(Written in January 2004). The year just started and we already got an album that will definitely play an important role in the year’s best selection! This is a new one by Mark Lanegan and it’s louder and stronger than any Screaming Trees album, let alone his solo albums. It’s rough, it’s tough, it’s experimental, but still it rock and moves just like it should. His voice is still recognizable even though it often distorted by various studio effects. Drums are raw and guitars cut like razor blades. This is for the first time in years that Lanegan doesn’t collaborate with his long time companion Mike Johnson, so that in itself indicates a significant stylistic move. This is a unique represent of this loud new blues style that can be found for example on Christ Whitley’s album Terra Incognita, or Tarbox Ramblers, but it also has a favor of raw garage sound such as we know from Detroit and Memphis scenes – but perhaps in a little nicer package plus Tom Waits poetics. The album runs for only 30 minutes, but that’s cool – it just makes you wanna play it again. New cd-albums normally last too long anyway. LPs used to be much more carefully thought of. They say this is only a teaser before the full length album comes out! Woohoo! http://www.onewhiskey.com/
(Written in February 2004) There’s nothing dangerous about this album, perhaps the title it’s just a way of making it sound cool. But what’s really cool about this album is not its cover, it’s not the title, it’s not the fact that the dude behind the sound is legendary garage face of the Detroit rock scene, Mick Collins. What’s cool about it is the music. In modern rock scene, often when you peel off all the hype, somewhere in the moment when the cellophane of the cd is taken off, and the cd enters into the player, that’s when the magic stops. It’s different with this kinda noise. It’s magical from the ironic crowd cheer in the openingStart The Party, over all the crazy guitars and screams far in VU’s red area to the lengthy boogie of FIDO. Somewhere in the middle of the record you get the real jewel, Motor City Baby – Patti Labelle and George Clinton wore the glam outfits, but in this song Mick Collins is the only black artist who came dangerously close to glam aesthetics. Of course – that can only be a good thing. This album is a hot item, perhaps the most exciting thing Collins did since the revolutionary days of The Gories. He knows rock’n’roll – he’s a guy who you should trust. http://www.thedirtbombs.net/.
Podcast made in Cleveland, Ohio. Syndicated by Prvi Prvi na Skali in Kragujevac, Serbia. Sponsored by Blue Arrow Records and Baby Next.
