J Roddy Walston and the Business - Essential Tremors.

A few weeks ago I had never heard of J Roddy Walston and The Business.

In my world the simply didn't exist.

Then a mate - Tony Gaughan - stumbled across them when they played a date in Glasgow.

He wasn't even specifically there to see them, and until that point he hadn't heard one note from them.

However he was blown away by their live performance, and the very next day he was ordering the back catalogue online and spreading the word.

With one link to a video on social media I was feeling the excitement, and after half an hour of trawling online to listen to the band I was hooked, and like Tony I was placing orders on-line, but unlike Tony I was kicking myself for letting my finger slip from the pulse of what was going on and missing them.

Now, and I mean right now, there’s a slab of vinyl spinning round at thirty three and a third revolutions per minute and spilling J Roddy and his band out into my life.

Marc Bolan and Mungo Jerry are casting shadows on the wall and the Kings of Leon are sipping on some southern comfort and slowly coming to the realization that this is a band that are everything that they at one time wanted to be. Meanwhile Jerry Lee Lewis is looking dangerously at everyone sporting short hair, a beard and skinny jeans and it’s on the tip of his tongue to ask why no one is wearing socks.

It’s that sort of sound that the band deal in, a wee bit chaotic, a little bit dangerous and a whole lot of raw rock and roll being tapped into.

I noticed someone mention that they were like one of those southern rock bands that it’s cool to drive along to, and of course that is correct if when they say drive along to they mean on the wrong side of the road while leaning out the window slugging from a bottle of JD and giving a rebel yell while considering a speed limit to be for pussies.

Love it when I'm blind sided by music like this.

To my mind there is nothing that could be criticized on ‘Essential Tremors’.

I'm dancing now……………..seriously……………neighbours are going to complain soon.

Oh. Sublime honky-tonk piano. Bring it on home boys.

It’s the fifties, sixties and seventies effortlessly stitched together to make a fucked up Frankenstein’s monster of sound.

Utterly spellbinding.

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