Monday, April 02, 2018

New Music 2018 - Part 15 - Beelzebub Jones - A Good Day To Be A Bad Guy

Not many artists choose midnight at the end of Easter Sunday to drop a new release. I guess if they do then there are not that many people just waiting to discover it and listen there and then. As it happens I was and not because I had any prior knowledge. I'd been out doing something completely different and got home in no mood to turn in. I needed some wind-down time first and needless to say this immediately caught my attention. Some things are just meant to happen and this collaboration between Andrew McClatchie (Half Deaf Clatch) and Richard Wall is, to paraphrase their own description, dirty cinematographic Americana.
It is the soundtrack to a spaghetti Western that you have never seen simply because it doesn't actually exist. You can therefore imagine the plot to suit yourself. The cover art might look rather daunting but do you judge everything by its cover? Music is as much about your imagination as it is about the people who make it.

Beelzebub Jones - A Good Day To Be A Bad Guy (Speak Up Recordings, 2 April 2018).

It is based on a short story by Richard Wall and that accompanies the limited edition of the physical release (CD, 100 copies) as part of the 26-page A5 booklet. Here's the play list to contemplate:
Nicotine, Liquor & Blasphemy
Whiskey For Breakfast
Dry, Dry Bones
Rattlesnake Interlude
The Heist
Death Of The Teller 
Never Take Me Alive
Sinners Last Request
Vultures
The Crossing Place 
Working For The Devil
Revenge Is My Only Friend 
Showdown


I can only presume that title 'Beelzebub Jones' is taken from a comic strip, with a Wild Western theme, that ran in the Daily Mail from December 1938 - December 1945. If that is true then it is quite something, if not it is an astonishing coincidence. The clapperboard is all yours.

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