PicoBlog

The Riverboat Gamblers wish you a Happy New Year. Or do they…?

Happy New Year. If it feels like I’ve been absent during the holidays, I probably was. I had two big projects for print publications due, including the latest chapter of The Austin Punk Chronicles series for The Austin Chronicle. (Here’s Part One, and this is Part Two.) With all that outta the way, now I can concentrate on my Substack duties.

Last year was a rich one for my career. Launching The Tim “Napalm” Stegall Substack in wake of a slowly building impasse with My Former Employers was the best decision I made. Many of you have noticed the fire and passion returning in the work I turned in here. But the truth of the matter is, I could not have done this with your support, O Reader. 

It’s only through your support, via your paid monthly or annual subscription, that I keep the lights on. And your support has been amazing in our five months in business to date. You essentially sign my paycheck. Which makes all of you my bosses, or patrons – however you choose to view it. 

I appreciate the growth you’ve afforded me here at The Substack. I appreciate every new $5 monthly or $90 annual subscription that comes in, and every successful monthly renewal. But I equally appreciate free subscribers – that’s as important a form of support as anything. And I especially treasure the direct relationship we enjoy, your feedback in your comments and messages. There was a disconnect with the pieces I wrote for My Former Employers. The feedback was often negative, usually from armchair quarterbacks who had no actual knowledge of the topic at hand. I have found what we have here is an actual dialog, and any suggestions you may have are actually constructive.

So thank you from the bottom of my left ventricle for enabling me to publish this thing. I have some big things planned for this year. I sincerely hope you enjoy them.

Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a few records that have been hogging my turntable. I need to write about them, so I can put them back in the pile and find a few more to play. Let’s begin with one of the most powerful bands working the international punk circuit for the past 22 years….

The Riverboat Gamblers have been Austin’s greatest punk band since they migrated down here from their native Denton as the century turned. The firebreathing intensity of their high-performance Detroit muscle-punk and totally wired stage presentation – helmed by Mike Wiebe, one of history’s most comically spastic frontmen – made them instant legends at Beerland, long our city’s finest down-n-dirty p-rock palace. Once the international music press got gobsmacked by the Gamblers during one of their SXSW blastathons, it felt certain they’d become a global sensation.  Which they did, albeit on an underground level.

Shortly before dropping the holiday single of The Kinks’ “Father Christmas” reviewed here two weeks back, the Gamblers dropped a 45 featuring their first new original material in six years. Produced and mixed by the band with their long-time control room collaborator Stuart Sikes, it ably showcases the current Riverboat Gamblers lineup – Wiebe, co-guitarists Fadi El Assad and Ian MacDougall, bassist Rob Marchant and Sam Keir on drums. Off With Their Heads’ Ryan Young issued it via his Anxious and Angry Audio Endeavors imprint.

“The first tune is an old one of mine about my two cats I had years ago,” says MacDougall. “We must’ve demoed that song 3-4 times over the years and finally got down to laying it down for real.  The second one, 'Denton,' Mike and I wrote together during COVID times when we started doing the duo thing and got the rest of the dudes in on it when we started realizing it would make a cool Gamblers song.”

It certainly does. In fact, it may be the greatest Gamblers song ever, a sky-punching anthem with their biggest chorus ever, dripping with maturity, vulnerability, and a sorta wistfulness for the old hometown, as well as the painful realization that such nostalgia may be falsely tinted in shades of rose. 

“People seem to be diggin’ it,” marvels Wiebe, “and I’m stoked because I really didn’t think past my own going-home experience. But it seems like everyone really relates.”

MacDougall’s “Two Little Hearts” is a good trashy rocker with huge shovelfuls of fuzz and distortion. It’s a killer track in and of itself. But “Denton?” It’s The Riverboat Gamblers’ masterpiece. They could retire on that note. Hopefully, they won’t. Hopefully, they keep going, and write more new originals that epic and murderous.

About the moment The Riverboat Gamblers were packing up their various Denton digs to relocate to Austin, The Black Halos were storming Vancouver, B.C.’s once unassailable local scene with their taut, gruff take on the sorta glam/sleaze underground sounds then tearing up Scandinavia. Fronted by Billy Hopeless’ hoarse, wayward drawl and Rich Jones and Jay Millette’s twin dogfight Gibsons, the Halos flexed muscles trained by both the Dead Boys and Hanoi Rocks (whose Michael Monroe makes a vocal cameo on “Ready To Snap,” and is Jones’ boss most of the time). Their self-titled debut and follow-up The Violent Years, both issued by Sub Pop, received maximum turntable time in households that valued loudness and rawness in the first years of this century. Then Jones drifted off to join Amen, then Monroe most notably. The band soldiered on with various ringers backing Hopeless for a few more years and two more LPs that were fine, but lacking the magic of the original team.

So, don’t you think the news that the Black Halos’ bona fide core team – Hopeless, Jones, Millett – are back in town is cause for universal huzzahs?

With hard-hitting new rhythm section John Kerns (The Age Of Electric) on bass and drummer Danni Action (ACIIDZ) providing a solid line of fire behind the three key Halos from “A History Of Violence’s” first notes to “A Positive Note’s” last 12 tracks later, it’s easy to hear why the band considers How The Darkness Doubled their proper third LP. They even utilize the title they reserved for The Violent Years’ planned follow-up. The entire thing sounds like a conversation with an old friend you haven’t seen in 20 years, but you pick up from where you left off the last time you hung out. Time hasn’t passed, and the chemistry remains the same. The guitars still roar, the drums still slam, the bass cushions everything in its thump and thud, Hopeless’ growl is undimmed, and this is still the most propulsive, tuneful glam racket available anywhere. It’s a solid Black Halos record, something I didn’t realize we needed. Happy to discover how much we did.

Been awhile since we’ve heard new music from Hanoi Rocks’ genius songwriter-cum-guitar hero Andy McCoy. But honestly, it’s been awhile since I checked in on his solo work. I enjoyed the handful of releases from the millennial Hanoi Rock reformation he and frontman Michael Monroe helmed this century’s first decade, though the faceless players with whom they rounded out that lineup honestly had too much heavy metal coursing through their collective bloodstream to really pull of the Finnish glam punk ‘n’ roll outfit’s sleazy slip ‘n’ slide r’n’r. Monroe’s been much more on the mark with the solo work he’s consistently churned out since 2010 with fellow ex-Hanoi Sami Yaffa, hero of the last review Rich Jones, and others. But why haven’t I tuned in to McCoy’s post-Millennial Hanoi’s output? Not really sure. 

Going by this collection of 14 of his favorite songs by other artists, perhaps we should all place McCoy back on our individual radars if, like me, you’ve not paid attention the last however many years. It’s a raucous yet well-crafted selection of honky tonk/Stonesy rockers (including the reggae-tinged “I Can Feel The Fire,” from Ron Wood’s superb solo debut I’ve Got My Own Album To Do), atypical punk/New Wave goodies (Squeeze’s “Take Me I’m Yours,” Iggy/Bowie’s “China Girl,” The Divinyls’ “Back To The Wall,” UK Subs’ nuclear paranoia chant “Countdown”), pure reggae (Toots and the Maytals’ “54-46 That’s My Number,” Phil Lynnott’s “Solo In Soho”), and straight-up, ‘nad-smashin’ rock ‘n’ roll (Chris Spedding’s “Motor Bikin’,” Wanda Jackson’s “Funnel Of Love”). Some of his choices seem downright Quixotic (the Climax Blues Band’s quasi-funky 1976 hit “Couldn’t Get It Right,” anyone?). And why he feels the need to trade verses with several guest vocalists, often on the same song, feels like an odd decision, though having Sofia Zida deputize for the late Christina Amphlett on the Divinyls cover is certainly wise. McCoy is hardly Sam Cooke in the pipes department, but his scorched timber is perfectly serviceable for this raunchy street rock.

Ultimately, Jukebox Junkie is a marvelous peek inside McCoy’s teenage 45 box. And it’s always a delight to hear his bawdy-yet-articulate take on rock ‘n’ roll guitar. Hopefully, with this batch of singles going steady outta his system, he’ll begin exercising his well-developed compositional muscles once more, and give 12 more slashin’ originals to thrill us down to our veins.

The Sex Pistols wish you a Happy New Year. Or do —shit, we already used that caption!! (Pic: Richard E. Arron/Redferns)

“We were desperate to play,” John Lydon expressed to me in 2018, regarding the Sex Pistols’ notorious appearance at San Antonio honky tonk Randy’s Rodeo, three dates into their 1978 US tour. “We were warned it would be a very dangerous place to play. And so we played it!” I recount the carnage, the hurled beer cans, hot dogs and shaving cream pies, and the explosive music that still resonates through Texas punk rock today, in the San Antonio Express-News. Click here and read all about it!

#timstegall #timnapalmstegall #timnapalmstegallsubstack#punkjournalism #recordreviews #theriverboatgamblers #mikewiebe #fadielassad #ianmacdougall #robmarchant #samkeir #twolittlehearts #denton #theblackhalos #billyhopeless #richjones #jaymillette #howthedarknessdoubled #andymccoy #hanoirocks #jukeboxjunkie #soloalbum #coversalbum #punkrock #glampunk #rocknroll #sexpistols #randysrodeo #sanantoniotexas #sanantonioexpressnews

Thank you for reading The Tim "Napalm" Stegall Substack. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Share

ncG1vNJzZmismaK7orzApaSsrJWcrq24jaysm6uklrCsesKopGioX6jBorrDoqWgZZ%2BrsrN5wbJkraCVYr%2Bmr86rm2alkZi1qrrEZptpaA%3D%3D