drunk or sober). Whether it’s a ballad, a swing tune, or a light Tin Pan Alley-style country pop number, Merle’s not only comfortable but in full control. His little vibrato curls, baritone shifts, and subtle changes in volume and delivery make several of the weaker songs here worthy of repeated listening [read the lyrics of “(Think About a) Lullaby” or “Crazy Moon” or “Turn to Me” and you’ll see what I mean].

And the band. Yes, it’s the eternal Strangers--America’s finest Western Swing Band for the past quarter-century--swinging easy behind him. Poor health has cost the band the great guitarist Roy Nichols, and Biff Adams drums on only two songs here. But Nichols’ replacement Redd Volkaert sounds (here and live) like he learned at the foot of the master, young quintuple-threat Abe Manuel, Jr. keeps the band’s blood pumping, and crafty veterans Norm Hamlet (steel--REAL steel) and Don Markham (gloriously old-school saxophone--almost shockingly so “Honky Tonky Mama”) make their presence more than felt. Their playing’s as crafty and natural as the man in front.

This record belongs in the company of Dylan’s Time Out of Mind, Cash’s American Recordings, and Nelson’s Teatro and Me and the Drummer as a stellar example of not only the timelessness of head singing (somebody give George Jones this treatment--pronto!), not only the durability of the iconoclast as a vital American icon, but as a reminder that smart sumbitches get better with age (it's actually the second "September of My Years" album he's done, and the first was a winner, too: '79's Serving 90 Proof, on MCA). These singers have always challenged their audiences, and this might be the toughest one they’ve ever tossed our way. And let’s not forget: it’s no accident that, on each of these recordings, a stubborn producer, or an independent label with higher expectations and the possibility of new converts, or an alternative environment (If I Could Only Fly was recorded in Haggard’s own studio, ironically located in Music City itself) jolted these guys into performances strong enough to stand with those of their urgent youth. Getting out of our comfort zones--and getting disturbed--is something we could all use.

Talk about weird hype. With a legion of bands here and in Sweden, notably the Bellrays and the Hellacopters, steadfastly and unapologetically treading perhaps too precisely in the musical footsteps of the MC5, along comes a bunch of freaks from El Paso to claim the rock media’s “new MC5” crown. They don’t even sound like the 5! But they also don’t sound like Texans. And they definitely don’t sound Hispanic (4 of the 5 are). What the fuck?

Forget the MC5. Though At the Drive-In’s Omar Rodriguez and Jim Ward do play guitars that blast, they’re also super precise, battering-ram solid, morphing into Big Black-cum-Rage slabs of mechanical sound, as befits the songs’ complex (and often surprisingly exciting) dynamics. In contrast, the 5 roared straight out of the three-chord, verse-chorus garage, occasionally exploding into free-jazz wig-outs powered by the ecstatic, sloppily human rave-ups of Kramer and “Sonic” Smith. Also, Rob Tyner sang from the gut; Cedric Bixler sings mostly from the adenoids (when he’s on, he’s Cobain-cathartic; when he’s not, he’s Farrell-whiny). But here’s a much more significant difference: though Brother Wayne Kramer has remained committed to political thinking since the MC5’s demise in ‘72, the MC5 was as much (if not more) about getting off and getting high than getting over on The Man. You’ve got to hand it to ATDI--their sights are about as locked-in as they can be on the insidious control mechanisms that have been perverting this country’s promise since, hell, Plymouth Rock. If they’re the new anything--and I’m the last person in the world that would normally venture this (see this month’s sermon, and remember, I said “if”)--they’re the new Minutemen (musical precision + iconoclastic structures + political dedication + marginalized educated-regular-guy persona). Just wish they’d rethink the haircuts.

In other words, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say, believe the hype, no matter how confused it is. We need more rabble-rousers for sure: as the band itself writes, we’re addicted to “sleepwalk capsules’ (a title), and “circus carn[ies are] guarding the gates of heaven.” Though they’re more oblique than I’m normally inclined to enjoy (the influence of Fugazi and Ian McKaye, an anti-pleasure revolutionary if there ever was one), most of the lyrics will connect with anyone who’s ever glimpsed the controllers’ ever-more-arrogantly-flaunted puppet strings. Watt and Boon themselves--though we have the benefit of 15 years’ worth of hindsight--didn’t scribble any more accessibly, though they were a helluva lot less abstract (more so as they got more songs--and life--under their belts). And, though their structures do sound meticulously mapped-out, the fire in their playing, particularly the guitarists’ ability to pull off dramatic shifts in register (reminiscent of the long-gone That Petrol Emotion, a pretty damn good political band themselves) and volume, supplies the urgency those abstract lyrics so desperately need. On first listen, some will complain that ATDI is a Rage clone; however, though they’re clearly inspired by the band that plucked them from obscurity, they’ve got a lot more weapons and moves in their arsenal.

Amazingly, I was dancing to “Rapper’s Delight” in ‘79, in the bowels of a cultural bunker called southwest Missouri. Made a hip Indian friend who had recently been uprooted from NYC when her surgeon father opened a practice in our town, and she carried some revolutionary shit with her that she happily laid on our ignant asses. So, though I never took up breakdancing, stayed out of sweat suits and Adidas, and have never to this day busted a rhyme in earnest, I’ve attended the altar of hip-hop since damn near the beginning. It hasn’t been easy.

I currently have zero friends my age (my students are a different story) with any interest in current rap music, the last having more or less bailed a few years ago (for the more reliable climes of opera, free jazz, and French Canadian folk music) for the same reason I’ve been left hanging by my fingernails on its cliffs myself: the genre’s slavish conformity to the zeitgeist stereotypes of pimps, playas, criminals, and hos, to ends-justify-the-means capitalism, to misogyny, to homophobia, to racism, to the instant obsolescence that defeats even the most imaginative beat junkies--in short, its embrace of the worst legacies of white America. Fucking depressing. Was it worth wading through the muck for the next Del or PE or Coup or Digital Underground album? To feel like a schmuck ‘cause nobody else you knew gave a shit? Yeah, I know better, but when it comes down to it, I’ll pick community over isolation everytime.

The folks at Rawkus have given us hope. From the Soundbombing comps to Company Flow to Thirstin’ Howl, the label seems to be a refuge for folks who want to pull their boots outta the muck. Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star (1998) was the label’s call to arms. Mos Def got most of the props for its success, but, with the release of its “sequel,” Kweli and Hi-Tek’s Reflection Eternal--Train of Thought, it’s apparent that Talib was just as responsible. At a relatively waste- (and profanity-) free 69+ minutes (nearly twice the length of its predecessor), it’s another hip-hop tour de force: smart lyrics intent on redefining what it means to be black in this country (“Ghetto Afterlife”), hard, spare, funky beats (“Move Somethin’”) that James Brown proved long ago were eternal (if you can hear the Jungle Brothers’ Straight Out the Jungle in your head, it’s one of the sources of this record’s sound), straight-up challenges to that aforementioned monolithic zeitgeist (“Some Kind of Wonderful,” “On My Way,” “For Women”), flat-out joy in rhythm and language and natural beauty unsullied by defeatism (“African Dream”), and ice-cold shots of lyricism (“Good Mourning”).