Walter Daniels

“Almost Got Hit by a Truck” b/w “My Mind Got Bad” (Spacecase)

Walter Daniels & the Giblets with Jack Oblivian

“Voodoo Working” and “Stimulant” b/w “I Get Off on It” (Ghost Highway)

Gary Lindsey & Big Foot Chester with Scott H. Biram

“Graveyard Shift” b/w “They Can Only Fill One Grave” (Little Class)

Three singles by Austin’s leading punk-blues ethnomusicologist/harmonicat splay seven songs across 21 inches of vinyl. Walter Daniels packs various all-star guests, including a reunion of his post-Jack O’Fire garage-stomp outfit Big Foot Chester. “Almost Got Hit by a Truck” revives a plaintive Daniel Johnston composition as Bill Anderson works the Fender amp tremolo with a tambourine taped to his leg, and Gun Club/Cramps/Nick Cave guitar hero Kid Congo Powers spits out a 1965 Keith Richards lead line. Flip it over and Daniels whips out the harp and growls out a country blues from Yank Rachell that’s clearly a cousin to blues standard “Sittin’ on Top of the World,” aided and abetted by Billysteve Korpi’s guitar, Ralph White’s fiddle and banjo, and our own Kevin Curtin’s mandolin. The Giblets EP, meantime, features Korpi and Anderson guitar slashin’ across an amalgam of punk and swamp-pop, with Memphis garage luminary Jack Oblivian’s six-string gracing a funny, funky Tony Joe White B-side. The Big Foot Chester reunion sports a late-night creature feature vibe perfect for those fall fun-seekers that still have their Halloween decor up. One side stomps the blues, and the other a country-ish sea shanty. Growlin’ vox and hot harp accompany, Daniels’ veteran roots bruise gleaming a chromium high.

This article appears in December 2 • 2016.

A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community’s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands.

SUPPORT US

Tim Stegall contributed to The Austin Chronicle 1991-1995, and was a staff writer 1995-1997. He returned as a contributor in 2013. He has also freelanced for publications ranging from Flipside to Alternative Press to Guitar World. He plays punk rock guitar and sings in the Hormones.