Der 2. Teil der Deluxe-Reissue Serie! Mit Sugar Ditch Revisited (1985) setzte die wilde Truppe den Sound von Blow Your Top fort, etwas straighter rockend und als Kollektiv weniger chaotisch wie noch auf dem Magnolia Curtain Debüt. Sechs Tunes, aufgenommen von James Dickinson im Studio B von Sun Records in Memphis (mit LX Chilton), darunter das geniale Tina, The Go Go Queen. Der Nachfolger Shake Rag (1986) war ebenfalls eine EP, die noch etwas härter rockte und die das legendäre Trouser Press Mag wie folgt beschrieb: „...the killer 12-inch Shake Rag EP: studio recordings with Jim Dickinson that include one original (the stomping Cuban Rebel Girl) and three typically swell obscurities.“ ... inkl. dem erstklassigen Shade Tree Mechanic, welches hier nicht unterschagen werden soll.
Als wäre das nicht genug, hat Tav Falco eine Live-Show von 1989 ausgegraben, die die Band im Messepalast von Wien dokumentiert, aufgezeichnet vom ORF (1a Klang). Obwohl die Band im Frachtraum eines Transportes direkt aus Spanien kam, legte sie einen furiosen Gig hin, den Tav in den exzellenten Linernotes wie folgt beschreibt: „..Panther Burns hit the big theatre stage in a wild and wooly state of high frenzy... Every note we struck and every tone we uttered in this nitro-fueled rampage cut through the audience like a steppin' razor.“ George Reinecke an der Gitarre hat dabei mehr als eine Rasierklinge in der Hand. Kaum zu bremsen... Bloody murder!
Die beiden CDs kommen in LP-Replikasleeves, dazu gibt es ein 32-seitiges Booklet mit zwei wundervollen Hintergrundstories – alles zusammen in einem Schuber mit Klappdeckel. Das Doppelvinyl kommt auf 180 Gramm – die beiden EPs auf je einer LP Seite, die Live-Scheibe auf 3+4 – die Linernotes finden sich auf den Innersleeves und insgesamt ist das Ding sowas von schwer und edel – Deluxe eben! Memphis Rock & Roll vom anderen Stern!
Tav Falco in seinen eigenen Worten:
SUGAR DITCH REVISITED - a modest album with a huge cast of the crème of Memphis musicians joining the PANTHER BURNS. We were the first ever to record in Studio B of Sam Phillips Recording Service, 639 Madison Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee. Seems that when the "new" studio was built in 1959 with the proceeds of the Bill Justis hit, "Raunchy", the small triangular shaped Studio was never put into service. It was brainchild of Jerry Phillips, one of Mr. Phillips' sons and a former midget wrestler, to get Studio B up and running. Jim Dickinson produced the record alongside Roland James, pioneer guitarist on the early Jerry Lee Lewis sides, twirling the knobs at the control board. This record featured two songs Dickinson had found on tapes discarded by STAX during the last days of the studio's existence. Sir Mac Rice an ex-Falcon penned “Tina, the Go Go Queen and Money Talks”. For these numbers Andrew Love and Ben Cauley were brought in from the Memphis Horns to add that lush and signature lilt of the laid-back 'Memphis sound'. Alex Chilton played his new guitar - a rusty Mosrite he'd found in a pawnshop on Poplar Avenue, The articulate bassist, Rene Coman, came up from New Orleans for the sessions, Ross Johnson whipped the skins, and a bevy of girlfriends sang backing vocals. The album was eponymously named after a hamlet just south of Memphis so-called because of the open latrine sewer that served the community. Sugar Ditch is the term black southerners attach to such a sewer. The activist, Jesse Jackson, brought national attention to the plight and danger of epidemic evident at Sugar Ditch.
SHAKE RAG - It had been some since Johnny Cash last walked through the Studio A doors of Sam Phillips Recording Service, 639 Madison Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, when PANTHER BURNS recorded this dark and lugubrious mini-album there in 1986. Whilst this was the boom period for lavish alternative, new wave, and no wave music productions, we entered the grand A Studio in stripped-down form. We numbered only three stalwarts: Jim Dickinson producer, keyboardist, guitarist, Ross Johnson on percussion, and yours truly, Tav Falco, on guitar and voice. Alex Chilton had put himself in the doghouse on this record, and decided to stay home at his mom's house during the sessions. In a sense we three felt dwarfed by the voluminous space of studio A ensconced in the center of Mr. Phillips' atomic space age, Santa Monica-styled recording complex with its tangerine and turquoise wall panels, white shag carpeted offices, Japanese rock with running fountain, and crystal-lined upstairs bar. The sessions were sporadic over a period of several weeks into months. There is a raw primitivism howling from these tracks and an unbridled intensity not heard from the band in recorded form since our 1st album, Behind The Magnolia Curtain. It is the kind of record PANTHER BURNS can make as easily a falling off a log.
LIVE AT MESSEPALAST – This collection of songs is a segment center cut from a wild and wooly two-hour show on the PANTHER BURNS 2nd tour of Europe in 1989. Our agent has somehow placed us as the headliner on a weeknight of a week long festival in a former noble palace or palace horse stable located in what is now the Museums Quartier of merry old Vienna. There were several hundred unruly celebrants waiting there for us to take the expansive theater stage. Because our agent had just driven the band from dates in Spain non-stop directly to Vienna in the back of a cargo van in wet, bitter cold weather, I was sick as a dog when I hit the stage. My knees were weak, but somehow regained strength at the opening salvos of our distorted electric guitars. The audience was already cavorting in an altered state of heightened frenzy and stayed that way until very last note was struck. Having been on the road for several weeks, the band knew the material so well, they could play it sleepwalking. Together we shot through the extended set like it was military march gone haywire. ORF (Austrian National Radio) was there recording the whole mess in ultra high fidelity, and the result is what you will hear on this record. The group was composed of B. Newman on drums, bassist Red West (K. Eric), guitarist G. Reineke, and yours truly, Tav Falco, voice and guitar
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