I stuck this record on without first looking at the track list. As the first number opened, I felt a thrill of excitement—it sounded like an up-tempo cover of “The Scrotum Song” by the Asylum Street Spankers, a hilarious neo-classic of the bawdy blues genre. Alas, this is not what it was—but a right rollicking start to the disc, all the same. “Maybe Baby” introduces the band members through a series of breakneck solos and duets establishing the New England outfit as one with New Orleans chops.
Track two takes the tempo right down with Josef Myrow’s “Blue Drag,” made famous by Django Reinhardt but here performed in a steady swinging style, rather than manouche. There’s something a bit David Lee Roth about Stu Dias’s vocal, for he delivers it with the full-throated bombast of a rock star. The difference is that Dias is backed by a superb live band, unlike Roth’s hideous “Just a Gigolo,” which featured a single Casio synthesizer in the hands of an enthusiastic teenager, I reckon.
Speaking of keys, I have to praise Mike Effenberger’s sparse but effective mid-track solo on “Blue Drag” for using the entire keyboard—including those rumbling bass notes, which he thumps enthusiastically. That’s not to say that his playing isn’t nuanced—just check out how his playing evolves steadily from the sparse to the solid on “Darktown Strutter’s Ball.” Or
