#40/129 May 2000 Issue of 3rd Coast Music
Two Tons of Steel: King Of A One-Horse Town
The Starlight Drifters: Every Note A Pearl...
(Big Bellied ****/Dyna Electro ****)
Boiled down to their essence, record reviews are ornamented report cards, you balance this strength against that weakness, giving extra points here, taking them away there, and wind up with a grade average. Working that out for these two bands is dead easy because they both score straight A's across the board: vocals, individual playing, ensemble playing, original material, choice of covers and production values.
Kevin Geil's Two Tons Of Steel, which takes its name from his vintage Cadillac, has been San Antonio's top roots band (i.e. they can't afford to play in Austin) for the last five years, moving by degrees from rockabilly to roots rock/country over the course of their three albums. Geil's relaxed vocals, the smooth, Duane-ish twang of guitarist Dennis Fallon, laidback solidity of upright bassman (and producer) Ric Ramirez and drummer Stephen Hartwell, with steel guitar icing by Denny Mathis, mesh together superbly behind Geil's seven originals, which, particularly Does Heaven Know, more than hold their own in the company of Ivory Joe Hunter's Since I Met You Baby', The Ramones' I Wanna Be Sedated, Roy Head & The Traits' One More Time and Rusty Martin's Crazy Little Rockin' (RedHeaded Girl). This is a band that deserves to be much better known but, as Jim Beal Jr of the San Antonio Express-News has already told them, they need to get out of the Bermuda Triangle of Texas music.
Based in Ann Arbor MI, The Starlight Drifters' immediate claim to attention, well, my attention anyway, is that their versions of his material and blend of honky tonk, rockabilly and Western Swing so impressed Jack Scott that he hired them as his backing band a couple of years ago. Scott's imprimatur on the cover certainly gives them the inarguable right to include The Way I Walk on their second album. Other covers are of Cindy Walker's It's All Your Fault, Ernest Tubb's Drivin' Nails In My Coffin, Hank Thompson's Car Hoppin 'Mama and Wayne Walker's AII I Can Do Is Cry, with the other eight coming from the band, mainly guitarist and producer Chris Casello and/or vocalist Bill Alton. There's nothing earth-shattering, life-changing or envelope-pushing about either of these albums, but with so many bands out there that are doing well to get even part of the equation right, it's such a relief to hear outfits that are so on top of it and don't need to be cut any slack. Two albums that can be enjoyed without reservations of any kind. JC