2023 – Mem Mods
By Phillip Smith; April 7, 2023
Release Date : Feb. 24, 2023
Original source : phillycheezeblues.blogspot.com
Longtime friends Steve Selvidge (Big Ass Truck), Paul Taylor and Luther Dickinson (North Mississippi Allstars), sons of Memphis music legends Sid Selvidge, Pat Taylor, and Jim Dickinson are now legends by their own right. It took a pandemic to reconnect these three musicians who played together as kids in the 1970s to make this intoxicating new instrumental recording. With Selvidge on guitar, bass, Rhodes, and drum machine, Dickinson on bass and various keys, and Taylor on drums, percussion, various basses, synth pedals, and soundscapes, the trio drew inspiration from the music they loved growing up in Memphis. They set the pin in the Bluff City as ground zero, exploded the sound into the outer dimensions, and created a dozen hypnotic, funky, space jams.
The album begins with the forward-driving beat and funktafied futuristic sounds of “Capricorn Catastrophe”. This is a splendid slice of psychedelia topped off with horns. Soaking in the warm groove of “Congressional Tadpole” is an absolute treat. When I hear “Knotty Pine Kitchen”, I have visons of disco lights moving slowing across the ceiling and wall. My brain totally expects to hear the soulful deep voice of Isaac Hayes kick in at some point. I adore the funky Stax-flavored intro on “Midtown Miscommunication”. It eventually wanders into Zappa-land. Growing up in the Sixties and Seventies, one of my favorite toys was the ever-so-strange game of Cooties. I never played the game; I just built the weird little creatures so my army men would have something to battle with. “Cootie Party” may not be about that, but I like to pretend it is. The Mem Mods trip concludes with “Horn Lake Hookup”. If there is intelligent life out there, this is what they sent back after listening to the Memphis sounds in its heyday.
I love the Mem Mods Vol 1., and hope there will be many more of these. They are great!
TRACKLIST
01
Capricorn Catastrophe
02
Three On The Tree
03
Feather's On A House Cat
04
Congressional Tadpole
05
Harmolodica
06
Knotty Pine Kitchen
07
Midtown Miscommunication
08
Sonoma Smashup
09
Sparkle Skate
10
Cootie Party
11
Perseveration Blues
12
Horn Lake Hookup
