The Blasters “American Music”
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Another installment of “The Grand Ol’ Echo!” came with a rockabilly favorite: The Blasters! I grew up with the Blasters, the early no-frills rockabilly band that pass over all that boogie-woogie piano playing. And no rhythm and blues saxophones neither! Rockabilly should be minimalist; Elvis on occasion just had guitar and bass and the Cramps didn’t even bother with a bass. Less is more when it comes to this species of music—and the Blasters proved it Sunday night with just two guitars, bass provided by original Blaster John Bazz, a drummer and, of course, Phil Alvin’s amazing, spine-tingling vocals. Anything more than that and you might as well go watch the Brian Setzer Orchestra. Musically this was the same Blasters I saw back Roy Brown (Have you heard the news? There’s good rockin’ tonight) at The Whisky in ’80. The same Blasters that perplexingly played to an empty crowd in Memphis 1981 at an unfortunate “new wave” club called Pogo’s that no card-carrying Memphian with any self respect would be seen in. It traumatized Dave Alvin so much he wrote a poem about it. Then he left the Blasters. Now he’s back and as my grandmother used to say to my mom, “Linda, the kids wanna Bop!” But Sunday night it was the Blasters of old, when kids cruised Van Nuys Blvd on Wednesday nights, when people thought we were Happy Days fans, and when the Blasters were featured alongside Billy Zoom, Colin Winski, Charlie Feathers and Long John Holmes in Johnny Legend’s 1979 rockabilly porno Young Hot N’ Nasty: Teenage Cruisers, which coincidently is just now being re-released. (For more info contact Johnny at legendhouse.net.) And keep your early Sunday evenings open for the Echo’s “The Grand Ol’ Echo!” Yeee Ha! The South’s gonna rise again!
— Malibu Mike Murphy
1 Chad // Mar 13, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Dang! Now that sounds like a good time in the old town!
2 Touch Hazard // Mar 19, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Wowsville! Johnny Legend is still Kickin’!
Thanx for the fond memories of Van Nuys Blvd crusin’.
Is that the same Porno Movie that used to play at the Nuart in the early 80′s? with Spidermiddleman and jerzy kozinski? Thanx fer the info!
3 Malibu Mike Murphy // May 23, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Yeppers, Teenage Cruisers of the 80’s is the very same one, they just added young, hot, nasty Teenage cruisers to the title for some odd reason. If my memory serves me right it also contains the longest money shot in the history of Porn, not that I keep track of that sort of material. Also Lyn Margulies the future misses Andy Kaufman and Johnnies sister makes a rare appearance. Johnny is rocking and wrestling and still sifting thru cease-pools of sleaze for all us poor Sinners. As far as Jerzy Kozinski is concerned, what you got a hold of there my fine mixed up zombie, is the writer of the wonderful but probably most depressing WW II novel ever, The Painted Bird. But thank goodness before offing himself in a bathtub he gave us, Being There. (With Peter Sellers, not to be confused with Peter Green of early Fleetwood Mac fame) The person I am guessing you are referring to is Jerry Sikorski of The American Patrol, a rockabilly band. All’s well that ends well.
Peace out & Metal as Fuck,
Malibu Mike Murphy
4 Jana T. // Jun 21, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Jerzy Kozinski LOL!
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