rankoutsiders

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. 

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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. 

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.

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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. 

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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.

 ^{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: