LEFT LANE CRUISER "All You Can Eat!!" recent reviews

Following 2008’s Bring Yo’ Ass to the Table, All You Can Eat assimilates the Mississippi Delta blues laid down by guys like Big Joe Williams and Son House and cultivates it into a country punk ‘n’ blues speedball. “Hillgrass Bluebilly” is a frenetic juke-joint stomper that finds Freddy J IV hollerin’ out a reference to the Who’s “Squeeze Box”. “Ol’ Fashioned” is a country-picking blues flashback with washboard, while the primal trio of “Black Lung”, “Broke Ass Blues”, and “Putain!” finds the boys strutting through stoner-blues country with bravado. It doesn’t get a lot better than this. – Alan Brown / PopMatters

All You Can Eat!! is old fashioned music without the slick production that I, for one, have grown so used to — and quite bored with. It reminds me of live Cramps, RL Burnside, and even old Henry Rollins. If CBGBs was still open that would be the venue I could see Left Lane Cruiser playing. Amid the dirt, the history, and the gritty smoky fog. – Lynda Lippin / Blogcritics

First cut "Crackalacka" comes scootin’ out of the gate with some cool guitar noodle while "Ol’ Fashioned" adds some wiry slide guitar and gravelly vocals, and "Black Lung" is its younger, tougher, more tweaked kid brother. Later, on "Poopdeflex" (song title of the year?) the vocals get more guttural and desperate and at that point you realize one thing about Left Lane Cruiser: they mean it, man. – Tim Hinely / Blurt

Some boxers are like Roy Jones Jr. in his prime and are damned near impossible to hit, some are like Pacquiao and just overwhelm opponents with power & handspeed, while others are like a young Tyson and eschew all style points for pure power. Left Lane Cruiser are like Tyson, and with All You Can Eat, their second album with Alive Records, they’re throwing haymakers from the opening track “Crackalacka” and their power is showing no signs of waning some 9 tracks later as they close with “Waynedale”. - Nine Bullets

This is good, this is very good, certainly not the putting in of a twenty and the taking out of a forty here, the good is there in these Broke Ass Blues. There’s just two of ‘em, broken down old scratchy electric guitar, gravel throats and drum kit. There’s some great You Tube footage if you have the time to go look. They got bags of soul in there, they got it all nailed, real deal stripped back raw broken bottle stripped to the bone blues goodness. – Organ Magazine

This would be a great soundtrack for a cage fighting medley and is definitely not something for the faint hearted.
Left Lane Cruiser tick all the boxes from the relentlessly hard hitting sound to their cool names. This is not something for the faint hearted. Rest assured this is more than you can eat! – Will Bray / Blues In London

This is a CD that any Guitarist or Drummer can appreciate with such RAW emotion behind every track grabs your attention and holds you too it till the next…and that doesn’t happen to often. AWESOME isn’t a big enough word to describe this band. – Neus Subjex

Five New Songs We Love: September 23, 2009 – Blender

But for the most part this is big, bold, in your face, industrial blues with a country punk attitude. "Waynedale" pounds along at such a torrid pace, it seems like the perfect music for the next Grand Theft Auto.
Producer Jim Diamond, who worked on the first two White Stripes CDs, should be credited for the full, fuzzy sound. He provided lots of old amps and a bunch of microphones in front of each one to record each muffle and crackle. The result is Megadeth if they had grown up in Louisiana listening to Delta country and blues. - Al Kaufman / Atlanta Music Guide

It’s a rumbling tinnitus-inducing musical vertigo of swampy Mississippi-style ghetto electric blues that’s greasy, grimy, gritty, and basically un-fucking-real. It’s the kind of music that should be played in dark, sweaty, dive bars while yer pounding shots of Wild Turkey. What you really need to know is that All You Can Eat has been in steady rotation since it came across my desk about a month ago and ain’t goin’ nowhere anytime soon. – Can You See The Sunset?

If this Indiana duo’s debut album, Bring Yo’ Ass To The Table, was merely an invitation to sample their bill of fare, then this follow-up certainly lives up to its title. All You Can Eat is another taut 35-minute blast of raw garage blues built upon the gigantic riffs of guitarist/shouter Freddy J IV, and the equally towering swagger of drummer Brenn "Sausage Paw" Beck. There’s a bit more of a streamlined quality this time through producer, and early White Stripes mentor, Jim Diamond, who obviously was enamoured with Freddy’s guitar playing. Its dominant place in the mix leaves everything else cowering in its shadow. That’s hardly a bad thing, as tracks like "Black Lung" and "Hard Luck" rock harder than any band with three times as many members could ever hope to. This is exactly the album LLC fans hoped for: another solid collection of material with just enough refinement of their sound to ensure that they have a vision for the future. – Jason Schneider / Exclaim

Left Lane Cruiser is the real deal. They are blues at its best, filth at its finest, with just two men who are evoking enough inner demons to populate an entire circle of hell. Raising a ruckus, punching throats, and blackening eyes all the way from Ft. Wayne Indiana, Left Lane Cruiser makes a bigger and louder racket than most five-man operations, never once sacrificing songwriting or musicianship for the sake of bombasity. – Andrew Bryant / Disc Exchange

Freddy J IV is actually quite the demon on the six-string – he plays like he’s visited a crossroads or two, with Kenny Brown by his side and a Lucifer bearing a strong resemblance to RL Burnside. He can do the grunged-out Zeppelin thing, too, when he’s of a mind (cf. Black Lung and Hard Luck), but he really comes alive getting his hands dirty. Frankly, Freddy’s not much of a singer, but when he digs into the frets it doesn’t matter. The songs are perfectly adequate for LLC’s purpose, which is to rock every room like it’s a deep South juke joint (despite the duo being from Fort Wayne, Indiana). – Michael Toland / Sleazegrinder

The band blends styles that wouldn’t normally be compatible, but when the two musicians come together — Evans with his slide guitar and vocals that sound as if his diet consists of swallowing sandpaper and chewing gravel, and Beck with his collection of hubcaps, trash cans, ladders and whatever garage accessory you can drum a beat on — the result is hard, rusty blues that Beck guarantees will get you moving. – Katie Saltz / Kentucky Kernel

BRIMSTONE HOWL - Journal Star

Nebraska group sticks to rock with new album

By L. KENT WOLGAMOTT / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Thursday, November 19, 2009 11:30 pm

Don't tell Brimstone Howl's John Ziegler that rock 'n' roll is dead, retro or needs to be replaced.

"I don't like it when people say, ‘It's rock 'n' roll, it's been done before. You should try to make a new type of music,'" Ziegler said. "I had an epiphany the other day. Rock 'n' roll is like snowflakes. You'll never get the same song twice. The possibilities are endless, and it should be perennial, like snow."

That's like the rock 'n' roll this band plays, which can be traced from Elvis Presley to the Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground, The Ramones and The Strokes.

The Nebraska band, which has been around in various incarnations since singer/guitarist Ziegler and drummer Calvin Retzlaff met in 1997, will celebrate the release of the vinyl version of "Big Deal. What's He Done Lately," its fourth album in as many years, tonight at O'Leaver's Pub in Omaha.

That disc moves a bit away from the driving, high-octane blues-based sound that has been Brimstone Howl's trademark since its 2005 debut, "Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The loud, fuzzy, buzzing guitars of Ziegler and Nick Waggoner still drive the irresistibly propulsive music. But there are hooks galore across "Big Deal," and a handful of songs could easily be classified as power pop.

"The poppier element of rock 'n' roll comes out in the record - The Flamin' Groovies, stuff like that," Ziegler said. "I've always liked poppy music and so has Nicky. We're getting older. Maybe we're not afraid of not being tough rock 'n' roll dudes now."

Recorded to tape with no digital equipment used anywhere in the process by Costa Mesa, Calif., producer Mike McHugh, who's worked with the Black Lips and Jon Spencer, "Big Deal" is Brimstone Howl's third album for Alive! Records.

Even though it doesn't play the folky, indie rock most associated with the state, Brimstone Howl is a true Nebraska band. Ziegler lives in Omaha, Waggoner and bassist Scott Cline are in Grand Island, and Retzlaff lives in Lincoln.

"That makes it a long drive for someone for practice," Ziegler said. "We practice enough to make records and play shows. Maybe it's good we're far apart and practice infrequently. It keeps it lively and fresh."

As their decade-plus persistence has demonstrated, Ziegler, Waggoner and Retzlaff are in rock 'n' roll for the long haul.

"The thought of being in a band for six months or a year is a depressing prospect for me," Ziegler said. "I don't want to be in a hobby band. Some people may say this is a hobby band because we don't tour very much. But we're still together, still going."

Brimstone Howl rocks on even though the core trio haven't made much money playing in the band, have seen a number of bass players come and go and endured the disappointment of having 2007's "Guts of Steel," their most promising and promoted album, fail to generate national buzz.

"I'm a pretty stubborn, determined person; Nicky and Calvin must be, too," Ziegler said. "The original excitement and glamour of being just out of high school and starting a band has worn off. It's gotten more realistic. Now we're at a point in time where it's just about the music. I used to be jealous of bands like the Black Lips and Jay Reatard. I wanted to be on the road a lot. Now I'm happy to make the albums I do. I feel pretty privileged."

Rest assured, Brimstone Howl will keep making records, and those albums will be all killer, no filler rock 'n' roll.

"Like (legendary rock critic) Lester Bangs said, ‘Rock 'n' roll is a hamburger,'" Ziegler said. "It's for consumption. It should be fun, and it should be done."

Alive Update 11/19/09

November 19, 2009

LEFT LANE CRUISER "All You Can Eat!!"
out now on CD, LP, and digital



From the greasy slide-guitar-and-drum-pummeling intro to opener “Crackalacka”, you either jump in and let Left Lane Cruiser take you on a hell-raising hayride or plain get out of the way because Freddy J. Evans IV (guitar/vocals) and Brenn “Sausage Paw” Beck (drummer/“trash”/vocals), a powerhouse duo out of Fort Wayne, Indiana, are roots-music revolutionaries who take no prisoners on their second outing for Alive Records. Following 2008’s Bring Yo’ Ass to the Table, All You Can Eat assimilates the Mississippi Delta blues laid down by guys like Big Joe Williams and Son House and cultivates it into a country punk ‘n’ blues speedball. “Hillgrass Bluebilly” is a frenetic juke-joint stomper that finds Freddy J IV hollerin’ out a reference to the Who’s “Squeeze Box”. “Ol’ Fashioned” is a country-picking blues flashback with washboard, while the primal trio of “Black Lung”, “Broke Ass Blues”, and “Putain!” finds the boys strutting through stoner-blues country with bravado. It doesn’t get a lot better than this. – Alan Brown / PopMatters

The BREAKAWAYS
"Walking Out On Love/The Lost Sessions"
with PETER CASE and PAUL COLLINS (Nerves/Plimsouls/Paul Collins' Beat)
out now on CD, LP, and digital
The NERVES
"Live at the Pirate's Cove, Cleveland OH, 1977"
out now on COLOR VINYL ONLY with INNER SLEEVE with rare photos, memorabilia and liner notes

Continuing on the same punked-up garage pop path of the Nerves, Case and Collins bang out a baker’s dozen power pop gems (“Everyday Things,” “Little Suzy,” “USA,” “Radio Station”) with sharp melody, tight skill and unabashed enthusiasm. Due to budgetary concerns and multiple locations, the fidelity is all over the place – it’s only by the grace of the songs and performances that tracks like “I Don’t Fit In” and “Will You Come Through?” are salvageable at all. But there’s not a duff tune in the bunch – Collins obviously agreed, as many of his tunes (including the popular “Walking Out On Love” and “Working Too Hard”) ended up in the Beat’s repertoire. Case’s songs, strangely, were never re-recorded, not even with the Plimsouls, whose catalog seems to be the natural repository for a song like “House On the Hill.” While that means Case diehards definitely need this, arguably any power pop fan, especially of the late 70s/early 80s variety, would love to add this to his or her library. – Michael Toland / The Big Takeover

LEFT LANE CRUISER - PopMatters

From the greasy slide-guitar-and-drum-pummeling intro to opener “Crackalacka”, you either jump in and let Left Lane Cruiser take you on a hell-raising hayride or plain get out of the way because Freddy J. Evans IV (guitar/vocals) and Brenn “Sausage Paw” Beck (drummer/“trash”/vocals), a powerhouse duo out of Fort Wayne, Indiana, are roots-music revolutionaries who take no prisoners on their second outing for Alive Records. Following 2008’s Bring Yo’ Ass to the Table, All You Can Eat assimilates the Mississippi Delta blues laid down by guys like Big Joe Williams and Son House and cultivates it into a country punk ‘n’ blues speedball. “Hillgrass Bluebilly” is a frenetic juke-joint stomper that finds Freddy J IV hollerin’ out a reference to the Who’s “Squeeze Box”. “Ol’ Fashioned” is a country-picking blues flashback with washboard, while the primal trio of “Black Lung”, “Broke Ass Blues”, and “Putain!” finds the boys strutting through stoner-blues country with bravado. It doesn’t get a lot better than this. – Alan Brown / PopMatters

NATHANIEL MAYER - Shindig

HENRY'S FUNERAL SHOE - Blues In London

Cardiff isn’t necessarily the place that you would associate Alive Records’ usual source of ass-kicking punk blues but in this case, it is. The Welsh brothers, Aled and Brennig Clifford make up the duo that on this rare occasion has led Alive out of the United States.

There is absolutely no treading on egg shells with this record. Gritty, overdriven guitar riffs, gravely deep vocals and saw-off, pump action drumming in abundance. Simple, straight forward punk blues which draws on early Black Keys and a slight grunge undertone. The tracks are built on catchy guitar intros such as self-titled Henry’s Funeral Shoe, Down The Line and Coming On Through which are nailed home by Brennig’s terrifyingly punishing drumming style. A gentle hint of dynamics does lend itself to the album but it doesn’t stray far. Leading out, Second Hand Prayer takes on a dirty bite of Rock ‘n’ Roll and the final surprise of Mary’s Tune, a pretty acoustic ditty. After all the thunder that is Henry’s Funeral Shoe, they leave the record with a tuneful harmonica and something a little bit country.

Just because this record was recorded in just a few days doesn’t mean anything has been missed, infact the raw power of a punk blues duo, driven by passion has been captured in its entirety. Everything’s For Sale certainly carries the heavy punch that you would expect from any Alive release and of course Henry’s Funeral Shoe wear their influences on their sleeve. This is a band that proves the nu-blues movement in the U.K is very much awake and raising the bar. - Will Bray / Blues In London