The Blasters:The Blasters

The Blasters: The Blasters

1981

Slash Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Marie Marie  2. No Other Girl  3. I'm Shakin'  4. Border Radio  5. American Music  6. So Long Baby Goodbye  7. Hollywood Bed  8. Never No Mo' Blues  9. This is It  10. Highway 61  11. I Love You So  12. Stop the Clock


This was always a record that I was always being urged to check out, but  it took me a long time to get around to it, since I've never really been that big into rockabilly...For whatever reason, out of all the fetishistic retro scenes, rockabilly revival has always seemed the fakest to me...Something about a bunch of guys dressed like the Fonz has always bugged me...

Maybe its flashbacks to all the Sha Na Na reruns I was subjected to as a child...Maybe it was having to endure the Brian Setzer Orchestra during the late 90's...Whatever the reason, rockabilly usually has to go a looooooooong way to impress me...

Anyway, back in 2004 I was listening to the horrible "Viking" album by Lars Frederiksen (why was I listening to this album? Shouldn't I have known that it was horrible by looking at the cover? Man, I'm alwaaaays desperate for new punk to listen to. Especially in 2004 when I couldn't quite accept that listenable punk albums were a thing of the past) and was blown away by the single good song on it, which happened to be a cover of "Marie, Marie" by the Blasters. It was rockabilly, but catchy, vital and full of life...Like X, it felt like rockabilly but didn't have the "museum" quality that rockabilly revival music usually carries for me... I put The Blasters on my mental "check out" list...

I was at Eastside Records last January and found this Blasters album that had such a strikingly ugly cover that I couldn't stop staring at it...It had the "Marie, Marie" song I liked, so I figured now was a good time to finally check out The Blasters...

Given the aforementioned "museum" quality of  rockabilly I was expecting the record to mainly consist of covers but to my surprise these were almost all originals...And I was even more surprised that these originals were better than the covers. My God, the rock n' roll/zydeco/punk hybrid "So Long Baby Goodbye" is maybe the best old timey rock n' roll song I've ever heard...Stands right up to any classic Jerry Lee Lewis song...Dead serious. I should also add that they were more diverse than just the "rockabilly"sound I had pegged them for..."Border Radio" sounds like the greatest song Fats Domino never wrote, "Never No More Blues" is yodelin' country, and " I'm Shakin'" sounds like the Heat Miser song!

There's also a fair bit of blues and Bo Diddley stomp on display...You can hear some punk seep in around the edges too on "I Love You So" and "So Long..."...The whole thing is tight as fuck, clean as a whistle, and fun as hell...Super trad, but diverse and infused with enough energy to capture the attention of folks like me that have no ear for this kind of stuff...Yet, with its rich sense of history,  it's smart enough that I can't picture American Music dieheards not flipping over this...They've helped soften my outlook on old timey rock revival...After all, if a record like this could come out of it, it can't be that bad a scene, right?

Alright, let's put on our leather jackets and a fistful of crisco in our hair...We're going to check out some Balsters...Here's "So Long Baby Goodbye"...Enjoy...