Claire’s a quoter not a promoter, but ever since my postal-packing stamp scamp COD’d me with Lee Rocker’s CD, I’ve been twirling twisties into my hardwired hotline (a Rikki don’t lose that retro number, of course, dial is style, touch-tone is a dry bone) ketchup and mustering like bridge girders support for a world tour presenting with a scissor-curled-ribbon on ’em Lee Rocker, Marty Stuart and Travis Tritt, and Paul Westerberg. It’ll be called, like a bus, wait for it, the No Cats, No Hats, No ‘Mats Tour.
Speed the plow and until the earth then, I can like jars of plump steaming tomatoes tell you that while nothing on this album will make you like Ronald Reagan as animal control officer forget the Stray Cats, there is Hollywood back lots to like, Ike. As unusual, my Heisenbergian observations are disparate but never dispirited, and so here we like Carl Perkins go, cat, go:
Rocker spankety-spanks the skippety-bippety bass on “Rumblin Bass” like a pepped-up pizzicato puppy pelvis-popping a pant leg. Claire had to smack herself on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper to keep from ruining the carpet. “Miracle In Memphis” is like a pastel convertible ride fun, but I hope like Crosby someone has gone overture to William tell Lee that the Blue Moon of Kentucky rose from behind a mandolin before it was shot from the hips.
Not everything is tub-thumping bass-ballsy: “Screaming Hunger” is moodied up by Adrian Demain’s gravy of grievy groove; Leon Russell’s piano is jouncey-trouncey on his own “Little Piece Of Your Love”, which is sweetly-treatly boogie-monster-mastered by Rocker’s vocals. “Memphis Freeze” is a please. Blondie’s “One Way or Another” is further re-retrotreaded by ex-but-not-lax Cars guitarist (not Bret) Elliot Easton.
The bottom like sitting on a wet bench line is that this album could have been like a yup-tent campy, but thank-like-stuffing-in-a-turkey-fully it a-null-and-voids the camp stamp and turns like reverse pigeon toes out to birds and be funning if not stunning. The hair-sprayed head scout leader of camp has like a covered wagon wheel builder spoken.
