The Chickasaw Mudd Puppies rocked the late ‘80s/early ‘90s seminal Athens, GA music scene with their idiosyncratic, Deep South sound — swamp rock with a dash of hillbilly blues. The group have returned with a new album, Fall Line, on the New West Imprint Strolling Bones Records and will be performing at SXSW 2023 as well as select Southern shows. The proto-Americana duo were taken under the wing of R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe and released the band’s White Dirt EP (’90) and 8 Track Stomp (’91) album, two fine hillbilly-blues, swamp-rocking gems produced by Stipe and blues legend Willie Dixon. After a live album recorded in London; the duo, Brant Slay (vocalist, washboard, harmonica) and Ben Reynolds (vocalist, percussion, electric guitar) went their separate ways for 20 years until their music was rediscovered and tapped for film, including The Mechanic and Tracing Cowboys. Slay and Reynolds regrouped and added a third member, Alan “Lumpy” Cowart, drummer of the The Beggar Weeds (also Stipe-produced).
Fall Line is a high-octane distillation of all the sound and the fury and the supercharged heart and soul that made this crackerjack combo so rip-roaringly great from the get-go back in day. If anything, Fall Line full-on eclipses its own intrinsic brilliance as an incendiary showcase of their spectacular return to form, shining like a vibrant creative rebirth rather than some run-of-the-mill reunion. Like fiery-eyed cicadas that have at last returned to the earth’s surface and freshly shed their shells, the Chickasaw Mudd Puppies are screaming out their unmistakable call louder and livelier than ever before.
At the end of the day, Fall Line casts the spell of a grand, yet inadvertent concept album, something of a “Sgt. Puppers” if you will. Opposing sides collide, exposing the deep divisions, dichotomies, and contradictions of the Southern condition – dark vs. light, good vs. evil, sin vs. salvation, nature vs. mankind. All with a buggy full of them hyphens to go where their many musical influences collide, plus to get a bit literary, a little Hank Williams meets Tennessee Williams, Tom Waits meets Tom Sawyer, Willie Dixon meets Willy Faulkner, and so on.
Today Glide is excited to premiere the standout track “Flatcar.” The song is the kind of quick hit of cranked up bar room rock and roll that fans of this band have come to expect over the years. Clocking in at just under two minutes, the stomping tune is a fiery burst of swaggering rock loaded with cool guitar shredding, proper harmonies, a thumping bass line, and some down and dirty harmonica to pull it all together. There is a punk energy that hits you, and you can imagine knocking back a shot of bourbon as you pound your fist to this delightfully vicious romp.
Ben Reynolds of Chickasaw Mudd Puppies describes the inspiration behind the tune:
“I was hanging out with some guys by the Ogeechee River. One of them mentioned the superiority of waxed cardboard over unwaxed. My buddy agreed immediately and went on to explain that when one is in need of shelter, the waxed cardboard is much more effective at repelling water. My wandering mind took over from there … I ‘ve never been in the song character’s situation, but I was living in some pretty dark mental places myself at the time this song was written. Although undiagnosed at the time, it turns out I have a profound but hidden cognitive disability. The character’s struggles, choices, and demons were metaphors for my own path. Honestly, I usually don’t have any idea what I’m going to write about. If I sit around long enough with a guitar, the guitar’s eventually gonna do what it’s gonna do.”
LISTEN:
