I know I'll probably chased out of town by a band of torch- wielding music fans for saying this, but the blues is some hard music to listen to. I mean, listening to the blues is about as fun as being on the business end of an enthusiastic anal probe. Now, when I say "the blues" I mean thee Blues: genuine soul music, music about muddy rivers and mean, mistreatin' (and bein' mistreated by) women, songs about being blind and old. Back in the day, there was none of this Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughn shit allowed. The real Blues was strong music-- music that hurt, made by sad people who were broke as shit. The old blues bands were called jug bands-- bands so poor that they didn't just use spoons for eating but also turned them into instruments, because they had nothing else to hold the beat with. Ahh, them good old days.

Maybe my distaste for the blues comes from my background. I'm boring, middle America all the way and my world is quite a bit different than it was in the days of the jug bands. So sue me. To me, things seem to be going alright. I live in a world of MTV, microwaves, department stores, and kids getting their first blue Les Paul with metallic pick-ups and monster amplifiers by the time they're 11. Let's face it, it's just not a blues kinda world anymore. I mean, what the hell do I know about mean, mistreatin' women? The meanest women I've ever known were my buddies' bitchy suburbanite soccer moms. I've never been to a juke joint-- I've spent too much time in Minivans. Go ahead and say it: I have no soul. I'll just take another bite from my Manhattan Bagel and everything will be fine.

If it takes a soul to appreciate Paul Jones' Pucker Up Buttercup, then I am Frankenstein's fucking Monster, because I just don't get it. I just can't connect to music that sounds like it was recorded in a big tin can. I understand all about "keepin' it real" and "an organic recording vibe," but this record just sounds like shit. Listening to the opening track, "Roll That Woman," is like jamming a nail in your ear. It sounds like a dubbed tape your pothead friend would make-- the kind with the treble turned up way too high and a pleasant sounding scratch running through both sides. Call me nuts, but for $15 bucks I want better sound quality than Mixmaster Cody can provide.

So you say I'm focusing a bit too much on the technical aspects of the album? You, the Pitchfork- reading blues fan say, "A real music critic would judge the work, not the recording budget." Well, hold up a second, I'm getting to it... Hmm... what to say about the work... what to say? Ahh, got it: it's shit, too. The songs all sound the same: the same lyrics, the same guitar licks and none of it sounds worth a damn. The usage of heavy guitars instead of the standard blues acoustics just sounds retarded and forced.

There are times when listening to this album that it almost seems like a joke. What do you expect from an album that sports such blues classics as "Don't Laugh at Me," "Dee Dee Dee," and "Guess I Just Fucked That Shit All Up?" When did it turn 1932 all of a sudden? After sixty- some years, I find it hard to believe that our nation's bluesmen haven't found some new things to write about. At the very least, they could have found cool ways to talk about them-- they've had plenty of time.

But at the end of the day, I have to give the man his due. He does have character, and these songs are straight from the heart. But terrible songs, even with good intentions, are still terrible. Whereas a solid blues fan will probably shit their pants over this album, I'll just flush it down the toilet.

-Steven Byrd