The Blasters have been particularly ill-served during the digital era — a ’97 reissue of their barely-indie debut and Warner’s overly expedient, long out of print 20-track summation The Blasters Collection — that is, until now. Testament is an exemplary package, collecting their entire Slash catalog (as advertised), as well as a generous assortment of oddments and ephemera. The reappearance of the long-lost, much-revered Non Fiction (contributing a paltry three tracks to Collection) alone renders the package all but indispensable.
That 1983 album, their third full-length effort, recalls the towering achievement of Creedence’s Willy & The Poor Boys — West Coast Anglos (well, mostly) fashioning a surprisingly distinctive vision, neither overtly obeisant or trad bound, from decidedly African-American materials. Non Fiction imagines a modern-day wasteland poised between the Depression and Reagan’s corporate rape-and-pillage, most explicitly on “Jubilee Train” (Hoovervilles and bread lines) and “Boomtown” (indifferent skyscrapers and tenement shacks).
But more often, Dave Alvin’s lyrics root their pain and loss in exquisitely rendered everyday sketches: an emotionally depleted relationship unraveling in a seedy bus station, a lonely single’s increasingly desperate pleas for “just one more dance.” Still, the album proffers momentary respite in music’s joyous release (two undeniable covers) and a species of hope in the wake of hard lessons and bitter truths (the devastating “Leaving”).
If Non Fiction is the music of emergent men stripped of their youthful illusions, then the self-titled Slash debut affords their last, best chance for hedonistic escape. Not that the specter of disillusionment and desperation isn’t lurking; rather, the album proceeds with an economy and efficiency that tends to obscure such trifling concerns. In fact, from Phil Alvin’s excitable boy on “Marie Marie” to the end-of-the-set anthem “So Long Baby Goodbye”, the first side’s (a necessary, if outdated LP reference) headlong rush may actually match Non Fiction’s more measured, abiding strengths. Ultimately, only an intermittently flat second half — one too many straight blues and/or one too few genre-expanding originals — handicaps the album’s pantheon status.
Nonetheless, The Blasters provides an uncompromising showcase for the band’s tremendous range and formal mastery. Powered by John Bazz and Bill Bateman’s muscular rhythm tandem (tempo shifts their specialty) with barrelhouse piano and twin sax attack providing color, the band’s sound is far more full-bodied than the attenuated neobilly norm. In fact, “rockabilly” became something of a semantic trap, inadvertently pigeonholing a unit that claimed all of American music as its heritage — not just the blues and R&B of their roots-besmitten youth, but also the L.A. punk that fueled their speed and energy. By Non Fiction, the band had coalesced into an ideal working unit — tight and intuitive, yet remarkably fresh and vital.
Despite overwhelming critical accolades, The Blasters’ releases were nonetheless commercial non-events. Frustrated by marketplace indifference, the band enlisted an outside producer, Jeff Eyrida, for what would prove to be their final effort, Hard Line. With horns relegated to tour-only support, the album certainly boasts a more polished, “commercial” sheen, yet several tracks are uncommonly spare and/or stark (most notably, the de facto Elvis tribute “Help You Dream”). The album’s marked schizoid leanings are equally evident in Dave Alvin’s ever-evolving songcraft — his politics more overt and bitter (the barely veiled Reagan broadside “Common Man”), his love affairs more generalized and diffuse (the Arcadian-accented “Hey, Girl”).
By Hard Line, the brothers’ escalating personal rift exerted a conspicuous influence on the band’s creative decisions. Phil’s powerful vocal set piece “Samson And Delilah” anticipates his solo Un Sung Stories, while Dave’s John Doe collaborations presage his imminent defection. As a result, though nearly as strong song-for-song as Non Fiction, the album suffers in the intangibles — less focused, more conflicted, more compromised.
Testament concludes the Blasters’ story with 1982′s ‘tween project European tour EP, puckishly titled Over There (here expanded to near-LP length). Notwithstanding the band’s ferocious live rep and the set’s A-list covers, the results are surprisingly uninspired, yielding only a handful of keepers: Gene Taylor’s boogie-woogie workout “Roll ‘Em Pate”, Lee Allen’s flaming youth showcase “Walkin’ With Mr. Lee”, and (perhaps most telling) the collection’s sole Dave Alvin credit, the slight but winning “I Don’t Want To”. Despite their unwavering commitment to the music’s traditions, the Blasters were strongest, most committed, most distinctive when framing brother Dave’s songs — knee-deep in blues and R&B usages, yet channeling an original, wholly-formed voice.
It’s ultimately this fortuitous marriage of sound and vision, as inevitable and incontrovertible in its fashion as the Chicago and Memphis singles the band revered as youths, that has long deserved a fitting testament. Certainly the albums are best appreciated in their original 15-to-20-minute increments — which may explain my seemingly odd decision to discuss a 2-CD collection as four separate releases.
And though the many outtakes, obscurities, B-sides and below are undoubtedly welcome, only a handful approach the canon — most notably, their onscreen Streets Of Fire highlight “Blue Shadows” and the soulful, horn-sweetened Hard Line outtake “Can’t Stop Time”. At worst, these are sins of an expansive generosity any marginally competent listener can program around. More significantly, an essential component of American music is once again available for public delectation.
