Rube Waddell – “Greatest Hits ” – [Hotel Episode Records]

You want entertainment-on-a-stick, you’d be hard pressed to
find a better deal than the warp and woof, the vamp and
voomph, the scat and scoot, the bump and groin of the mighty
Rube Waddell. Junkyard blues, a tuba held together by
electrical tape, hotplate guitar, rockin’ ocarina, deep
fried harmonica, it’s all here. They’ve got songs about
bottom-feeders and other high saints of the low life. At times
they’re belting out numbers so bellicosely it hurts *my*
throat. You know it’s a KFJC-style band when the hit
sing-a-long is titled “Spongiform Encephalopathy.” “Here’s To
You” has a nice slap-your-cheek, clip-clop waltziness over a
singing saw with bonnie handsome lad vocals; a frenzied
interlude erupts, “drinking alone” has never been more
festive!!! I like it when the Rube serves up a spitball like
that, or when they dish out some chin music as they do on the
ire-fired “Random People” which as an anthem for the anonymous
even swipes a riff from Chief Knock-a-homa!! England had
skiffle music, but Frisco has got scuffle music, courtesy
the refined ruffians of Rube Waddell!

-Thurston Hunger