Nick Lowe

Mixing the familiar sounds of Dick Dale, Duane Eddy, and the Ventures, Los Straitjackets create their own version of energetic surf guitar twang, complete with Mexican wrestling masks. Los Straitjackets began in the summer of 1988. Eddie Angel (guitar), L.J. "Jimmy" Lester (drums), and Danny Amis (guitar) formed an instrumental trio called the Straitjackets, which played local Nashville shows throughout the summer. After a six-year hiatus, the Straitjackets reunited, added E. Scott Esbeck on bass, and changed their name to Los Straitjackets. In November 1994, the band signed with Upstart Records.

All copies of the September 2024 issue of Uncut come with a free, 15-track CD – On The Highway – that showcases the wealth of great new music on offer this month, from Mercury Rev, MJ Lenderman and John Murry & Michael Timmins to Enumclaw, Harlem Gospel Travelers and Krononaut. Now dive in…

Perhaps realizing that The Juliet Letters was one step too far, especially after the willfully eclectic pair of Spike and Mighty Like a Rose, Elvis Costello set out to make a straight-ahead rock & roll record with Brutal Youth, reuniting with the Attractions (though Bruce Thomas appears on only five tracks) and Nick Lowe (who plays bass on most of the rest). Unfortunately, all this nostalgia and good intentions are cancelled by the retention of producer Mitchell Froom, whose junkyard, hazily cerebral productions stand in direct contrast to the Attractions' best work. Likely, Froom's self-conscious production appealed to Costello, since it makes Brutal Youth look less like a retreat, but it severely undercuts the effectiveness of the music, since it lacks guts, no matter how smugly secure it is in its tempered "experimentation."

Recorded simultaneously with Nick Lowe's Labour of Lust, Dave Edmunds' Repeat When Necessary continues the winning streak of Get It and Tracks on Wax 4 simply by sticking to the formula. Though Rockpile's sound is a little cleaner here than before, nothing's changed but the songs, which are uniformly excellent. Culled primarily from pub rock contemporaries (and containing no Lowe songs whatsoever), the record contains four classics: Elvis Costello's galloping "Girls Talk," and Graham Parker's relentless "Crawling from the Wreckage," the funny (a rarity of Edmunds) "Creature from the Black Lagoon," and the country-rocker "Queen of Hearts," which would later become a hit for Juice Newton in exactly the same arrangement.

All copies of the September 2024 issue of Uncut come with a free, 15-track CD – On The Highway – that showcases the wealth of great new music on offer this month, from Mercury Rev, MJ Lenderman and John Murry & Michael Timmins to Enumclaw, Harlem Gospel Travelers and Krononaut. Now dive in…