Some boys were born to be dirty old men. Launched in 1974, these prurient-minded wielders of sophomoric good humor and fake genitalia have evolved into cackling graybeard groovers whose vintage lends a twisted respectability to their blue-lit loutishness. Produced by Shawn Sahm, who met the Uranium Savages at the Soap Creek Saloon when he was 12, Clown Juice sloshes squirrelly, out-of-step carnal musings including “Robbin’ the Cradle” and “Low T.” Ringleader Kerry Awn channels Wanda Jackson’s “Fujiyama Mama” with too-soon tsunami corrido “Fukishimmy Shake,” while Charles Ray’s “Make Austin Great Again” upends Trumpist nativism by imagining a wall around Austin to keep out Californians. The title track employs a swaggering interpolation of Julius Fucik’s “Entrance of the Gladiators” to approximate abject inebriation. Though clearly the product of a local era long gone, these tasteless trucker tunes for retiring minds still have the power to offend all the right people.
This article appears in February 9 • 2018.
