DOUBLE WIDE AND LIVE - Southern Culture on the Skids (Yep Roc Records/Shock Records )
Iggy Pop is arguably the most high profile product of the humble suburban trailer park. Exactly how growing up in a mobile home shaped the erstwhile Mr Osterberg’s approach to life and music is a 
matter for deeper socio-economic analysis than time and space permits on the I-94 Bar, but it’s something to ponder in the wee small hours when the alcohol has infiltrated the recesses of one’s brain. Closer to home, ephemeral Australian political shooting star Pauline Hanson stumbled into Parliament on the back of a half-baked political philosophy that reflected the populist concerns of her trailer trash constituency (and as an unfortunate consequence challenged the merit of the whole ‘one person, one vote’ concept).
I don’t think the members of Southern Culture on the Skids actually grew up in a trailer park, but they’ve made a fun-filled career out of celebrating their redneck character. With their collection of songs filled with images of fried chicken, grits (quite possibly the biggest culinary travesty in the modern world), alcohol fuelled late night escapades, flea-ridden motel rooms and social attitudes that throw back before the Jim Crow days, Southern Culture on the Skids have carved out a musico-cultural niche that celebrates the dysfunctional margins of society in a sonic maelstrom of surf, swamp, rockabilly and hollering vocals.
Southern Culture on the Skids have always enjoyed a healthy following in Australia: I remember seeing them play at the Prince of Wales in 1998, when local legend Fred Negro (I Spit On Your Gravy, Fuck Fucks, Twits etc) got on stage and purported to strum Rick Miller’s guitar using Negro’s oft-displayed one-eyed trouser snake, and some cliched advances toward bass player Mary Huff which she politely and carefully fended off. Gratuitous nudity aside, the band’s shows elicit liberal doses of southern folksy charm that walks the fine line between celebration and parody.
“Double Wide and Live” is a live recording taken from a series of Southern Culture on the Skids gigs recorded over three days in late 2004 at Chapel Hill’s Local 506 in the band’s home state of North Carolina. It opens with a shrieking call to arms from Rick Miller in the first generation Presley-esque “Come and Get It”, an appropriately rousing opening tune that presumably saw the dance floor flooded by self-styled twistin’ and rockin’.
The material is a smattering of the old and new. There’s some newer material courtesy of “Mojo Box”, “The Wet Spot” and “’69 El Camino’” from the band’s most recent studio release “Mojo Box”, the rousing crowd favourite “Banana Pudding” from 1998’s “Plastic Seat Sweat” and “Cheap Motels”, “Hittin’ on Nothing”, “Liquored Up” and “Just How Lonely” from “Liquored and Lacquered Down”. Like Jon Spencer (occasionally derided for being a good middle class New Yorker pretending to be a bad-ass southerner) the members of Southern Culture on the Skids engage in the well trodden artistic pursuit of pretence – how else can you explain a three suburban rednecks churning out note perfect surf brilliance in “The Wet Spot”? The sweet talkin’ southern rock of “Doublewide” is more explicable, an appropriate soundtrack for an afternoon in the sun south of the Mason-Dixon line with some local beer and fried food doused and marinated in more saturated fats than can be found in the crevices of Harland (Colonel) Sanders’ kitchens, or the rockin’ nocturnal automotive beauty of “Dirt Track Date”. The final track, “Meximelt” gets the full Dick Dale “Miserlou” treatment with Miller’s manic surf guitar flourishes every bit as exciting as trying to tame a 20 foot wave.
“Double Wide and Live isn’t quite as wild as the real live Southern Culture and the Skids trip – then again listening to someone eat fried chicken isn’t the same as eating it. – Patrick Emery
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