Steve Shark's Rockin' Teenage Combos! Dept. - Th' Chesterfield Kings

Relax, girls - they're married!

To successfully be [infinitively splits Steve Shark - Ed.] a ROCKING TEENAGE COMBO, many rules have to be followed. Here's just a few of them...

🎸 If you're a guitarist or bassist, you must always play louder at the show than what you've said is your loudest at the soundcheck.
🥁 If you're a drummer, you can drive to the gig, but your partner must always drive you home.
🎤 If you're a lead singer, you must never help carry the PA during the load in and load out.
🎹 If you're a keyboard player, your IQ must be equal to that of the rest of the band combined.

However, the rule that is most relevant here today is that at some time or another in your band's history, if you're actually making records (and that's a big IF), you must talk about recording a blues album - even if you never actually make one.

Why a blues album?

Well, sometimes it's desperation after the flagging sales of your tenth album (which sounded like all the rest).

Sometimes, it's hubris - 3 chords and 5 notes - how freaking hard can it be?

And sometimes - as in this case - it's because it's something you enjoyed trying out and it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

So, ladies and germs - I give you Drunk on Muddy Water by the Chesterfield Kings.

It's a whacked out, gonzoid masterpiece from a band who were no strangers to appropriating whole genres of music and other bands' styles, but whose love of it all meant that they always approached it with a certain respect - and so it is, very much so, here.

Sparked off by a track on their previous album, on which singer Greg Prevost tried to sound like Howlin' Wolf, The Kings' 1990 blues album was originally recorded live, but the vocals were swamped, rendering the tape unuseable. A club was then booked and the album re-recorded without an audience and everything miked up directly to the recording desk. No overdubs. 60 tracks were recorded and 13 made their way onto the album - a limited edition of 1000.

There are 5 acoustic and then 8 electric tracks - all blues standards - and all featuring Prevost's manic vocals which often fight against the intensity of the rest of the band, but somehow fit perfectly over the demented guitars, harmonica and drums.

With Prevost's over-the-top vocals - somehow fusing Johnny Winter with Bobcat Goldthwaite - and the band playing like the blues was going out of fashion (it probably was back then), I think it's possibly the finest blues covers album ever made. This is all down to the sheer exuberance of a band with no objective other than to PLAY THE BLUES. It wasn't even a regular commercial release, FFS.

My favourite track is Walkin' Blues - a Robert Johnson classic that just lopes lazily along with a simplistic guitar riff, whooping harp, driving drums and bass, slide guitar and Prevost's crazed and often unintelligible vocals. It reminds me exactly why I love good blues; because it's good blues.

Do not miss this one!