The Pleasure Barons - Live In Las Vegas (1993)

Led by the late, great, Country Dick Montana and featuring the Reverend Mojo Nixon and the incomparable Dave Alvin, the Pleasure Barons laid waste to rock and roll convention. Call it cow punk, psycho-billy, or pure mayhem, this CD is a monument to what makes rock great. It will never happen again.

The greatest supergroup never to be seen again. Perfect mix of drunken pyschos doing fantastic music that would make the clowns at The Rock and Roll Hall of Lame quake in their booties.

"Blasters guitarist Dave Alvin spent the early '90s touring with the Pleasure Barons, featuring Mojo Nixon and Beat Farmers drummer/singer Country Dick Montana. Their rowdy stage show was chronicled on a 1993 concert album that didn't include the following encounter with an audience member.

Some guy in the audience in Isla Vista was heckling me nonstop," Alvin told the Reader, "and Mojo...jumped off the stage, grabbed the loudmouth, threw him to the floor, and dry-humped him into submission while the audience cheered. The poor heckler -- after Mojo was finished punishing him -- ran out the front door and probably never heckled anyone again. When Mojo jumped back onstage, Country Dick said, 'Good job, Mojo. Please come by my room later.'"

Mojo Nixon, Country Dick Montana, and Dave Alvin's Pleasure Barons are described at Wikipedia.org as "a Las Vegas revue from acts who aren't going to be asked to play Vegas." A live album was released of a second Pleasure Barons tour in 1993." ~ Sandiegoreader.com

1. Closing Time
2. Take A Letter Maria
3. Who Do You Love?
4. Louisiana Lip Lock
5. Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant
6. Games People Play
7. Jackson
8. Amos Moses
9. Gangster Of Love
10. Elvis Is Everywhere
11. The Definitive Tom Jones Medley
( It's Not Unusual/Delilah/What's New )

The Pleasure Barons: Mojo Nixon, Country Dick Montana (vocals), Dave Alvin (vocals, guitar).
Additional personnel: Caren Abrams (vocals), Joey Harris (guitar), Jonny "Fucking" Viau (saxophone), Tim "Steelbone" Cook (trombone, steel guitar), Juke Logan (keyboards, harmonica), Gil T. (bass), Jerry Angel (drums), Paul Kamanski, Douglas Farage, David Farage (background vocals, percussion).



Caren Abrams - Choir, Chorus, Vocals
Chris Bellman - Mastering
Country Dick Montana - Liner Notes, Mixing, Producer, Vocals
Dave Alvin - Guitar, Vocals
David Farage - Choir, Chorus, Percussion
Douglas Farage - Choir, Chorus, Percussion
Gil T. - Bass
Jerry Angel - Drums
Joey Harris - Guitar
Johnny Logan - Harp, Keyboards
Johnny Viauk - Saxophone
Jonny Viau - Saxophone
Juke Logan - Harp, Keyboards
Lou Beach - Cover Design, Cover Montage
Mark Linett - Engineer, Mixing, Producer
Mojo Nixon - Vocals
Paul Kamanski - Choir, Chorus, Percussion
Terri Lande Bromberg - Art Direction
The Pleasure Barons - Main Performer
Tim Cook - Guitar (Steel), Trombone
Tim Steelbone Cook - Guitar (Steel), Trombone

TPB - LILV : Awright.....

The Goddamn Gallows - 2009 - Ghost of the Rails

2009 - Ghost of the Rails

Track Listing:

1.Heaven
2.Smoke Satan
3.Ghost Of The Rails
4.Pass The Bottle
5.Wanders
6.Shattered
7.City Of Hell A
8.Underneath The Stars
9.Smoke Stacks + Silos
10.Big Man
11.Planet Of The Apes
12.Ticket To Bleed

The Goddamn Gallows began on a cold, dark and violent night in Lansing, Michigan, when 3 kids met in a face-scarring fight with Benton Harbor gangbangers at a notorious East Lansing flophouse.  They then migrated across the country, residing in LA squats and smoke stained apartments.

They are currently ravaging the states with their unique sound of furious, twanged-out, punk rock gutterbilly. Watch for them on corners, clubs and city jails in your town. - taken from their Myspace

This is another personal favorite of mine from last year.  If you enjoyed any of my previous Country/Psychobilly/Punk posts then don't pass this up. 


Lord*Kur and Devildowninga, make sure you guys check this one out!!

UPDATED TO 320kbps!! 

Pass the Bottle

Ben Nichols - 2009 - The Last Pale Light in the West

The sparse, dark, and aggressive alt-country, bluegrass, and southern rock ballads of The Last Pale Light in the West are guttural poems set to knee slapping fireside guitar riffs. The 7-song CD is a short, but impressive, solo debut for Lucero lead singer Ben Nichols. It is reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 classic Nebraska. A stark recording, the only instruments on The Last Pale Light in the West are guitars, an accordion, a piano, and Nichol’s gruff, engaging voice.
The recording is a soft piece with grim themes. The guitars lead everything, while the pianos and accordions haunt the stories Nichols tells. All the songs are written by Nichols and based on the 1985 Cormac McCarthy novel Blood Meridian: or the Evening Redness in the West. McCarthy’s Meridian is considered by many to be a modern America classic of literature, a gritty western novel about a teenage runaway “the kid,” who joins a gang of scalp hunters who massacre Indians on the U.S.-Mexico border in the 1800s. The story is based on actual events and has been praised for it’s nightmarish beauty and magnificent language. As Nichols translates the novel into brief songs he displays his gift for crafting a story and delivering intricate emotions and settings through brief phrases.
Only one song on The Last Pale Light in the West is longer than five minutes, and the closing song is an instrumental tune. Nichols begins the album with the title song, which sets the theme for the album, telling the story of a remorseless character who is bound to go west. The second song is “The Kid” – a rolling biography of The Kid – a tune that tells of a forgotten child who meets up with the devil.
The lyrics throughout the album work in many of the characters and places from Blood Meridian, and Nichols powerfully sorrowful voice shines through crisply — thanks to engineering by Doug Easley — overtop the soft, or possibly barren and dead with a harsh blood-tinged wind blowing, musical landscape that Nichols and his two partners (Rick Steff on accordian and piano, and Todd Beene on guitar) produce.

Nichols’ minimal lyrics illustrate the bleak musical layout: “Don’t believe in Hell / But he figures somehow / Even if it’s real / It’s gonna spit him back out”; “I done some preachin’ back in Texas before the war / Now I hunt heathens ‘cause it pays better than the Lord / I ride with Demons / The Devil at my side / Be it us or the heathens, we must all pay a heavy price”; “They took my ears in Omaha / Thought me dead but I weren’t at all / Left them bleeding in the mud / Branded me for horse thievery / Between my eyes for all to see / Left them bleeding in the mud / When this world was made / Was never meant to save / Everyone in kind / And I don’t believe / God much had me / Had me much in mind”. His phrasing delivers coldness and despair with pinpoint accuracy.
The Last Pale Light in the West is a gorgeous black and white photo of a homeless man on a cold New York street. Neon lights are around the corner, but the dark alley is the only way to get there, and there is no guarantee that the neon lights will save anybody. Going down the alley is a scary prospect, but there may be no way to stop your momentum, so you sharpen your teeth and challenge the shadows to a duel.
- review by Mike Hammer located HERE 

2009 - The Last Pale Light in the West

Track Listing:

1. The Last Pale Light in the West
2. The Kid
3. Davy Brown
4. Chambers
5. Tobin
6. Toadvine
7. The Judge

This is essential!! Big thanks to Devildowninga for sending this one!

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