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Watermelon Slim & The Workers
Thursday · The Loft (above Tickets Sports Cafe)
Watermelon Slim’s excellent harmonica and slide work perfectly recapture the classic Muddy Waters/Little Walter electric Blues sound of the ’50s. Testament to decades of hard livin’ on the wrong side of the tracks, Slim’s raspy, raw nasal yelp is Gospel true and Howlin’-Wolf primal, while his band The Workers swings like a rusty wrecking ball. Judging by the uncultured and unschooled way he sings (gloriously flat at times), it sounds like ol’ Slim ain’t got many teeth left.
He makes light of this fact while reciting a hilarious litany of bad luck clichés in the opening track of the band’s latest self-titled album (and first for the Canadian-based NorthernBlues (imprint); “Hard Times” is a house-rockin’ shuffle that blends New Orleans rhythms, Texas slide and Slim’s clever, self-deprecating humor. Slim spins mysterious and amusing tales of bad women and money troubles in a conversational, half-drunken Southern drawl. When he inks a new deal with the Horned One (“Devil’s Cadillac”), Slim somehow manages to make all this well-worn subject matter sound fresh and original.
Deceptively simple on the surface, “authentic” Blues is an anomaly that requires only three chords to play but years of experience to perfect its near-impossible balance of restraint and showmanship. Slim’s demeanor just screams years of working dirty little clubs and juke joints. This record sounds like it was recorded live, by a burnin’ band of Workers straight from an old juke joint laying down simmering Blues grooves and shack-shakin’ swing with ease. Somebody please put these guys on the bill with ZZ Top or The Stones, just to keep ’em honest, cuz the Blues simply doesn’t get any better than this.
(Ric Hickey)
The Kyle Sowashes with 24 Hour Flu and The Great Depression
Saturday · The Comet
In early 2005, Indie Pop singer/songwriter Kyle Sowash wrapped up a nearly 10-year run as the singer/guitarist for Tom Foolery and The Mistakes, a Columbus band whose straight-faced goofiness seemed to confound music critics. Most reviewers were put off by the band’s credo of not taking itself too seriously — covering Lionel Ritchie’s “Hello,” blissfully recalling the Indie Rock hey-days of the early ’90s (particularly Archers of Loaf, a band only a music critic would ever even remember), being too “lo-fi” and playing with a ramshackle abandon were just some of the Mistakes’ cardinal Indie hipster sins. You’d think the band name would be a tip off. Anyway, Sowash has now gone “solo” as The Kyle Sowashes (a real “band” live; recording is all Sowash) and the past critiques haven’t affected his approach at all. In fact, on his entertaining solo debut, the soon-to-be-released What’s Important (And What’s Not), he embraces his past “transgressions” wholeheartedly. Due on the Kettering, Ohio-based Bettawreckonize imprint (from the creators of the Indie-friendly online ‘zine of the same name), What’s Important is in the vein of Adam Green and The Hold Steady, artists whose wry and dry wit is just as important as the melodies and performances. Largely taking the laid-back, under-tuned and under-polished approach of “vintage” Indie (Dinosaur Jr., Pavement, etc.), Sowash’s songs aren’t groundbreaking and the playing is far from virtuoso-worthy. But, coupled with a sublime sense of humor, his shaggy, untidy Pop tunes (which do feature some great, classic hooks) are irresistible. If the sprightly “Pitchforks” isn’t the first song to go after the Indie snob blowhards at online ‘zine, Pitchforkmedia.com, then it’s certainly the most cleverly acerbic, with lines like “Nothing has (impressed you) since 1999/When you saw The Make Up for the very first time” and “It turns out you don’t have much to say/But you say it anyway.” “The 8 Track Recorder” implores a bitter Rock Star wannabe to take their recording machine back to the store (“Tell them you want your money back/Cause track 6 doesn’t work anymore”) and Sowash gets into the mind of an earnest cover-band maestro (and extols the genius of Richard Marx and Tevin Campbell) on “Shadows of My Stevens.” It’s not rocket science (Yngwie Malmsteen is still making records if you’re aching for overly technical drivel), but it’s a heck of a lot of fun. (Mike Breen)
Anal Cunt with Meat Shits, Waco Jesus, Circle of Dead Children, Amoebic Dysentery, Unregistered Sex Offender, Estuary and more
Saturday · Sudsy Malone’s
In late 2004, while Jeb Bush and the Florida Supreme Court were battling over Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube, another plug was almost pulled. This one was keeping Anal Cunt frontman Seth Putnam alive. Following a drug-fueled flirtation with suicide, Putnam decided he needed to get some rest and that a few handfuls of sleeping pills were just the ticket. The nap turned into a coma that lasted for almost two months, with doctors proclaiming the whole time that he would be a vegetable if he ever awoke. Meanwhile, Anal Cunt fans were simultaneously mourning and enjoying the delicious irony that Putnam, the godfather of Hate Metal, had penned the tune “You’re in a Coma,” one of hundreds of purposefully offensive, under-a-minute Grindcore detonations in the Anal Cunt (or AxCx for those bothered by the language) catalog.
Their reign of terror began in 1988, with Putnam putting together the band as a one-off joke, just one in a long line of such projects he’d invented for a single gig or recording. But this time, the joke took on a life of its own and, before they could back out, the Speed-Noise trio was touring the U.S. and selling copies of their “debut,” 47 Song Demo. Imitators began multiplying as quickly as fans, with a whole generation of Punk stock realizing that there were no boundaries on this new frontier of tastelessness. With Putnam at the helm, AxCx endured over a decade of lineup changes, label woes and enough real-life outrageousness to fill 10 Spinal Tap sequels, all the while doing little to change their formula of comical irreverence set to blast beats. They officially called it quits in 2001 but were resurrected two years later, having a fairly successful run when Putnam’s “accident” occurred. In the year and a half since, he’s focused primarily on physical rehabilitation. There have been a handful of AxCx shows, and the band is promising a new album this summer. For now, Cincy fans are as lucky to get this glimpse of these Hatecore legends as Putnam is to be alive. (Ezra Waller)
This article appears in Mar 15-21, 2006.