BRAVE COMBO 8/22, FITZGERALD’S This long-lived Texas band of roots defilers is finally poised to catch a wave–and what do they come up with but Group Dance Epidemic (Rounder), a collection of deliciously, straightforwardly annoying presentations of “The Hokey Pokey,” “The Mexican Hat Dance,” “The Hustle,” and other communal boogie-woogie. The whole thing sounds like the perfect record for your local hipster watering hole to play at last call to drive the drunks out. I can’t imagine I’ll ever listen to it again, but it was fun while it lasted.
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P.W. LONG’S REELFOOT 8/22, LOUNGE AXOn their stunning debut, We Didn’t See You on Sunday (Touch and Go), former Mule front man P.W. Long and a new band that includes ex-Jesus Lizard drummer Mac McNeilly take a few paces back from the city-slick final Mule album and spit a juicy wad of dark and biting power folk right into the can. Lord knows it’s quite a feat to write a song about a dog (“Aw Bruiser”) without sinking into schmaltz; I hope Long can keep his boots clean a while longer.
BLAKE MORGAN 8/26, metro The latest immigrant from the Generic Sensitive Rocker Planet has a clean, crunchy guitar sound and a nice glossy head shot. His management sent me chocolate, then took me for a ride in their shiny spaceship and showed me the secret vats where they breed their square-jawed, tousled drones and teach them key phrases like “Why don’t you see” and “Do you think it’s too late.” What a great job I have! Unfortunately I have a lingering rash from the experience, and they never did answer my key question: What the hell does an executive producer do on a record?
