The Jim Jones Revue
Burning Your House Down
Punk Rock Blues

The congregation is sweatin’ and moanin’, children, for Jim Jones, the white man, has come to claim the bastard blues. Oh Lord, yes! One for the money, two for the show, like Jerry Lee and Elvis before him, Mr. Jones rattles every single one of your bones. His midnight Revue, leather-faced retinue, a real pack of cool, shakes shacks with the best of ‘em, and only the loudest, fuzziest, hip socket rock will do. The former Thee Hypnotics and Black Moses front man is on a mission and completely out of his mind, his greasy-haired head down, and three albums in three years (including 2008′s self-titled album and 2009′s Here to Save Your Soul) is a real heavy load, but not even a great ball of fire is gonna stop his screamin’ train from rollin’ on. Garage funk, Motown soul — it’s all kinds of righteous rock n’ roll, doused in gasoline, with a sonic swagger that would make Scott Morgan proud. Goodness gracious!

Check out the video for “High Horse” from Burning Your House Down!

Dax Riggs
Say Goodnight to the World
Fat Possum

I’m not going to say that Dax Riggs (former Acid Bath and Deadboy & The Elephantmen front man) is the best singer/songwriter in America because, well, I can’t actually prove a statement like that, but he’s awfully fucking good, and I can’t think of too many people who come close to touching his evil, dark, misanthropic folk rock. As experienced on 2007′s We Sing of Only Blood or Love, the Louisiana musician’s solo outputs contain all the folly and misery of suffering, loneliness, torment, and death — meaning they’re completely and utterly human — and Say Goodnight to the World once again represents our most dire straits via rolling graveyard shuffles (“Say Goodnight to the World,” “I Hear Satan,” “Sleeping With the Witch”), fuzzy rockers (“Gravedirt on My Blue Suede Shoes,” “No One Will Be a Stranger,” “Let Me Be Your Cigarette”), and swampy, haunting dirges (“You Were Born to Be My Gallows,” “Like Moonlight,” “See You All in Hell or New Orleans”). Of course, it’s his babbling, bourbon-basted, bayou tongue that really puts the hoodoo in his musical voodoo, like he’s channeling his inner dead Elvis with a mouth full of curses and bats, which is why his cover of “Heartbreak Hotel” is one spooky, bad-ass moment. Do yourself a favour and get into Dax Riggs if you haven’t already.

Listen to “You Were Born to Be My Gallows” from Say Goodnight to the World!

“Merlin wasn’t real.”
“Fuck you Merlin wasn’t real.”
“It’s a story.”
“Merlin was part of King Henry’s court and he fucking won all the wars for him ’cause he cast spells. Fuck you, man. That shit’s real.”
“He was part of King Arthur, not King Henry…”
“Yeah, it’s a fable. A fable is history.”

Ah, FUBAR. Amazing. But you know something? Deaner got it absolutely right. A fable is history. The divide between truth and fiction has long since vanished and wizards walk — or, rather, rock — amongst us. I know. So what you’re about to read, everything I’m about to tell you of the outlaw Gideon Smith and his court of motorcycle madmen, The Dixie Damned, may sound like pure cowboy fantasy, a Southern-fried fairy tale full of tumbleweed, rattlers, whiskey, blood, dust, ghosts, and backwoods psychedelia, but it’s simply this: the narcotic we desire most.

Gideon, the Charlotte, North Carolina native, began life as a wizard when he apprenticed at the faithful and frenzied school of Destructo Maximus as a roadie while under the bloody-faced tutelage of Jeff Clayton and his band of wrestlin’ lovin’ murder junkies, ANTiSEEN. The years he spent in that chaotic foxhole, surrounded by barb wire and explosives, arm in arm with the Confederacy of Scum, would spark in him a desire to branch out on his own. So, in 1997, Gideon took that giant leap into outlaw territory with some former Animal Bag members, now dubbed The Dixie Damned.

Gideon Smith & The Dixie Damned spin a swampy brand of blues-infused doom rock, a heavy dose of Southern boogie n’ groove with a hairy chest and meat cleavers for hands. They mix the super-sized spirituality of The Cult with the chain gang riffs of Circus of Power and end up with a shamanistic brand of trippy, bad-ass, redneck biker rock. Gideon’s vocals might be some of the most recognizable in all of rock n’ roll, rolling out of his diaphragm like they’re coming up from the bottom of a well, where Elvis’ bloated carcass floats face down in bong water. The band released a self-titled EP some time after forming, but it wasn’t until 2004′s full-length, Southern Gentlemen, that word came down that there was a new wizard in town.

But, like a wizard is wont to do, Gideon vanished for a few years, appearing only on various tribute albums and compilations. He spent his years in exile dealing with death and cultivating is outlaw way of life, recording some spoken word/poetry stuff on such themes as paganism, the occult, the power of positive thinking, beauty, creativity, and strength, and writing his manifesto, Way of the Outlaw Spirit. Gideon Smith & The Dixie Damned returned to the fold with a six-song EP, Dealin’ Decks, and their second full-length in 2008, South Side of the Moon.

So, what’s Gideon up to now? How goes it in the world of this particular wizard, this rock n’ roll outlaw? What bearded mischief has he been up to? Well, I take council with the man himself, my brother in both wizardry and beard, and we discuss such epic matters as his new album, what it means to be an outlaw, what it means to be a wizard (and how we can’t actually discuss anything to do with wizardry because it’s all top secret), and, of course, beards. There’s even an uncomfortable moment when I mention something about a girl and some chains. This is the stuff you crave, my friend. This is the fable of truth.

(more…)