17 Days Until Allehelgens Dag-A Friend Of The Devils Is A Close Personal Acquaintance of Mine-Grifters are Crappin' You Negative

It's okay Pete--They make the playoffs every year...

My buddy Pete complained that I neglected to wish him a happy Leif Ericson Day, so this Halloween post goes out to him. May the Aesir have mercy on his soul. I saw the cover of this album and immediately thought of him. The NHL hockey season has just begun and he is a huge fan of the New Jersey Devils. On the outside he seems like an average guy, but in his heart he is a face painter. He also used to play ice hockey with me for quite a few years. And he is tough, believe me. Early on in our beer league rookie days, he popped his shoulder out of the socket in the middle of a game. I told him to hit the showers, because after all, this is something we do for recreation. He said "no, that's alright", and proceeded to lean over and he popped the shoulder back in place like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon. The Gibson comparison ends there though--his wife is Jewish and he looks ridiculous in a kilt.

This album is crazy crazy crazy. Memphis crazy. It's a classic bluesy rock album recorded on horse tranquilizers with a budget of 149.95. There is a sort of grandiose confidence in the vocal deliveries of Scott Taylor. When he sings "I am the Mambo King" at the beginning of Skin Man Palace, I want to vote him into Congress. Every time I listen to this album, I like it a little more. A jauntily insane album, but it seems to proceed with its own brand of coherent logic, like you suddenly stumbled into a different dimension. The Grifters are compared to a huge assortment of bands, The Rolling Stones, Replacements, Guided By Voices, most notably. You could probably also compare them with Neil Young and Crazyhorse, Killdozer, Butthole Surfers, This Kind of Punishment, ZZ Top, Led Zeppelin, Gun Club, and the lo-fi stuff on the old New Zealand Xpressway label. Crappin' You Negative is dense yet with a lot of sonic diversity and once you start listening you need to hear the whole thing.



This is pretty much a one of a kind album--it's too bad it seems to be out of print. But I just did some looking and you can buy this directly at Shangri-La records for ten bucks. It's probably not for everybody, but with songs like Dead Already, Piddlebach, Junkie Blood and Get Outta That Spaceship and Fight Like A Man, you probably need this.