Been forever since I posted - I know. Believe me, if I got paid to blog, I'd be on here every day.
Anyway, I've got a new band on my playlists that I feel everyone should check out - Th' Legendary Shack Shakers. You may have heard them on the True Blood soundtrack, or - nope, that's it. These guys aren't well known outside of their very specialized genre of music - psychobilly.
What the hell is psychobilly? you ask. Well, it's a mixture of bluegrass, punk, hillbilly, blues, polka, and pretty much anything else you can think of. Oh, and the bass line is also normally played with an upright instead of a guitar - which is pretty much the coolest thing I can think of. Ever. It's been popularized (relatively) by such artists as The Cramps and The Meteors. You'd think it would be primarily a Southern genre of music, but The Meteors are British and The Cramps formed in Sacramento.
But these guys are for real. The band was formed in Kentucky, and its frontman, J.D. Wilkes, was given the honorary title of Colonel, which is apparently the equivalent of an honorary doctorate or something in the Southern states.
But don't let that fool you - they've been all over the world in the past few years, touring with such bands as The Black Keys, Rancid, and Robert Plant (of Led Zeppelin fame).
My favorite album of theirs is 2006's Pandelirium. It's a creepy, folksy, lurking trip through the psyche of the South. Songs like "Bible, Candle, and Skull" and "Ichabod!" (which features Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra) showcase the Shack Shakers' punk and polka roots. But I guarantee they sound like nothing you've ever heard before. (Also, check out Wilkes's Layne Staley-like stage presence on the "Ichabod!" video.)
Check out this interview with Wilkes (in which he berates the interviewer for calling the Shack Shakers' music "evil,") and be sure to take a peek at my other favorite songs of theirs.
More tunes: "Blood on the Bluegrass," "Where's the Devil . . . When You Need Him?" "Angel Lust," "Agony Wagon"
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