pat todd

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:

DERRICK OGRODNY
Heavy Medication Records honcho
Warsaw, Poland

To be honest, 2020 wasn’t too big of a train wreck for me. I generally work remotely, so there was no adjustment to the joys and pitfalls of working from home. Even though live concerts were few and far between, I still managed to catch a few great ones before the gates closed. (Poison Heart’s Ten-Year Anniversary gig and an aurally hallucinogenic set by Brazil’s Rakta come to mind.)

Alas, some long-anticipated plans got scrapped (some well-paying DJ gigs, a Heavy Medication LabelFest with Puffball and Hell Nation Army in Berlin, travelling somewhere to catch Pat Todd & the Rankoutsiders on their European tour), but new plans rose out of the ashes of the fallen ones to make the best out of a bad situation. But more on that later…

Here are some things I dug in 2020:

1.) Smalltown Tigers “Five Things” mini-album(Area Pirata Records)
Loud guitars, catchy tunes and simplicity have always worked in punk rock’s favor, and these three Italian chicas (sorry, regazze) follow this recipe while mixing in their own sonic special sauce through the eight songs on this tasty debut platter. The Ramones and Runaways are obvious reference points (especially Valli’s gritty Joan Jett growl), but these Tigers manage to sound both ferocious and sweet at the same time. The no-frills execution and earworm-quality of the songs kept me playing this mini-LP on endless repeat. Listen up here.

Down on 7^th 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 7^th 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. 

Buy it  

Sons Of The City Ditch – Pat Todd and The Rankoutsiders (Dog Meat)

Pat Todd and The Rankoutsiders albums are like hernia operations: You don’t know you need one until somebody tells you, and then you can’t do without it. “Sons Of The City Ditch” is the outfit’s seventh long player and is no less desirable than the six that came before it.

You can jump anywhere into the Rankoutsiders discography and you’ll come up smelling like roses, but if you’re popping your cherry you might as well do it with this one. It’s on resurgent Australian label, Dog Meat,who purveyed some prime rock and roll beef back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and it’s going to be considerably easier to find than the rest of the back catalogue. 

Bonus points: Pat is about to embark on an extensive Australian solo tourso you can ask him to sign a copy. 

Broooooce Springsteen? Can’t abide him. It’s OK if you do. Different strokes for different folks, right? He’s well and truly present on this three-tracker CD - at least in spirit - but I like it in spite of that.

Like Broooce, Joe Normal and The Anytownr’s frontman Joe Normal grew up among the factories of New Jersey - before making a break for L.A. So the bio says. And he’s landed on Pat (Lazy Cowgirls) Todd’s Rankoutsider Records. Now you’re talking…

Rankoutsider is an outpost of genuine rock and roll, stripped back to its roots rather than wrapped up in ideas of blandness and mainstream acceptance. Joe Normal is backed by journeymen players whose curriculum vitae includes Stiv Bators, Sussana Hoffs, Syl Sylvain and Izzy Stradlin.So they’ve been around. 

Resurgent Ausitralian label Dog Meat Records is thrilled and proud to release a new album by a resurgent rock 'n' roller and an old friend Pat Todd and his band The Rankoutsiders.

“Sons Of The City Ditch” is the seventh album by LA's finest rock'n'roll band and comes some 36 years after Dog Meat’s first dalliances with Pat, back when he fronted the legendary Lazy Cowgirls. 

The new album shows that Pat’s voice and songwriting have only gotten stronger, and that he's got another killer band behind him, one that mixes classic '70s punk rock roots with country, blues and rock'n'roll in a manner that sits somewhere between “Exile on Main Street” and “LAMF”.

Pat Todd will be touring Australia solo, in a double-bill with Mad Macka from The Cosmic Psychos and The Onyas in late 2023. Stay tuned for details.

The new album is highlighted, as usual, by Todd's fantastic songs. A prolific writer with an eye on life in the margins - whether they be in small towns or the big sprawling city he has called home for 40 years - Todd routinely hits the mark where youth and the advancement of age find common ground in alienation and wilfulness. 

Americana Rock and Roll is the new black. No, make that orange. Or whatever colour’s in vogue this week. Make no mistake though: If the trend stays still for five minutes, Jeremy & The Harlequins will be huge.

Jeremy & The Harlequins are from Brooklyn, which is the epicentre of what’s left of New York City’s rock and roll scene. Before that, Jeremy and brother-drummer Stephan came from Toledo, Ohio, where they assembled The Harlequins from remnants of other NYC bands. Their first album was mixed by Matt Verta Ray (Heavy Trash) so you know what sound they were shooting for.

You Might Be Through With The Past, But The Past Ain’t Through With You b/w Ruby Baby – Pat Todd and The Rankoutsiders (Heavy Medication)

Ex-Lazy Cowgirlsleader Pat Todd makes records that his contemporaries wish they could. If you ever see an album by Todd and his band The Rankoutsidersin the wild, just grab it.  Get your hands on this non-album track 45 on Polish label Heavy Medicationas well.

“You Might Be Through With The Past…” is a prime slice of Americana-via-Chicago-blues goodness with blazing blues harp, bristling guitars, a willing engine room and the knowing vocal of Mr Todd dishing it all up with a side of punk rock attittude. It’s the same crew that brought you “…there’s pretty things in Palookaville…” (on Hound Gawd! Records), one of the best records of 2021 bar none.

Flip it and you get a good-time take on the Leiber and Stoller song “Ruby Baby”, a standard that’s been done to death by evertone from The Beach Boys to Dion. In the hands of Todd and Co, it’s spraypainted with a liberal coat of rough ‘n’ roll charm to sound damned near brand new. Raucous and righteous! Don't walk, run, the purchase link is below.

Buy it 

Exile in Warsaw: All Down The Line – Pat Todd and The Rankoutsiders b/w Rip This Joint – Guerilla Teens (Heavy Medication Records)

From a selfish perspective, this is canny timing. The Stones have a formidable new album out and Pat Todd is embarking on a solo tour of Australia. If you’re a regular I-94 Barfly you’ll know that anything with the band moniker “Rankoutsiders” on it rocks like a motherfucker and this split 45 on Poland’s greatest rock and roll label (hence its title) is more proof.

Pat’s beefy delivery isn't close to a Jagger drawl but sits just right regardless, doing justice to the loose and limber original. The guitar pairing of Nick Alexander and Kevin Keller live up to the Taylor-Richards combo that came before them. There’s no radical re-arrangement evident or needed, just a killer band revelling in playing a great song.   

Flip it and it’s more Stones circa “Exile”, this time from Portland, Oregon. Fiery five-piece Guerilla Teens rip you a new one. Vocalist Deaf Jeff (aka Scott "Deluxe" Drake, ex-Humpers) hangs on for grim deaf as his veteran band runs through one of the Stones’ finest boogie moments a few miles per hour faster than the original. The Thunderesque guitarwork is icing on this cake. The mark of a good cover is when it leaves you wanting to hear some originals and this ticks the box. 

Buy it

Keeping Chaos at Bay – Pat Todd & The Rankoutsiders (Hound Gawd)

Let’s level up: We’re on a Pat Todd and The Rankoutsiders jag at the I-94 Bar and it’s a jones that can only be satisfied by more of the L.A. band’s trademark Heartbreakers punk ‘n’  Stonesy roots Rock Action.

This is their third killer long-player in as many years – their second in six months! - and the prospect of a tour of Australia later this year just increases the high-rotation.

So if “Keepin' Chaos At Bay” confirms the purple patch that is “Sons of The City Ditch” (2013) and “…There’s Pretty Things In Palookaville” (2021) - the keen-eyed will note there’s an EP and some seven-inchers sandwiched in there, too - and you’re one of the uninitiated, well you’re entitled to ask, Why?

Cosmic Psychos guitarist Mad Macka has announced a run of shows with him double-billed with legendary Los Angeles figure Pat Todd.

Pat Todd is best known as front man for hugely influential rock'n'roll-punk band The Lazy Cowgirls from the early '80s to the early '00s, and more recently for his great high energy rock'n'roll band Pat Todd & The Rankoutsiders.

“…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.

 ^{Michael Passman photo.}

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.

Pat Todd
+ Mad Macka
Golden Barley Hotel, Enmore, NSW
Saturday, 25 November 2023 

Australian music legend and label owner Sebastian Chase once said to me: “Punk rock is folk music with volume - street music, if done right”. And with local bands like Cosmic Psychos and X, a case can certainly be prosecuted that street music and its stories can be  found in bars and pubs across the land.

Mad Macka has played his fair share of pubs and bars for almost 40 years, originally with The Onyas and lately with Cosmic Psychos. Macka’s music mirrors what you’ll still see and hear in drinking establishments across the land: cynical yarns by blokes on the punt and into their sixth schooner.

Americana is a term that excuses all sorts of sins. It’s so sweeping as to be meaningless - and it’s been homogenised to the point of dross - so let’s not speak of it again.

Some folks call Pat Todd “Americana” and it doesn’t remotely cover what he and his Los Angeles-based Rankoutsiders play. They’ve been tagged “Mellencamp with the Les Paul turned right up” by one reviewer, which is a bona fide compliment if you ignore the stuff that charted in Australia…

So, the fifth Rankoutsiders album, “The Past Came Callin’”, is rootsy and muscular rock and roll, an amalgam of rock, country, blues and everything in-between, and a contender for their best yet.

What makes the 14 tracks on “The Past Came Callin’” stand out? The songwriting, for one. Pat Todd doesn’t do mawkish sentimentality and writes from the heart. These are a mix of old and new songs, stories about relationships and crimes - which we all know are sometimes one and the same thing.

The surging, urgent guitars of Nick Alexander and Kevin Keller are another distinctive plus. Like Thunders with a clear head or Keef with a new-found dose of inspiration and less noodling, these guys make you take notice of every lick and steamrolling riff.

 
Frank Meyer (Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs, Trading Aces, Highway 61) Top Ten Records for 2023:

Another year of almost zero fun in Sin City (if not the rest of Oz/the rest of this mortal coil/earth) for most of us/those in the lower/working class, some relief could be found through the following Top 10...

Margo Price - "Strays" album

Lucinda Williams - "Stories from a Rock-n-Roll Heart" album

Eilen Jewell - "Get Behind The Wheel" album

Lydia Loveless - "Nothing's Gonna Stand In My Way Again" album

Cable Ties - "All Her Plans" album

Leah Senior - "The Music That I Make" album

Pat Todd / Mad Macka @ Golden Barley Hotel, Sydney 

The Mezcaltones (CD launch) @ Marrickville Bowling Club, Sydney

_{At the MoshPit Bar in Sydney. Sandra Kingston photo} 

Celia Curtis’ Top Ten-ish of 2021 (in no particular order)

Pat Todd & The Rank Outsiders - “...there’s pretty things in Palookaville...” Album.
Sixteen songs from the Punk/ Country/ Blues/ Rock’n’roll master craftsman. Pat Todd is the real deal! Sure, it’s not as instantaneously enthralling as 2008’s “Holdin’ on to Troubles Hand”; But seriously, SHOW ME AN ALBUM THAT IS? “..pretty things” grows on you like a stubborn fungus.

Literally anything Pat does in a year is Top 10 worthy. Luckily he put this record out so I didn’t have to rate one of his turds. (Which would have been good shit by the way).

 _{Josie Jose photo}

Best Albums of 2021 (not in order)

Blowers – “Blowers”  
In the tradition of Jay Reatard and the Oblivions, Blowersare a band that proves less is more. Killer bare basics, as well as plenty of humour. One take, if there’s a mistake, fuck it, that’s the take. This LP is prime example of garage rock at its purists and best.

Civic – “Future Forecast”
After a few brilliant EPs it’s great to finally get a full Civicrelease. Combining elements of ‘90s Melbourne rock and US 2000s gunk rock, this stayed on the turntable for a good fortnight.

Cutters – “Australian War Crimes”
Six tracks clocking in at 10 minutes, including a diss on Rye, a suburb I don’t care for, and the title track, a reaction to revelations of Australian SAS soldiers’ behaviour in Afghanistan. Brutal and superb.