Reverend Organdrum

It’s inevitable. At some point you’ll be at a bona fide grown-up party, where nobody is throwing up, burning things, doing bong hits or staining the carpet. You’ll find you’re actually enjoying it, even though the music is too quiet and people are talking about real estate. Then you’ll look at the scotch in your hand and wonder that it isn’t cheap beer and suddenly feel overwhelmed with melancholy. Damn, you’re old.

When this happens, muscle your way to the stereo, put on Reverend Organdrum’s Hi-Fi Stereo and turn the volume up until the speakers bump. Nobody will tell you to turn it down, because anyone from the hippest rockabilly tattoo artist to the squarest claims adjustor is going to feel a little better about things when there’s a Hammond B-3 organ blasting over expertly played blues guitar riffs.

Organdrum is a Reverend Horton Heat side project that plays blues, jazz and rock standards with a couple of great ’60s movie soundtrack tunes in the mix. It’s a smooth ride all the way through the 18 tracks, instrumental with the exception of two Rat Pack songs, Sammy Mysels’ “Bim Bam Baby” (written for Sinatra) and my favorite track, Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn’s “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head,” a Dino classic. Even the oft-covered “James Bond Theme” sounds fresh here, as played by the Reverend with icy precision. Other highlights include the two laidback Booker T and the MGs covers, “Time Is Tight” and “Can’t Be Still,” the latter of which contains the disc’s most rockin’ moments, a thundering drum solo that inexplicably but awesomely gives way to a few bars of Sabbath’s “War Pigs.”