The Blasters

THE BLASTERS (Author), DAVE ALVIN, JOHN BAZZ, BILL BATEMAN + GENE TAYLOR THE BLASTERS: PHIL ALVIN (Performer) | Format: Vinyl

Product Details

• Vinyl
• Label: SLASH
• ASIN: B000VUTP4G
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #360,048 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

You might have thought the Blasters had been in suspended animation for 25 years when their major-label debut turned up in late 1981 sounding for all the world like something cut in the Sun Studios in Memphis in 1956. Dave Alvin knew all the licks and his brother Phil had the R&B/country wail down. Best of all, you couldn't tell the oldies from Dave's newly written classics. Welcome to the birth of rock & roll, all over again. 1 Marie Marie 2 No Other Girl 3 I'm Shakin' 4 Border Radio 5 American Music 6 So Long Baby Goodbye 7 Hollywood Bed 8 Never No Mo' Blues 9 This is It 10 Highway 61 11 I Love You So 12 Stop the Clock

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To Whoever's Listening: Isn't This One Long Overdue for a Digital Upgrade?, June 18, 2008

By 

Otto Luck (Detroit) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Blasters (Vinyl)

Forget the Stray Cats for a minute, Chim-Chim. Sure, they're cute and everything with their meticulously-crafted quiffs, full sleeves, retro togs, and stand-up drummer, but they've always seemed a bit too calculated and seemingly genetically engineered in a record company laboratory somewhere for mass consumption by the MTV crowd, crossing the big pond for the Brit stamp of approval before returning and unfurling their master plan for world domination in the States and points beyond to an entire generation laboring under the impression that rockabilly = Elvis. Don't get me wrong - Brian Setzer can play a little bit - but it's a mighty long way from the cover of "Smash Hits" to the Sun studios in Memphis.

By design or default, Downey, California's Blasters took a humbler grass roots approach to plying their craft and navigating the music biz, paying their dues with a bare-bones, rough-and-tumble, indie-label debut on Rollin' Rock before being called up to the bigs for their initial release on another indie, Slash (with a leg up via Warner distribution), unwittingly putting into place a template for all that neo-rockabilly/roots rock/Americana/alt.country would become for the next two decades and change.

Despite the grimacing visage of Phil Alvin on the cover, "The Blasters" is a very easy pill to swallow, a great, upbeat beer-drinking album and about an appealing a mash-up of country, rock and roll, swing, and R&B as you're likely to find anywhere. Dave Alvin's songwriting and guitar playing are timeless, immediate, confident, inspired, and earthy, while Phil's croon digs into an apparently bottomless bag of countrified tricks.

With something as simple and real as bass guitar, drums, piano, and saxophone, Bill Bateman, John Bazz, Gene Taylor, and Lee Allen straddle time and create something modern and ripe on several sturdy touchstones of the Blasters canon; "Border Radio," So Long Baby Goodbye," "Marie Marie," "American Music," and the low-riding "I'm Shakin'"

I'd place "The Blasters" reverently amongst my top ten albums of all time. I've played it a few hundred times and I just know I'll never tire of it, becoming an old pal of a record that will never let me down.

5.0 out of 5 stars Pure Blasters energy and passion!, October 12, 2008

By 

Scott Mcleod (Riverside, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Blasters (Vinyl)

If you get a chance to pick up this classic Blasters nugget, don't hesitate! It is Blasters high energy and passion coming at you strong, no filler here. This captures them in their prime and I would recommend it over the various other live and studio collections available -- I've heard most of what is available from them and saw them live many times, and this is the one that I think best captures their essence.