Because of You - The Goon Mat and Lord Benardo Order You to Take Off Your Clothes

Any release that opens with "Because of You" deserves one's full and undivided attention. Garage blues, swamp stomp. Of course it's on Voodoo Rhythm Records because . . . well, that's what it's known for. 

The Goon Mat and Lord Benardo.

This release came out in late 2017. What a fuck-all year that was. Trump took an oath to serve the country . . . and promptly broke it. Immigration became the new war on poverty/drugs/terror. Somehow, in the midst of the chaos, this duo released audio godhood onto an unsuspecting public. Did Rollins even know about it? I hope so. I think he would have been grooving on it had he heard it.

Belgium. That's where this band formed. Belgium. How the fuck can a band from Belgium do American-style backwater blues better than those with red, white, and blue running thick through their veins? It would seem impossible. Should be impossible. Belgium doesn't have our history of slavery. Belgium doesn't have Mississippi John Hurt. How does this happen? It doesn't matter. 

Your job. Your only job (and it is one you can do easily and well) is to sit back and listen to these 11 soul crushing numbers. It begins with "Because of You" and ends with "Voodoo Got Me." In between there is a lot of drums, guitar, and harmonica. None of it is clean. All of it is pure. 

The letter that accompanied my copy of this release read that it wasn't "cutesy blues." Yeah, that shouldn't be a thing, but if it was, it would not be this. There's too much feedback. Too much noise. Too much movement. I think the closest thing in it to a "radio hit" is "Take Off Your Clothes" and that would only play in the dead of night somewhere in Kentucky for the few who are still awake.

This must be heard to be believed. This must be believed to be heard.

Joe Dean Got It Wrong, Right?

Joe Dean, born this month in 1908. Master of the blues piano. His song "I'm So Glad I'm 21 Years Old Today," a favorite of mine, meant something different back when he recorded it. Dean was glad because his "baby" could no longer "treat" him that way. She apparently made a fool of him one too many times. Had that song been written in the present era it would have been about bar hopping.

When I turned 21 a bunch of friends at the factory where I worked (now there's the subject of a blues song if ever there were one) wanted to take me to the bar. I just asked them for the money they would be spending. Not a single one wanted to pony up. I told them I'd see them at the bar regardless and then hit the porno store instead. (I sense another blues song.)

The porno store held a wide variety of wonder. Magazines, videos and books of all varieties. It's not the kind of environment Dean would approve of. After all, he later became the incumbent of St. John's United Church of Christ on Norther Grand -- quite a journey for a guy who used to play the piano for tips around at house parties.

Dean's song may not match today's love of the mythic age, but the spirit of freedom is undeniable. 21, no matter the era, has been seen as a time of liberation here in America. Dean, born in St. Louis, realized that. It's inherent in the joy in his voice and his use of "walking piano," a sound that always seems to signify action (in this case a simple liberation from grief). In that respect, Dean's song isn't much different from the feeling twenty-year-olds feel today when that mark is approaching.

There aren't a ton of great songs celebrating the age milestone anymore. Maybe that's because it's understood that the act of going to a bar to get smashed is just window dressing. Anyone inclined to get drunk on that night has probably done it a hundred times before. Only now they don't have to hide it from cops and mom.

Dean got it kind of right. The need for liberation is always there. It just doesn't really have anything to do with age anymore.