Southern Culture On The Skids – Santo Swings

That Southern Culture arent yet arrogant millionaires is only the failure of Geffen to capitalize on last years Dirt Track Date. Which apparently has sold reasonably well (so they tried, and, anyway, whos to judge what the buying public wants?), but its an unreasonably good chooglin garage record that sounds like classic Southern rock, only better.

The six-song Santo Swings reprises a couple SCOTS singles, notably their prescient homage to the Mexican masked wrestler Santo. Prescient because, for those of you who follow such things (and I do; sorry), Mexican wrestlers have finally brought their agile and acrobatic act to the American squared circle. It also picks up an early version of Camel Walk, re-recorded for Dirt Track Date.

Well, regardless the context of their birthing, these songs brim with verve and vigor, and they smell like cold beer. The garage rock community, like some aspects of the traditional country crowd, is full of vintage clothes and rules about authenticity. SCOTS more or less predate the rise of garage (or at least the proliferation of garage bands), but theyve altogether retained their impulse to have good, clean, stupid fun.

This and many other discs may be a trifle hard to find. Sadly, the Estrus warehouse in Belling_ham, Washington, burned to the ground in January, taking with it the Mono Mens equipment, some of the Estrus inventory, and a first-rate collection of 50s objects d kitsch. And of course there was no insurance.