Back in the ‘90s, The Cowslingers were one of the most reliable concert draws in the business for those wanting to be blown away by a band who had pledged allegiance to music’s most loose-limbed genres — Rockabilly, Garage Rock, Punk, Country and Surf — by playing their hybridized versions with wild abandon, wrecking-ball volume and laser focus. The ’Slingers built up a healthy fan base in Greater Cincinnati due to our proximity to their Cleveland headquarters and their association with Shake It Records, one of several domestic labels that helped release the band’s impressive original discography.
The band began at Kent State University in 1991, built around the unhinged Punkabilly vocals of Greg Miller, the scythe-sharp guitar of Bobby Latina and, eventually, the combustion-propelled rhythm section of bassist Ken Miller and drummer Leo P. Love. For a decade, The Cowslingers released some of the most original and genre-erasing American music of that period, attracting audiences that loved Punk and straight-up Rock, and were named Cleveland’s best Country band in 1999 by the Cleveland Free Times. The ’Slingers spread the gospel far and wide, opening for equally expansive acts like Southern Culture on the Skids, New Bomb Turks, The White Stripes, Drive-By Truckers and Rev. Horton Heat, among many others, through 38 states and three European circuits.
After releasing the rarities compilation Bullseye in 2005, the band called it a day, with the Millers and Love reforming as the Whiskey Daredevils and Latina concentrating on his band, The Jack Fords. Though The Cowslingers occasionally regrouped for the odd live show, there wasn’t any forward momentum until last year when Greg Miller and Latina met up to write some songs on a lark. The results were successful enough that they reassembled the band, drove to Detroit and recorded the first all-new Cowslingers studio album in 16 years, Real Big Rooster, then booked some shows to trumpet the release. The foursome hasn’t lost a single step, based on repeated listening to future classics like “Please Don’t Make Me” (“Please don’t make me sit on your couch and listen to Rush”) and “Sex and Gin” (“Sex and gin, sex and gin, the party may be over but we know where you’ve been”).
Once again, The Cowslingers answer the question, “What would X sound like if the image of Buddy Holly appeared to them on a burnt tortilla?”
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This article appears in Jan 10-17, 2018.
