Local ska/swing/rockabilly act

Amazing Crowns

Truck-stop daddies

"Do the Devil" has been a local fave for at least two years now -- three? -- but I still find myself doing double takes when it comes on the radio ("Who the hell's playing a Back from the Grave track in drive-time?"). Hearing the Spring Heeled Jack horns swagger into that sleazy, slutty, flatulent gutter-sax solo can give you goose bumps -- as if the dial had suddenly picked up some bump-and-grind tune from the '50s that had lost its way for 40-odd years. At first I took offense to the Amazing Crowns because they got rockabilly so completely wrong -- yeah, they have improved perceptibly since the release of their self-titled disc on Monolyth in 1997 (it was re-released by Velvel the following year), but they still don't have the chops down. Eventually, though, that became part of their charm -- they got it wrong in interesting ways, at times coming off like a rootsier Cramps, at others like a dirtier, faster, punkier Horton Heat. Occasionally it seems as if they ripped their period lingo off one of those hipster-speak comedy albums ("Now you're sick and tired of your square life/looking for kicks . . . "), but then you hear "Shiverin' in the Corner" and it sounds like a roadhouse honky-tonk band wiped on truck-stop speed trying to remember an AC/DC song, and you think, "Shit, that's genius."

-- Carly Carioli

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Official Amazing Crowns site
Official Amazing Crowns fan site

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