Cacophonous and caffeinated, Claire is clicking at her clackety keyboard on the teensy end of a.m., fatiguing along like the good little spit-shined she-soldier she wishes she were. And the metaphor is aptly wrapped, for like a bulging bugler (heavily into reveille), Claire has something to trumpet up your sun-up. Just recent, my decent (I’d love to ask him in, decent) poster-boy postal boy left four tracks on my paisleyed porch in the form of a Transatlantic EP by Steve Earle and the V-Roys. In order that I might review them in order, here we like a green light go:
1. “Johnny Too Bad” (Sunshine Mix). Covering the Slickers slickly, Steve hips toward hop with rapper C. Fax. Unlike Claire’s ’78 Duster, the V-Roys and RNT back up. Rappety-bappety, Claire was skanking to this nougaty nugget until the sun took its pinking shears to the ska-line.
2. “Johnny Too Bad” (Jamaican Hillbilly Mix). Unrapped. Twangier. First track smacked, this track lacked. Reminded Claire of second-date letdown, when the dew-be-dew is off the boutonniere, dear.
3. “Straight Highway”, V-Roys. Guitary, linear, kinetic, cymbalic.
4. “Ellis Unit One” Steve Earle and the Fairfield Four. Not the Sunshine Mix.
Now that I’ve given you the EP-jeebies, Claire has to, like a cheap stocking in a briar patch, run. I’m shamefully, blamefully late for my better-than-bottle-throttle daily jump-start-date-beside-the-interstate: Trucker-robics!
