Angry Johnny and The Killbillies
Poe’s Pub
Richmond, VA
April 2007
By Jillian Abbene
(SugarBuzz Wash DC/Richmond)
SugarBuzz Magazine
Angry Johnny is a long-time associate of the pissed and twisted…and where there is a little pain, the tunes are that much sweeter. Taking the bones of the band, Angry Johnny launches into country-embedded throatied passion that disdains with frequent ‘goddamns,’ coining descriptions of their music quoted by Goatis, the mandolin player as, “Blood-grass country-murder ballads”. Covering down-on-your-luck songs about getting fired, betrayal of drunken love, all the while knockin’ on death’s door—and this is before slammin’ down shots of Jack Daniel’s—still somehow delivers a redneck charm, nonetheless. ‘Trains Don’t Run’ has a great beginning of slow chords simulating the chugging train; it’s a great western twang as an opener. With liquor in their bellies, the band becomes looser, more intense in sound, and Johnny becomes more alive as the set begins to kick into 2nd gear.
The electric mandolin is precise with pockets of clean twiddling jams from their newest CD, “Puttin’ The Voodoo On Monroe.” Electric train-bass from Jimmy Rat Fink and Sal Vega bangs-up pops on drums, as Johnny’s guitar grinds snarls as he growls out 50’s fused rockabillied ballads about death, destruction and redemption. The Killbillies even slow it down in a Hank Williams’ croaky froggin’ signature in, ‘Waltzing On Air’ with summed up love-sick murder intensity swoons such as, “While I’m up here dyin’/I wish I could bid you farewell/I’d twist your sweet neck/’til I heard it go crack/And I’d take you down to hell...” These songs are coated with pinching lyrics that makes me wish I knew these words before I went to see them play. They are loaded with bite-size hillbilly stories.
There are softer riffs with slower-beats in, ‘Sold Me Down The River,’ that sounds like an alluring ploy to trick a child to sleep, than a ballad. Wailing electric mandolin with Johnny’s guitar on top, sounds like a new rendition from The Replacements rather than their classic ho-down ditties. ‘Let Me Sleep’ hypnotizes to do just that, sleep--as it is a great tune.
Towards the end of their set, they rolled in Reo Speedwagon’s painfully clichéd song, ‘Take It On The Run,’ that had me smirk at first and then smile with acceptance as they successfully attempted a decent stab in metamorphasizing the song to sound more as their own.
So move over Jed Clampett and the Hillbillies…Angry Johnny and his Killbillies from Massachusetts are making another U-turn back to Virginia…so you better catch them the second time around in June, here in Richmond.