Record Reviews

The Crack Pipes

Every Night Saturday Night (Sympathy for the Record Industry)

How nice of Ray Colgan and the Crack Pipes to throw this record player party and invite us along. Record players are these archaic devices that people used to listen to music on before the digital age; distinguished by a warm hiss, frequent popping, and the necessity of getting up to turn the blasted thing over. As a carryover from those bygone days, Every Night Saturday Night is divided into two sides. Side one is a half-dozen terse, stomping garage blasts, ranging from the cocksure Jon Spencer strut of "Record Player Party" to the cottonmouthy, Replacements-like squall of "Cottonpickin'," plus, inexplicably, the slow, expansive blues of the title track. Inexplicably because it's much more in tune with side two: Here, Colgan and company engage in some serious R&B workouts that come dangerously close to that evil word, "jamming." On Johnny Paycheck's "Woman (You Better Love Me)," Colgan approximates Bob Dylan fronting Led Zeppelin ("you better love me"), while the late-night loverman soul of "Two Gold Rings" carries a hint of Lou Reed's poignant urban longing. Most impressive is the Austin fourpiece's "arrangement" of "Downtown Diddley," eight full minutes of vintage Bo that still doesn't feel like enough. The technology may be passé in our world of faster-smoother-sleeker-smaller, but the unkempt spirit of record players and those nasty old blues 45s lives on in the Crack Pipes. Down at their smoky, stained-floor basement juke joint, every night is Saturday night, and CDs are nothing but a nasty rumor.