The Lazy Cowgirls - Tapping the Source

After hearing the Lazy Cowgirls on the soundtrack of the Border Radio movie, I realized that I hadn't listened to their early records in quite a while. Unfortunately, I don't have their first LP on CD (so I can't listen to it right now) but while that album had some terrific songs, the production (oddly, by Chris D., who didn't bring out their better qualities at all) is lacking. Here, on their follow-up, they get much closer to their wild'n'ragged live sound, with D.D. Weekday's guitars prominent in the mix and with their high-energy intact.

This set includes some of their early classics - "Can't You Do Anything Right", "Bullshit Summer Song" (with its great chanted "heys!"), "No Name" (with drummer Allen Clark's backing "oohs" and DD mangling his guitar in his "Johnny Thunders wielding a chainsaw" kinda way), "Left" (with the terrific bridge "you're scary and you're lonely and you're full of shit!"), and cool covers like Jim Reeves' "Heartache" (Pat Todd always had a major love for country music), and the 50's rockers "Yakety Yak" and "Justine", done as a medley, with guest saxophonist Marc Mylar making wonderfully wild noise. Clark's "Reacurring Thang" and Todd's "Goddam Bottle" are a couple of their best - both have catchy choruses and both co-written by Weekday (under his real name Phillips). The record is completed by "Allen Says" and "Mr. Screwdriver", a diatribe against a drunkard, admonishing him to "put that orange juice and vodka away!"

The Cowgirls really did have their own sound - a mix of the Ramones, Johnny Thunders, C&W and anarchic, on-the-edge playing. They became a hit in LA shortly after moving there from Indiana and Pat Todd (now with his Rank Outsiders) still reigns there today.