There’s no-one better qualified to decry “this counterfeit world” than Pat Todd as he does on the opening cut of the same name on his new album.
Todd’s been The Real Deal for three decades, first with Los Angeles underground legends The Lazy Cowgirls and more recently with The Rankoutsiders. “Blood & Treasure” is long=player number-four and builds on a substantial body of work.
People sometimes look down their noses at the term “bar band”. Why is a mystery. Isn’t a “bar band” the antithesis of a “stadium band”? Todd has assembled one of the world’s best bar bands in The Rankoutsiders and it would be a travesty to think of them playing Coachella.
You might think of it as just another European label re-issuing an American artist’s old work on vinyl - a smart commercial move because nobody in Europe buys albums on CD - if they can help it.But you should consider Hound Dawg Records' engineering the re-appearance of the first record for Pat Todd’s post-Lazy Cowgirls outfit as a public service. Here’s why:
Once upon a time, in the relatively genteel state of Virginia, there was a self-destructive punk rock band called The Candy Snatchers. Named after a trashy crime flick, they spilt beer and bled all over American stages before their guitarist prematurely shuffled off this mortal coil a decade ago, and they promptly fell apart.
L.A.-based The Ringleaders have Larry May of The Candy Snatchers on vocals and for that reason, among others, you need to pay attention.
The rest of the band – Hans Molnar (the Hellbenders) on guitar with Tim Bender (Death by Stereo) on drums and Mark Ho (Hollywood Hate) on bass – are similarly well-credentialed. Fully cranked, they sound like they’re heading to Hell in a Honda while out of their heads on glue.
When both irretrievably corrupt, collaborating, billionaire owned, fat cat political parties are 100 percent complicit in knowingly propping up completely fabricated, mythological stories to manufacture consent for a babies in cages prison state and permanent lies for imperialist wars for the insatiable profits of the one percent, hungry ghost, demonic extortionists at the top, it is absolutely essential that we, the people, educate our peers, and organize authentic resistance, and become the new media.
If you think you might appreciate an album's worth of simple, Nick Gilder style, solid gold pop hooks galore spiked with revolutionary truth-telling and courageous common sense, you will probably really thoroughly enjoy this important LP! John Dissed is a modern day Billy Bragg or Joe Strummer and "American University" is his ambitious D.I.Y. tour de force concept album, a pleasing throwback to the days of the Adverts, Lords Of the New Church, and Wanderers with a cinematic Pink Floyd ambience.
“It appeared clear to me - partly because of the lies that filled my history textbooks - that the intent of formal education was to inculcate obedience to a social order that did not deserve my loyalty. Defiance seemed the only dignified response to the adult world.” - Timothy B. Tyson, Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story)
“Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody's slavery. They do not want equality because the thrill of their happiness comes from having things that others have not.” - W.E.B. DuBois, Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil)
"The fortunate is seldom satisfied with the fact of being fortunate. Beyond this, he needs to know that he has a right to his good fortune. He wants to be convinced that he 'deserves' it, and above all that he deserves it in comparison with others. He wishes to be allowed the belief that the less fortunate also merely experiences his due. Good fortune thus wants to be 'legitimate' fortune." - Max Weber
"A catalog of catastrophic events shaped our lives..." - Iris Berry
ALMOST GOLD...
Iris Berry is my favorite movie star. In my personal rocknroll pantheon, she will always be the queen of the Hollywood underground. Hard livin' hellion, heroine, helper, healer, auteur, essayist. She lived on 10, on full-blast, for a long time, and has written several riveting books about it, including "Daughters Of Bastards", and her latest enchanting collection of poetic reminiscing's, "All That Shines Under The Hollywood Sign".
Part of the reason she is always such a big hit on the spoken word circuit is because we are all getting older and are increasingly nostalgic for our own wayward punk rock youth, and therefore, love hearing those far out and heavy, true tales from her seen it all history, but also, because something about her speaking voice is oh so very consoling and soothing, it is a tender, understanding salve for the sad and lonely, and scarred for life, all 'us last of the last, limping landmarks and leather clad convalescents. She has a comforting presence, because she emanates real deep, genuine article beauty, from the inside out. We can all recognize her as one of our kind.
Down on 7th Avenue b/w I will Give up – Pat Todd and The Rankoutsiders (Dangerhouse/Heavy Medication)
Some people use “bar band” as an insult when it’s a badge of honour. There is no more exacting proving ground. Pat Todd and The Rankoutsiders are the best bar band in the world and here’s the proof.
“Down On 7th Avenue” was written the night before Los Angeles’ finest went into the studio and it’s delivered as only a band that knows itself inside out can. A scorching rocker propelled by a tight-as-a-fish’s-arse engine room, crunching guitars and Todd’s impassioned vocal, it jumps off the turntable. The reprise is the sting in the tail.
B side “I Will Give Up” is more mellow, a ‘50s rocker with some tasteful Duane Eddie licks and tinkling piano that’s reflective of the band’s rootsy ethos.
Buy or die. There's no excuse for not owning this.
The lines are so blurred these days that you can’t guess where most bands applying a defibrillator to rock and roll’s ailing heart come from. So-called scenes are fragmented and the means of production rest in many sets of hands, thanks to technology and the information democracy of the Internet.
Wind back the clock a couple of decades and JJ and The Real Jerkscould be from snowed-in Sweden or inner-city Sydney rather than sprawling Los Angeles.
This 12-inch, eight-song EP is razor sharp, fun garage rock and roll in the style of The Hivescrossed with Dead Boys.Big twin guitars and occasional sax punctuate the songs, which throw up plenty of hooks.
"The idea that 'disinformation' is something that just happened during the last four years is absurd. How did the U.S. public become the most ill-informed, easily manipulated public on the planet if not as a result of systematic 'disinformation' from the rulers? Now these same rulers want to 'regulate' social media speech." - Ajamu Baraka
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”- Mussolini
Ridiculously, I am suspended from social media, by fascist corporatists for posting this quote. How Zucked-up is that? I've been Zucked. You could be next.
All the left media sites are being censored, demonetized, or taken down, by corporatist Zuck-bots, and the gentrification shitlibs accept this, casually and completely, because their pyramid-scheme higher-up superiors have told them that censorship is okey-dokey, because social media is privately owned, and therefore, tech-lord billionaires have the right to censor any facts, opinions, quotes, or evidence that contradicts their corporatist agenda. More worryingly, attractive and beloved celebrity figureheads have, once again, been recruited to promote monopoly tech-lord control of information flow, by telling their followers to rat on any voices online that question or contradict official narratives, as spreading mis-information. This is exactly the cultish Blue MAGA equivalent of crazy Trump yelling "fake news".
Back when I still thought Axl Rose was a could do no wrong, a rebel hero who had courageously escaped a hellish small-town disreputable dishwasher fate, not unlike my own, the misunderstood, fucking innocent, ginger haired, rural Mike Monroe from the corn-fed Midwest, I recall him wearing an old school Junkyard t shirt in all those "Circus" and "Hit Parader" pinups I had taped all over the walls of my first shoebox bachelor apartment that the totally New Wave love of my young life had helped me paint purple.
I really thought I'd arrived! We had a promising basement-show punk band, in those days, but we still lived in a shitty, dumb, nothing to do, farm town straight out of the saddest Bob Seger songs. I never liked the bigoted, cross-eyed rednecks at the veterans halls, the musclebound, bullying suburban jocks in the Camaro's, the racist history teaching wrestling coaches, the sports-bar drunkards with the barbecue stains, the Izod shirted country-club conformists, nutty extremist church crazies, or dickhead fratboy cops. I never liked their bullshit hierarchy, kneejerk customs, hazing rituals, or boot camp drill sergeant, behavior modification tactics, not to mention, their senseless cruelty and complete lack of style.
There might be some irony in the band name considering their obsession with ‘70s glam rock, but Smash Fashion are from Los Angeles so maybe not.
These veterans have been around for a dozen years in this form and call their music Dandy Rock. Even a cursory listen to the A side has Cheap Trick written all over it so it’s no surprise after some judicious online research to see them cited as a prime influence.
In the wake ‘n’ bake legal reefer for rich white people Portland woke college culture, any mention of Burroughs is severely frowned upon because the dude was a bad man who killed his wife, but he accurately predicted this whole modern day dystopian police state NSA culture of surveillance capitalism and snitches and official narrative protecting fact checkers thinking they are helpful helpers doing their part for vegan wokeness. Nobody has the right to be left alone anymore, or mind their own business. That is their college kid idea of virtue, being micro mini Judge Dredd/Judge Judyvigilante deciders. "I like you, I don't like you." They all wanna be the jury, judge, and executioner, and the judgements are severe, as Leonard Cohen sang, in his prophetic, "Waiting For The Miracle To Come".
Consider yourself lucky if you still have access to Vive Le Rock magazine from Merry Olde. They still write about real rock ‘n’ roll! That mag might write about the Cult, the Damned, Psychedelic Furs, or the Jesus & Mary Chain. They still put The Clash right there on the cover! Ya know?
I’m still livin’ in the’80s. I was mostly into like, Prince, Duran Duran, David Bowie, and Adam Ant, but I hung around with like the stoner heavy metal dudes who liked Ozzyand Dio and shit. Think “Beavis N Butthead”. That shit was real.
I miss newsstands and comic book and record stores, print media. I still don’t carry an iPhone. Where I live. Amazon killed all the book stores and the free press is dead in my country. Daniel Hale, Craig Murray, Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, John Kiriakou, Col. Ann Wright, Ray McGovern...all the real whistleblowers are slandered, hounded, tortured or kidnapped. Seymour Hersh is blacklisted. Max Blumenthal gets harassed. Amy Goodman sadly works for billionaires now and helps sell pro war narratives. Abby Martin, Ben Norton, Jeremy Scahill, John Pilger, and Glenn Greenwald get ignored. Color me depressed.
Where they’ve come from is academic; it’s where Fast Cars are now that counts. The onetime ‘80s Sydney mod-power-pop band has been a creative duo since reforming in 2015, working on opposite sides of the globe. “LAX” suggests distance only makes the creative muse all that much stronger.
“LAX” is what people used to call a “concept album” - back when single song downloads weren’t the staple currency of the musical economy. I know what you’re thinking: Concept equals Pretentious. Wrong. “LAX” stays well away from that precipice. It’s 12 songs of classy psych pop, alternately dreamy and lush, occasionally funky or wrapped in strings, and framed loosely on the theme of seeking your dreams in a big city.
“LAX” is also a Dropbox record. Dropbox is the cloud app that’s become stock-in-trade for projects like this. With vocalist-guitarist Di Levi based in Bristol, UK, and guitarist-songwriter Fabian Byrne living in Sydney, Australia, the swapping of ideas, sketches, recorded parts and, ultimately, fleshed-out songs, had to occur online.
Our common friend and fellow traveller, the outrageously talented Tom Sanford of Winter Killsand Beachwood Sparks, introduced me to Evad Frommein some secret rebel rocker social media group online about a decade ago.
We became fast friends and kindred brethren.
Evad is one of the best frontmen and underground rock ‘n’ roll performers and songwriters in the Divided States Of Fear And Slavery we've seen since probably the long gone heyday of Raji's and English Acid, when bands like Celebrity Skin and Stars From Mars and Raw Flower and the purple-haired Zeros ruled the dive bars.
Of course ever since the mid-‘90s, the Wall Street land barons have been tearing down all of rock ‘n’ roll's most venerated landmarks, from CBGB to Tower on Sunset, to build always more unattainable, prohibitively expensive condos and hotels for lawless hedge fund managers and big pharma and private prison shareholding rich people. In the war crazed USA! USA! mockingbird Big 5 corporate mainstream, the entire media has been disgracefully hijacked and weaponized to promote forever war and a fascist police state for the past 25 years. So no high quality rock’n’ roll gets heard on our public airwaves. They can't ever really kill it, but it's all back underground, now.
“…there’s pretty things in Palookaville…” - Pat Todd & The Rankoutsiders (Hound Gawd!)
Unless you’re one of the lucky few you won’t have yet heard the latest album from ex-Lazy Cowgirls frontman Pat Todd and his pack of old stagers, The Rank Outsiders. So what’s the point of a song-by-song description? You’ll forget the song titles before you clap ears on the real things, anyway. So let’s dispense with that bullshit and tell you how it will make you feel, instead…
Slap it onto the turntable or whack it into the player. Crank it. Good and loud. The opening G chord of “All The Years #1” kicks in and hangs in the air, and it’s like an old friend just walked in the door with a case of cold beers and a headful of fresh stories.
It’s all jagged riffs and Todd’s impassioned vocal, urgent and insistent. It sounds immediately familiar, yet fresh, a menu of yarns set to punkish, rootsy rock and blues, basted in minor chords and a harmonica dry rub, and roasted in a slow cooker.
Pat Todd is one of the greats of American music in recent times. I say that not just because he has one hell of a set of pipes on him, and is an incredible songwriter, but because he’s also combined elements of garage, punk and country all into one mix. I can’t think of anyone that has done that as long as he has, or has done it so well.
Todd makes music that I find hard to believe anyone could dislike. He’s one of the great American songwriters. Todd formed his latest outfit The Rankoutsiders in the mid-2000s and they pick up where his legendary group the Lazy Cowgirls left off. Their latest release “…….there’s pretty things in Palookaville”is up there with his best work, but every LP he does is brilliant and it’s hard to pick a standout “classic”.Pat spoke to me from his Los Angeles homebase via Zoom, where Rankoutsiders guitarist Nick Alexandergreets me before Pat comes on.
"There is nothing to win by this kind of an outcry..." -Richard Hell
"Everything is really hard, if you ain't got that credit card."-Iggy Pop
Old grape popsicles don't expire, they just get freezer burnt.
Back in my bespangled youth, there was no Internet and no downloadable sound files you could carry around in your hand-held Orwell gadget. We had, like, Walkman's and a couple of cassettes, if we were lucky, you know? If we got real enterprising, we'd spring for all those big batteries to power up our boom boxes, with all the band stickers on it, but it costs a lot to keep those machines blaring, especially if you hung out with a ragamuffin lot of heavy metal kids, Stooges heads, and ersatz break-dancers.
Rock 'n' roll sounds still mostly came on collectible black platters with colorful picture sleeves, but you had to send cash away for it in the mail, relying on the honor of scuzzy rascals, and every so often, you might get chumped. 'Had to figure, somebody must be awful hard up, to rip off their own fans. There was no Pay-Pal, you just paid your pals.
Making orange juice from oranges...Sid Griffin and The Long Ryders. Tom Gold photo.
“There wasn’t anything called Americana when we started, but we helped create it, so I’m happy to be associated with it,” Long Ryders singer and guitarist Sid Griffin laughs, when I ask him if he has any empathy with the loosely-defined genre. “I like the Americana thing. I’m not one of those guys who says their band aren’t this or that.”
But while The Long Ryders were at the vanguard of the movement – as well, from a different musico-cultural perspective, the so-called Paisley Underground scene of the early 1980s, Griffin reckons Americana existed long before The Long Ryders formed in LA in 1980.
“People say that Sun Records was Americana, because of the marriage of rhythm and blues with country and western. But the other one that people miss is The Lovin’ Spoonful. They’re definitely Americana. Americana has always been here. No-one said Americana or alt.country until the end of The Long Ryders’ days.”
By the time me and a flamehaired stripper with a sports car arrived in Hollywood, to look for the pot of gold at the end of the Rainbow Bar And Grill, it was mostly all over.
We were snorting up the last hours of sequins and vulgarity, mascara and laughter before the bad trip buzzkill of Cobain. We were squinting in the last blinding, big sprays of Aqua Net and final drunken caterwauls at Thursday night cattle calls, where a rogues' gallery of various whiskey sodden, speed freaky, Stars From Mars and Seaweed Eaters and Raw Flowers and Glamour Punks and Dawg Mafia and Queeny Blast Pop diehard, teased haired, Motley-Babies played their hopeless gutter-punk defiantly, even while Seattle was exploding into the mainstream.
It was the sad, last gasps of a cool and androgynous underground scene, as grunge and gangsta-rap and capitalist lifestyle unreality-tv programming were coming into vogue and all the faded spandex stars of the strip had mostly got rich and sold-out, died, or gone straight.
Electric Junk - Jeff Dahl (Iwannabeahoople Records/Ghost Highway Recordings)
Jeff Dahl w,as born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1955 and then relocated to Hawaii in 1960. He moved to Los Angeles and the rest is SoCal punk rock history.
This most underrated singer-guitarist has released about 26 albums, serving time in the wonderful Angry Samoans and going on to play with with Cheetah Chrome (Dead Boys) ,members of The Germs and 45 Graves, and collaborating with Poison Idea. Not a bad rap sheet. He's now living back in Hawaii.
Receiving Jeff's new album, "Electric Junk", I was very exited to hear some new tunes from this living legend. Let me tell you: It just rocks with those songwriting and guitar playing skills shining like a harsh Hawaiian sun.
There’s no-one better qualified to decry “this counterfeit world” than Pat Todd as he does on the opening cut of the same name on his new album.
You might think of it as just another European label re-issuing an American artist’s old work on vinyl - a smart commercial move because nobody in Europe buys albums on CD - if they can help it.But you should consider Hound Dawg Records' engineering the re-appearance of the first record for Pat Todd’s post-Lazy Cowgirls outfit as a public service. Here’s why:
Once upon a time, in the relatively genteel state of Virginia, there was a self-destructive punk rock band called The Candy Snatchers. Named after a trashy crime flick, they spilt beer and bled all over American stages before their guitarist prematurely shuffled off this mortal coil a decade ago, and they promptly fell apart.
When both irretrievably corrupt, collaborating, billionaire owned, fat cat political parties are 100 percent complicit in knowingly propping up completely fabricated, mythological stories to manufacture consent for a babies in cages prison state and permanent lies for imperialist wars for the insatiable profits of the one percent, hungry ghost, demonic extortionists at the top, it is absolutely essential that we, the people, educate our peers, and organize authentic resistance, and become the new media.
All That Shines Under The Hollywood Sign by Iris Berry 
Down on 7th Avenue b/w I will Give up – Pat Todd and The Rankoutsiders (Dangerhouse/Heavy Medication)
Mess You Up – JJ and The Real Jerks
"The idea that 'disinformation' is something that just happened during the last four years is absurd. How did the U.S. public become the most ill-informed, easily manipulated public on the planet if not as a result of systematic 'disinformation' from the rulers? Now these same rulers want to 'regulate' social media speech." - Ajamu Baraka
"Seems like yesterday, but it was long ago...."
There might be some irony in the band name considering their obsession with ‘70s glam rock, but Smash Fashion are from Los Angeles so maybe not. 
Cactusville – The Hangmen (Acetate Records)
David Roach (centre) and Junkyard.
Where they’ve come from is academic; it’s where Fast Cars are now that counts. The onetime ‘80s Sydney mod-power-pop band has been a creative duo since reforming in 2015, working on opposite sides of the globe. “LAX” suggests distance only makes the creative muse all that much stronger. 
Our common friend and fellow traveller, the outrageously talented Tom Sanford of Winter Killsand Beachwood Sparks, introduced me to Evad Frommein some secret rebel rocker social media group online about a decade ago.
“…there’s pretty things in Palookaville…” - Pat Todd & The Rankoutsiders 
Michael Passman photo.
Old grape popsicles don't expire, they just get freezer burnt.
Making orange juice from oranges...Sid Griffin and The Long Ryders. Tom Gold photo. 
By the time me and a flamehaired stripper with a sports car arrived in Hollywood, to look for the pot of gold at the end of the Rainbow Bar And Grill, it was mostly all over.
Electric Junk - Jeff Dahl (Iwannabeahoople Records/Ghost Highway Recordings)