Poor For Life: Cars Can Be Blue - World Premiere

Modern rock n rollers are running for cover in abandoned warehouses, crash pads, and under the boardwalk (usually a friend’s apartment). Hipster clogged social scenes, personality tests for low wage jobs, and online dating sites (credit check included) totally rule the day. You wanna know what I figured out? It’s a lot easier and way more fun to stay “Poor for Life”, like the latest video from Cars Can Be Blue says. With its snotty and treasonous sophistication, this mesmerizing train wreck of the Waitresses and Angry Samoans is ready to get under your skin. Hotwired jolts of punkified garage-pop deliver a new anthem for bombshell slackers and barstool poets across the globe.

Their new album Trace the Tension fiendishly smiles while destroying all stereotypes of the musical genres it fuses together for its rabid auditory assault. Memorable choruses, fuzzy chord slamming, and a punchy poisoned candy beat keep this maniacal whirlwind of hooks rolling at the speed of light. Tracks such as You Gave Me, You Should be Begging, Don’t Tell Me, and I am a Slut knock you upside the head with punk prowess, scathing lyrics, and eccentric syncopation.

This outfit from Athens, Georgia gives us the uniquely smokin’ vocals of Becky Brooks. She nails the tracks with an aloof confidence that never second-guesses itself. A nice spattering of gritty hard-core male vocal tracks compliment this perfect album of punk infused indie garage. From the land of the B-52’s and indie pop as we know it, comes a brutal and conniving force of intelligent and obscene punk hipness.

I’ve been asking for new music that doesn’t suck in 2014 and finally found it. This album is very fucking cool. Keeping reality in perspective, the lyrics make keen observations of the absurd and sometimes dismal world we all inhabit. I give this tightly wound bottle of mayhem five out of five stars, and I don’t even have a star rating system. Word…

Kevin McGovern, F&L LB 2014
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J.D. Wilkes, Dirt Daubers, and a Wild Moon

I used to know this girl... she traveled with our loosely knit gang of party crashers. Everyone was mismatched, bored, and distracted. All of us would hit the dive bar/show scene and eventually exit back to someone’s place for afterhours binging. The two of us would anticipate the end of the night when everyone else would pass out, go home, or just give up. We always kept a hidden stash of prime candy for the “real horror show” at 3 a.m. We would lay on the floor in a corner with a tiny stereo and listen to Bo Diddley’s “Mona” and Iggy’s “Dog Food”. Both of us were seeing other people but we preferred the cagey rendezvous instead of traditional “dating”, which seemed so lame. Those after-midnight lo-fi sounds echoed our infatuation and amoral purity with a particular black magic, the kind that recklessly drives the primal swamp hip shake of J.D. Wilkes and the Dirt Daubers in their latest offering of “Wild Moon".

The album blasts off with “French Harp Hustle”, a rollicking firestorm that features Wilkes wailing on the harmonica like a man possessed. A masterful hustling of insane garage-swing is unleashed. Rolling rockabilly drumming with evil blues guitar, frenzied harmonica, and gritty male/female vocals hijack your eardrums with endless manic energy. The tracks “Wild Moon” and “Drive” display Wilkes uncanny ability to spike moody garage punk with sophisticated vocal melody. If that wasn’t enough to get your heart beating faster, Jessica Wilkes smoky vocals provide the ultimate compliment to this country punk free for all.

Like a cross between Wanda Jackson and Exene Cervenka, her voice has a bite to it that I’ve never heard before. Tracks like “You Know I Love You” and my personal favorite “No Rest for the Wicked”, rumble and shake like an apocalypse of the finest caliber. “No More My Love” is a bluesy ballad with that sad feeling of watching the sun come up while trying to hold onto the night that just happened. “Wild Moon” is a necessary listen for wild and haunted spirits everywhere. By the way, Cheetah Chrome produced and released this on his hot new label, Plowboy Records. J.D. and The Daubers are hitting Los Angeles and Long Beach this weekend. Check out the dates and following interview I just did with J.D. a few days ago.

Jan 18 Redwood Bar & Grill Los Angeles, CA
Jan 19 Alex's bar Long Beach, CA

(F&L) Manic blues grinding, the supernatural, and LAMF gusto collide into one perfect explosion for the new video/single Wild Moon. What influenced the erotic riffs and video imagery of this contagious Dirt Daubers tune?

(JDW) "Wild Moon" is about a tragic event that took place a few years back, one involving a flood that swept away a buggy full of Amish children.
It's odd that "erotic" would be used to describe anything Amish, but I'll take it! I guess our guitarist has a knack for making any kind of song "sexy."...

What was it like collaborating with legendary Dead Boy Cheetah Chrome for the Wild Moon album? Did the band tap into unknown areas of its “possessed” prowess?

Cheetah is a legendary punk rock star, so he helped keep the tunes edgy and raw throughout the entire process. Although he lives in Nashville now, he definitely is the antithesis of the slick sound that comes out of Music Row these days.

As leader of the infamous country punk troublemakers The Legendary Shack Shakers, you toured with artists ranging from Rancid to Hank Williams III. How would you describe your experience in the swamp of underground rock n roll?

The Shack Shakers helped forge a new genre that mixes all the dark, edgy sub-genres of American music into one. It was fun to play around with blues, rockabilly, polka and bluegrass and discover the common elements that make crowds go wild.

Your frontman style evokes the ghosts of Iggy Pop and Screamin Jay Hawkins, what inspired you to take the stage early on in your career and create the man known as J.D. Wilkes?

I have been playing in bars since I was a teenager, but after seeing Mojo Nixon and Jim Heath perform roots music in an edgy way I knew I wanted to take it further. Since then I have become more of a student of American roots music and am playing catch-up to inform myself and others of the wealth of old-time talent still among us today.

You’ve received mention as a favorite of Stephen King and your song Swampblood was featured in the insanely popular True Blood. What is the connection between your self-expression and art that embraces horror and the paranormal?

Having been raised in the church and educated at a holy-roller private school I have witnessed firsthand the supernatural power of music and faith. I believe the missing element in much of what qualifies as "southern gothic" are the subjects of faith and folklore.There's something to be said for our shared cultural "blood memory" and the arcane ways the Unknown expresses itself.

You play harmonica the same way Robert Johnson twisted a fret board. Your style is hypnotic on Dirt Daubers tunes such as Wake Up Sinners, one of my all-time favorites. How did you learn to harness the wild energy of blues harp?

I overdosed on Sonny Boy Williamson and Paul Butterfield as a kid. I remember the sensation of the first note I "bent" on a harmonica. It almost seemed to scratch an itch in my brain! I listened to lots of styles of music and tried to absorb it all. From blues to Dixieland jazz to beer commercials. It was all up for grabs.

With the latest Dirt Daubers record, you moved away from a demonic, honky-tonk acoustic approach to a guitar heavy landslide of hip grinding rock n roll. What was the catalyst to go back into a style somewhat similar to The Legendary Shack Shakers?

Jessica and I share more musical common ground in our mutual love of blues and classic R&B. My heart is still in old-time music but the current DD sound allows for a wider range of sonic possibilities, from rockabilly to blues to hot jazz and swamp rock.

As an author, could you tell us a little about your latest book Barn Dance & Jamborees Across Kentucky?

I made it my mission to travel from one end of my state to the other to chronicle the last throes of our indigenous musical culture. I fear regional American cultures are in danger of disappearing with each passing year. This is just my little way of giving back...a small valentine to the old-time music of Kentucky and the "Greatest Generation" that play it from a more honest and experienced place in their hearts.

As a filmmaker, actor, author, and musician, do you find these different forms of expression to be different dimensions of your personality?

I actually see them all as the same part of my personality, just expressed differently. All art forms follow the same story arc... A sort of "bell curve" dynamic that hooks you in, ramps up, then down, and crescendos to a climactic finale. Learning the methods of each craft is the more daunting challenge, but I'm always up for new things.

I find it really cool that you share the Dirt Daubers with your wife Jessica. In some instances, a marriage can cause an artist to “settle down” for lack of a better term. Your marriage seems to ignite the music of the Dirt Daubers in a unique fashion with your sharing of vocal duties. How did you two meet and what is it like touring together?

We met through a mutual friend in Chicago. We bonded over a shared love of comics but then discovered we had musical aspirations in common too. I think Jessica is a star waiting to happen. She writes from a more accessible place (while I write songs about Amish people!) and looks and sounds great on stage. She's also easy going on the road, moreso than many male bandmates I've had the misfortune of touring with in the past. I'm very proud of her.

What does 2014 hold in store for the Dirt Daubers and what are you looking to achieve with your latest album and other unique creations?

If we can make a living recording and performing honest music coast-to-coast and worldwide, drawing comics and writing stories about cool stuff that matters, making short films and not getting day jobs... then THAT is our Grammy Award

Kevin P McGovern, 2014
Fear and Loathing in Long Beach
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INTERVIEW:GENERATION X AND EMPIRE 'S DERWOOD ANDREWS

Bob Derwood Andrews is the legendary guitar player on the explosive Generation X debut from 1978 and its polarizing follow-up, Valley of the Dolls. Required listening is Andrew’s amazing band Empire and the “Expensive Sound” LP, which influenced many bands to come in the following decades. His latest solo outings in the Tone Poet Volumes are worthy listens of a master guitar player in his prime. Enjoy…

I wanted to let you know that since I bought my first Generation X album in 1986 during grade school, your guitar style and solos to this day get my adrenaline rushing. In my opinion, it was Hendrix and Townshend for a new generation of disenfranchised youth. When did you start playing and what were the early influences that helped shaped your style?

Well thanks, my elder Cousin first showed me some chords when I was about nine. His elder Brother was in the Canterbury scene as a bass player with bands like Caravan ect. As a kid it was cool to hang out with players and then when I saw Chuck Berry on TV it blew me away, also a band called The Nice was on TV and seeing them smash their shit up stuck with me…
At that young age I began to discover that raucous playing along with racing motorcycles was a simi-lar rush. At the age of sixteen I was faced with a choice of professional Speedway or jamming in my room with my mates. I chose music, but will never forget the feeling of seeing my motorcycle, leath-ers, helmet and trailer leaving my house forever and walking back into the house to look at my young decision, a Japanese Tele and Orange combo. My personal guitar influences are (in no or-der), Jimi Hendrix, Bo Diddley, Ritchie Black-more, Rory Gallagher, Robin Trower, Wilko Johnson, Mick Ronson, Buddy Guy, and many more but top of the list is Paul Kossoff, why? Passion and minimal...

The guitar solo at the end of “Youth, Youth, Youth” was listed as one of the greatest all time rock solos, I used to lift the needle off of the vinyl to repeat the ending part and air guitar to it over and over again. What was that track like to record in the studio, was it done in one take?

We used to jump on my mates bed with tennis rackets to the Who's 'Young Man Blues' and trash his pillows in suburban Streatham too. 'Youth Youth Youth' is certainly not a great technical solo but, it WAS done in one take with a couple of pints of beer and a magic attitude of youthful angst.

“Running with the Boss Sound” was a track you penned for the Valley of the Dolls LP, I’ve heard so many punk bands try to emulate the opening guitar intro, the album itself was a perfect mixture of glam and raw punk. How had your style changed in the band by the time you were doing album number two?

I no more 'penned' that track than any other, but for some reason I got a writing credit. The style changed in as much as we had a famous 'rock-star' producer in Ian Hunter, a bigger budget, more time and a wider gap between the two older guys and me and Laff. It was actually heartbreaking for Mark Laff to be told by Ian, Billy and Tony that he was not going to play on this album and for him to choose a replacement drummer. He chose Clive Bunker from Jethro Tull and whilst teaching him the parts with two kits set up it was decided it sounded great with two drummers. If I took to long tuning up for an overdub I could see Tony James through the studio glass calling Chris Spedding! It wasn't the same camaraderie as the first album.

What were the best and worst memories of Generation X’s quick rise to the top during those days? How did your leaving of the band morph into the beginnings of the now legendary Empire?

The best memories were delivering the musical goods against violence and pure hatred from our peers and competition. And the worst memories were to watch what happened to people I considered good friends. I believed something way different from the actual situation, and was pretty much stunted and ignored. My job was to play great guitar, but the gap became so great between Billy, who after three years I couldn't stand the desperate sadness of, and Tony who was losing his position of visionary. When I was told it's NOT your band it's ours and don't play such good guitar and we don't want to hear your songs, I had to leave for my own sanity…

I love EMPIRE”S “Expensive Sound”, the track “Hot Seat” has the coolest guitar riff, were the compositions for EMPIRE intended for Gen X or originally written as a solo outing?

I actually think Expensive Sound was Generation X's fourth album after we fired Billy and Tony.

With your take on lead vocals for the LP, was it a new experience and do you prefer taking vocals or guitar on a project?

I get very little pleasure singing, but it's a case of would you rather teach someone else to sing your songs and be disappointed, or be disappointed with yourself…I'd take the latter.

I always thought Mark Laff was the new Keith Moon, do the two of you collaborate anymore?

I love Mark Laff dearly, we will always be in the same boat…with a leak!

Do you play out in California ever and are you working on any new projects?

I just re-released my first solo CD called 'Tone Poet V1'. It was made some 7 years ago from loose ends. But I am working on Volume 2 at the moment, it's all done on Lapsteel guitar on my own with me singing. I play at bars and churches and it's the loudest thing I've ever played...

Any plans in the future to reunite with any of the bands you’ve been in?

Not really, what's done is done and then move on somewhere else musically.

Looking back over your career, how do you think it changed you as an individual in your view of the world.

I think growing into being a unique individual, as we all are, is way more important than a career, and being proud of your past work is a bonus.

What made you decide on calling California home?

The love of a good woman and the weather…

Any last comments or thoughts?

I love Long Beach, I've been shot at through the restaurant window eating sushi, I spread a good friend’s ashes on the beach, seen a good few bands at Alex's and of course Gawd bless The Queen Mary. Thanks for the interest.

Kevin P McGovern, 2013
Fear and Loathing in Long Beach
F&L LB Facebook

random thoughts...

Music is a seductive creature, capable of arousing, angering, and inducing various states of consciousness. It always attacks me the same way a vivid memory does. The perfect song seems to place itself in the perfect memory, that one night you were looking for where the action was at, and you finally found it. You spend the rest of your life trying to reconstruct this thing but you’re never quite there, because the people, spaces, and dramatics cannot be duplicated. At best, you find something similar, maybe somewhere else, far away in an unknown time zone. Then just for a moment, you get to touch it and it runs away from you at a speed so fast you realize you’re just talking to yourself. Life twists its residents into a constant flux of fucking the past, attempting to fuck the present, and inducing fear of what will be fucking us over in the future.

So let us give thanks for being fucked-up strangers in a fucked-up new world crashing into each other. Blasphemy breeds independence and noncompliance gives premature birth to pretty creatures. The gift of rummaging through the dumpster makes us consume the failure of superficiality while collecting the remnants of unused genius. Treat yourself to a brisk walk afterwards, take a left at the next corner, and stroll down memory lane. Maybe you’ll see a new face there, one you’ve never seen before. You might find an unknown someone to help you chase “that thing” and realize it never left you.


Kevin P McGovern, November 2013

Fear and Loathing in Long Beach

REVIEW: CULTURES "TOURETTES" EP

Never hit on a dreadlocked blonde girl in a Sushi bar with a Nazi skinhead boyfriend, especially after consuming an impractical amount of LSD. An acid soaked rock n roll show I almost played. Seconds before I had the chance to ramble my mouth at the mic, the boyfriend came in brandishing a guitar that was death marked with “this is for that guy, the one up there at the front of the stage”. Was I about to stick around to get my head smashed while in the middle of an acid fantasia girl-bomb crush? No fucking way…. Time to get in the van and split ASAP! Check one, check two, and another fleeting chance to engage in destructive lust, damn. Well, on that sad note I welcome the super fucking cool CULTURES of Phoenix, Arizona and their incredible video for the soon to be underground smash hit, “1987”.


This omniscient production takes my loathsome brainwaves back to the days of those endless night punk house parties, where the music booms and the inhibitions let loose. Primal rock rhythms lead the way to unexpected conversations and outbursts of pure adrenaline. The band’s current EP release entitled “Tourettes” contains a noxious mix of Pistolian surf rhythms with Jesus and Mary Chain swagger, while shedding its own skin. The tracks are solid and this stands out from other bands doing lame renditions of these cool influences. The lead track “Tourettes” is distinctive with its subtle homage to New Order’s “Age of Consent”, the pounding tom-tom beats and spidery guitar lines drive this one all the way into the beautiful abyss. Check it out now, dig…

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-Kevin McGovern, 2013

NOVEMBER ISSUE ONLINE...read now if you'd like right here

The Newest Issue of F&L LB is online now. CLICK HERE to begin reading. Interviews with The Adicts, SFTRI, Henry Rollins, Honey Bane, Nina Antonia, ANTI, Helios Creed, Piñata Protest, Bob Derwood Andrews, Generation X, Exopolitics, The Urinals, Ava Adore, Teddie Dahlin, and more...

REVIEW: MAN HANDS, a Hot Mess of Prime Sonic Swill

What the Fuck is Going On? …The Phoenix band begs the question in the opening track “Misadventures”. This 7-track gathering of hot and scattered thoughts permeating through the Arizona heat blends “A Different Kind of Tension” and “Confusion Is Sex” into a hastily duct taped ransom package that contains an unstable libido. Led by digital airwave troublemakers Jackie Cruz and Marcus Berry, this album rawks incessantly in experimental noise variables with an emphasis on song and hook through the blurry emotions laid out for your ears. The combination of major and minor scales in the chording blares through with megaphone urgency. The vocals start coursing through your veins to remedy that itch you just can’t cure.

“Fatal Flaws” shakes up your lifeless soul with its spastic swing of dissonance and addictive chorus. I have seriously listened to this track like 50 times. This one is my new favorite as a prerequisite personal anthem to include in all of my questionable activities. Seriously fucking good folks. Choice cuts from this lethal and conniving affair of the poison heart include: “Misadventures”, “Fatal Flaws”, “Teenagers”, and the introspective jagged jangle of “Nothing Left For Me”.

I remember the last time I was in the Phoenix area. I was living with a girl at the time, she was obsessed with my past girlfriend named “Jen”. Drenched in delusional jealousy, everywhere she went, she saw the letter “J”, and kept picturing Jen with me. I went insane having to downplay my relationship with Ms. J to the girl I was dating and living with. It hit a boiling point and May Cause Dizziness Records from Phoenix offered to fly me out. I forgot to mention I was intoxicated for 48 hours straight before arriving at LAX. I’m not sure how I got to LAX or even how they let me board the plane, which I think I missed twice getting sidetracked in the airport bar. I made it to somewhere in Phoenix, I don’t recall how I handled myself after I emergency landed from the 45 minute flight. Wes of Erratic! Radio was my tour guide after Nate of MCD Recs turned in for the night. I was shipwrecked at Wes’s place for a few days, fucked up and thoroughly enjoying the contentment of numbness and pure irresponsibility. I jammed on a Prostitutes track or two with Wes, my girl ended up flying me back to LB. I think Nate and Wes were the only two guys to ever give me a “record release” party for “Kill Them Before They Eat” in 2008. That girl that flew me back, her name begins with a “J” too. That’s the best metaphor I can give for this must-have release. As always, I never review things that I do not like.

–Kevin McGovern


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