MEDIA REVIEWS
ALBUM
Purling Hiss
Hissteria
Richie Records
Purling Hiss’ Hissteria
is one of the finest
records you could
ever hope to blast
from a Camaro,
Barracuda, or Boss
ALBUM
Jinx Jones
Rip and Run
Jinx Jones
If you’re into rocka-
billy and honky-tonk,
you already know it
can be pretty tough
to track down new
albums with a satisfy-
ing, authentic sound
and vibe. Over the last decade or so, Jinx
Jones, out of the San Francisco Bay Area,
has been one of the few reliable modern
practitioners of old-school bossness. His
latest album, Rip and Run, features 14
tracks full of swingin’ Gretsches and blaz-
ing Teles cranking out Bakersfield grooves
over tongue-in-cheek humor (as in the Tele-
powered “Redneck Barbie,” with its slinking
double-stops) that’ll keep you smiling as you
tap your foot and dig the guitar work. The
title track begins with a stinging surf-shred
lick before settling down into a classic, Dick
Dale-approved groove soaked in cavernous
reverb, and eventually leading to a wistful,
Danny Gatton-esque solo. “Time to Have
a Good Time Pt. 1” has a little too much
of that winky-wink, lounge-lizard/bowling-
shirt-guy vibe for my taste, but thankfully
such moments are few and far between.
Instrumentals like “Prairie Dog Daddy” and
“Vibro eXotica” show the depth of Jones’
musical repertoire and provide a more seri-
ous mood here and there, too. The former
has a Brian Setzer Orchestra-ish, big-band
vibe and a slippery pedal-steel solo, while
the latter pulses with hypnotic tremolo and
pensive, echo-drenched bends. Similarly,
“How High the Moon” sounds like a
modern-day “Sleepwalk” and the fat, melan-
choly neck-pickup blues of “Roma’s Song”
show how diverse Jones’ trick bag really is.
But you’re always glad when tunes like the
prurient sad-sack tale “Doghouse” (“I’m in
the doghouse/for bein’ in the cathouse”) and
the drag-race soundtrack/Bigsby workout
of “On Parole & Out of Control”—with
its pull-off frenzies and thumping upright
bass—always come back to kick things into
high gear. —Shawn Hammond
ALBUM
Bob Marley
& the Wailers
Live Forever: The Stanley Theatre,
Pittsburgh, PA, September 23, 1980
UMe/Tuff Gong International
Recently released for
the first time, Live
Forever is a two-disc set that documents Bob Marley’s
last concert before
cancer took his life
eight months later. Marley was already in
pain, but he was in top form, musically.
Supporting the Uprising album, the show’s
set list played heavily on Marley’s religious
roots-based material. Guitarists will note
Junior Marvin’s, Al Anderson’s, and Bob
Marley’s studio-tight guitar tapestries on
songs like “Coming in from the Cold” and
“Could You Be Loved.” Their skanks and
galloping lines are woven together almost
imperceptibly in their song-serving mission.
The effects-laden accents in songs like “Get
Up, Stand Up” and the gritty rock tones
in the solos for “Is This Love” and “Them
Heathen” are also worth noting, as they
foreshadow where reggae guitar was heading. Live Forever is a fascinating time capsule that serves as the missing bookend to
any Marley fan’s collection or a fitting live
recording for the casual reggae listener who
is finally ready to dig deeper than Legend.
—Joe Coffey
