COWBOYS AND INDIANS EP - Johnny Casino & The Secrets (Off the Hip)
A follow-up to the "New Clothes Old Shoes" album and it's up there with the long-player, no risk. This is a logical add-on for fans of the album and an ideal vehicle with which Johnny and his Secrets will conquer Spain in November 2007.
The title track is a strident mid-tempo rocker, bright and melodic and as good as anything that made the album. It could have come out of the West Coast circa 1968. The Secrets on this one are Johnny's Perth band; Ken "Killer" Watt and Mr Casino's guitars are a joy.
The alt.mix of countrified ballad "The Country Mile" isn't harmed by some additional guitar and percussion, while the take on The Box Tops' brief but sweet classic "The Letter" sears with Kent Steedman on guitar. I was privy to a demo which was great, but this mastered version is worth the price of admission on its own.
The country-rock "Drunk and Tired" I'm guessing from its cedit to be a James McCann tune, and it sways and swaggers like it should with a name like that. There's a massed, messy chorus ("I'm drunk and tired/And I fucked my shit up") to bring things home. Guru Brad Shepherd sits in with the Sydney Secrets (engine room of Ben Fox and Mark Horne) plus rollicking backing vocalists.
"New Clothes Old Shoes" is where the album took its title and it's a solo urban blues, just the Casino man and his acoustic. A nice closer that shows how Johnny has come on as a vocalist.
Makes you wonder why the album wasn't a double but thankful these tunes made it into the open air. - The Barman
NEW CLOTHES OLD SHOES - Johnny Casino & The Secrets (Off the Hip)
Those shoes cover a lot of stylistic ground on this debut long-player for Sydney guitarist-singer Johnny Casino but the walk never gets tiring. So let's get the hyperbole out of the way early and say this is nigh on the best Aussie release of 2007, at the year's halfway point. It has a confident, cocksure swagger (to continue the footwear/walking analogy) and, even with more guests than a Jet industry showcase at the Metro, manages to tie together so well, it's scary.
You should know Johnny Casino so let's leave the history lesson aside. It's all here if you're not sure. He's the common thread with his soulful if sometimes a little unassuming vocals, clever songs and confident, fiery guitarwork. While Johnny's churned out a sizeable and impressive body of recorded work, this is his most assured and accomplished.
Recorded over two-plus years with a couple of core bands and a host of other players, "New Clothes Old Shoes" covers bases from swampy blues to soulful hard rock to Midwestern heartland country in a way records just don't, these days. The tunes recall Dylan, the Flamin' Groovies (a Casino constant), Louis Tillett and The Aspersion Caste and Dylan/The Band. It's powered by strong, heartfelt songwriting and a liberal dose of personality. They still rock, and in a supremely satisfying way.
Parts of this will sit you on your arse. Case-in-point is the opener, "Everybody Loves Me". It cranks up with some rusty, quasi-Morricone chordage before the undertow of the Ben Fox/Mark Horne engine room rumbles in, dragging an in-your-face horn section with them. Casino and Mick Poole blaze away in the mid section and the combined effect is like a musical steamroller.
Next up, handclaps and a steady backbeat summon up "How Could I Ever Love You?" and its warm chorus and vamping Jeremy Craib Hammond recall Levon Hall and The Band. In a fair and just world this would be all over your radio. Fuck the person who invented syndicated playlists.
Third song is "If You Want It", which might have been the song best suited to an Asteroid B612 set list. Doesn't matter, it's a moot point with them on a break. There's a simple ascending chord pattern, a driving feel and some wonderful Brad Shepherd harmonica to fuel a Casino vocal, based around bacon fat lyrics that would do dirty old Andre Williams proud.
"Trying To Be a Man" is one of those plaintive, country-tinged pop songs that would have 'em crying in the aisles at the Grand Old Opry, with rollicking piano from Jeremy Craib and uplifting backing vocals from Billy Gibson and Grahame Spittles. Johnny really nails the vocal here, and the mood is engagingly rocking and unforced.
I could go on track-by-track but you can do that yourself. Then you can discover curve balls like the menacing, violin-laced (shades of Dylan's "Desire") "I Should Have Killed You When I Had The Chance", where guest vocalist Megan Bowden takes centre stage, or the bluesy, brassy bombast of "Nothing Left To Hide".
These might be Johnny Casino's songs but he's not too precious to turn a few over to someone else to sing, when it's right to do so. Carl Ekkman (The Hunchbacks, King Felix) shares the mic on the lament, "You Got Me Walkin'", while ex-The Eastern Dark bassist Bill Gibson takes the helm for "The Country Mile", a (Brad Shepherd) banjo-driven tune that'll probably shock longtime Asteroids fans for its levity and breezy feel.
That's understandable, but they should be revived by the smelling salts of "Keep On Keepin' On", a brutal aural storm where Casino's ragged vocal and horns duel with guitars in a set piece battle that'd do the "High Time" MC5 proud. Props will also come from the straight rocking brigade for "Only a Fool" where Kent Steedman lends some licks to an organ-fuelled, muscle car-driving song.
There's one cover, the live showstopper "Ballad Of a Thin Man", and whether there's irony in the big fella making this one his own is kinda immaterial, Mr Jones. Something sure is happening. It's one of Dylan's best putdowns, hands down, and if there was a way to direct just a small portion of its scorn at those in the mainstream music industry who will never hear this album because it's not on a major label, let's make it a done deal.- The Barman
GET SOME - Johnny Casino & The Secrets (Off the Hip)
Ostensibly a two-song sampler for the new album with 11 more tunes appended, this becomes a fine career retrospective for Johnny Casino, the omniprescent bandleader/guitarist-turned-singer on the Sydney rock and roll scene. A lot's been put into the forthcoming CD and on the strength of just this, it's going to be quite something.
Johnny Casino's paid his own dues and a few other people's too. As lead guitarist for Asteroid B612, he saw his band hover on the strength of a worldwide deal for a while before more or less sliding into inactivity. Strong but aurally flawed albums remain a legacy, with them more or less in hiatus. John's been working with the floating cast of Johnny Casino's Easy Action (and pick-up bands) to rock (and tattoo) his way around the world. but more recently his Sydney-based combo, Johnny Casino & The Secrets, has been taking his time.
I've been lucky enough to have been given a taste of the work-in-progress long-player by The Secrets and it's killer, even in its rough mix form. Augmented by some guests, it's been assembled when the band wasn't sharpening its act live.
"Trying To Be Your Man" is the loping opener on this sampler, building on an acoustic with swelling guitars and rolling piano filling things out behind Johnny's plaintive vocal. Bill Gibson's backing vox are the cream on top.
Blustering harp and blistering guitar from guest Brad Shepherd ignites the second unveiled Secrets song, "If You Want It", a stand-out feature of the live set and a little more measured, but no less magnificent, in its studio form. Cue some great sustained lead guitar.
The A side from Johnny's hard-to-find solo single "Nothing Left To Hide" is one of the bonus inclusions. Two songs apiece from the two Easy Action albums ("I Gotta Woman" being one of the better cuts on that recent one) swell the ranks, with the balance from Asteroid B612's formidable back catalogue.
If Off the Hip's intention is to build momentum until the release of the new album, they've pulled it off. You've been warned that both it and this sampler are pretty close to essential purchases. - The Barman
1/2
I PAID FOR AFFECTION. NOT THE HOUSE OF CORRECTION - Johnny Casino's Easy Action (Off the Hip)
Johnny Casino's Easy Action swept through Australia, Europe and selected parts of the USA in 2005 like an enema through an infirm nursing home patient on a licourice binge. Part-roughhouse brawlers, part-traveling musical medicine show, they put on a show chockfull of attitude and good times. Pity that low-key production and the occasional ill-chosen moment drag their second long player down a peg.
To be fair, it was always going to be hard matching "We've Forgotten More Than You'll Ever Know" which managed to grab a wheelbarrow load of rock's roots, chop them into small pieces and use them as tinder to build a fire hot enough to thaw a bank manager's heart. It was rough and raw and that suited the songs fine. This time around, the production's a problem; there's a lack of bottom end and the guitars could also do with more muscle.
No complaints with the stand-out track and opener, "Jack of Diamonds", where snaking psychedelic guitar (possibly from guest player Kent Steedman) add some sting, or the Groovies-ish "Gotta Get Back" which to me is quintessinal Easy Action. But the treatment of "I Gotta Woman" (a John Spittles original) sounds a bit thin and it's questionable whether we needed another version of Asteroid B612's signature "Straight Back to You" that doesn't detour much from the original.
There are some rocking moments but Easy Action's take on The Band's "Shape I'm In" isn't one of them. The original song by The Band is a dud anyway but co-vocalist Grahame Deluxe is making a fair first of it when The Cosmic Commander pipes in with his back-ups, sounding just like Popeye crashing a spinach party. The song's writer, Robbie Robertson, might shuffle off this mortal coil and join Rick Danko in the afterlife if he cops an earful. Come to think of it, I might post him a copy to pay him back for giving the world "The Weight".
Don't get me wrong. This isn't a a bad album. We might even become convivial mates over repeated listenings and a chat over the back fence. But "I Paid for Affection..." is boxing to the Queensberry Rules when it should have come out of its corner, foaming at the mouth and flinging off the gloves to fight bare-knuckle style, before tearing off my head and shitting down my neck. It's too damn well-mannered for its own good.- The Barman
WE'VE
FORGOTTEN MORE THAN YOU'LL EVER KNOW - Johnny Casino's Easy Action (Steel
Cage)
Now there's no valid excuse for not owning a copy of one of the best rockers
of 2005. If you're a Yank whose been timid about parting with hard-earned
for overseas imports, the good news is that Philadelphian label Steel
Cage has issued a slightly re-worked version
of this meisterwork in the USA. On the other hand, if you already bought a
copy of the Off the Hip version (scroll down), a couple of substituted
tunes ("Ain't That a Lot of Love" and "Treatin' Me Kind")
gives you just cause for doubling up.
Steel Cage was a natural to pick this up, as the City of Brotherly
Etc. Etc. is the American home for Johnny Casino's Easy Action. The two newer
tunes are recent recordings, put down on tape by the Australian version of
the band while taking a breather while on their recent Antipodean tour. Local
member Grahame Deluxe take applies his vocal stupendously well (my initial
mis-reading of the slick had someone else behind the mic - I should have just
listedned harder). Ex-Melting Skyscraper Pete Patterson sings back-ups (on
his holidays he also mixes it with members of this crew as part of the Philadelphia-based
Chrome Horse Diplomats). The band brings a formidable player straight off
the bench in Celibate Rifle Kent Steedman.
Not much more to say except this re-tracked and different looking version
of the album is every bit as excellent as the Aussie version. The same comments
and rating apply. Buy one (or both)
of these or forever be consigned to the ranks of the terminally stupid. - The
Barman
1/2
WE'VE
FORGOTTEN MORE THAN YOU'LL EVER KNOW - Johnny Casino's Easy Action (Off
the Hip)
The
cocky statement inherent in the title might just be true. There's a righteousness
and a streak of brash "we don't give a fuck" running through this
disc that makes you want to turn the radio off for the rest of the week and
immerse yourself in the Easy Action's sound. God forbid that a radio programmer
could ever be enlightened enough to play THIS shit, so I might give the wireless
the flick, although it doesn't usually take much...
Johnny Casino's Easy Action are the Spittles brothers from Asteroid B612 (Johnny,
guitar) and Grahame, vocals, respectively) and a contingent of Philadelphians
(The Cosmic Commander on vocals, Stylin' Steve McCarthy on bass, Jumpin' Joe
Delucca on occasional keyboards, Johnny Ilisco on drums and Kevin McCarthy
on vocals). Apparently the common links that bond Narrabeen and Philly are
tattooing, wrestling and rock 'n' roll, so more power to both. Whatever the
connection that unites this combo, their output is worth the trans-Pacific
airfares.
JC's EA give The Easybeats' "Sorry" a throttling it'll never forget
to open the disc and it's a signal of things to come. The Cosmic Commander's
growl imparts a mood Little Stevie could never muster in his teen idol days
and apologies are the last thing to spring to mind. If "Roy the Boy"
isn't a tribjute to Mr Loney it should be and proves to be a handy reference
point as well, as the Easy Action sit somewhere on the same shelf as the early,
pre-Beatles fixated Groovies. Check the borrowed Asteroid B612 song ("Danny's
Sister") for more nods to a precursor (Chuck Berry, in case you were
wondering). As they might readily admit, anything the Easy Action have forgotten
was learned from the best.
If most of these songs are roughly-administered doses of Rock Action, there
are two exceptions to the rule: "Expressway To Your Heart" benefits
from an organ groove to push it into soul territory before duetting vocalists
(The Commander and Grahame?) pull it back, while the Johnny Casino-penned
"Somedays" summons up the smell of hay and the sound of a clean
country lick.
"Katrina Katrina" combines a singalong chorus with a bed of organ
and a hammered riff, while "She's a Deceiver" clears to decks with
some of the elder Spittles' best guitarwork (and a superb vocal, to boot).
"Midnight to Six" gets the working over it fully deserves. The younger
Spittles applies one of his best vocals to a playful, yet undeniable and ultimately
frenzied, "Black to Comm", whose status as a highlight of Asteroid
B612 sets is undiminished with this band in studio recorded form. Thus closes
the disc.
The exciting new is that Philadelphia's occasional local band is a touring
outfit, with runs through Australia and Europe planned for 2005. All in all,
this album is venerable and essential shit. Miss it at your peril.–
The Barman
1/2
