We've started poking around in locals' iTunes, iPods, Spotify playlists, CD players, cassette decks, turntables and brains with one question in mind: What are you listening to? We don't even care if it's good, we just want to know what the music community has been obsessing over, playing on repeat, picking apart, hating or turning people on to. Sometimes, these things even all happen at once.
We asked T. Tex Edwards, formerly of Dallas' Nervebreakers, what he's been digging lately. Catch him tonight at Double Wide with his Purple Stickpin combo, as well as One Red Cent and Bravados.
"Like a lot of old guys, I mainly listen to a bunch of music from the past. For blues, I've recently been on Hound Dog Taylor and Frankie Lee Simms kicks. To my ears, these two guys had the best sounding, chill-ya-to-the-bones, passionate guitar styles ever. For '60s Brit-rock, I can't stop listening to the great 'lost' Dave Davies solo album, Hidden Treasures, which finally officially surfaced last year. I had various tunes on Kinks 45 B-sides and inferior sounding bootlegs, but to finally hear one of my favorite songs of all time, 'Creeping Jean,' in all its majestic full-fidelity glory is, pardon the phrase, 'to die for.'
"My sweetie got me the new John Fahey Your Past Comes Back To Haunt You box set last fall for my birthday. It's an incredible package showcasing his early 1958-1965 Fonotone years, that shows the great man had it all right from the beginning.
"For current releases that have somehow seeped into my cranium, there's an old band from L.A., The Hangmen, that have a new album called East of Western, which coincidentally features Dallas-born Angelique Congleton on bass. Guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Bryan Small writes riff-heavy junkie-rock anthems, and despite over 15 years of sobriety, Small manages to still infuse with authentic, hooky Johnny Thunders-style heroin desperation.
"The Hangmen have an unmistakable sound based on metallic riffs delivered with a punk sneer over a rootsy platform that they have have continued to perfect since their 1987 self-titled debut album on Capitol Records. They deserve to be vastly better known and enshrined in the pantheon of all-time classic rock 'n' roll bands."
