Michael Hurtt and His Haunted Hearts – “Lonely Mardi Gras” b/w “Orbit Twist” 7” (Allons)
Perhaps there’s purity to his or her day-to-day execution, as if we’re in an era other than present day. The present, after all, is no picnic, sitting cocked and loaded, waiting for a minor misstep or gullible mood so that every concievable type of GRADE-A awfulness can be thrown at our feet. Mike Hurtt is a NOLA garage/roots fixture primarily known as the front man for that town’s premiere ‘50s-‘70s revivalists, The Royal Pendletons. He’s also a serious head when it comes to first-wave rockabilly and rockabilly/country crossover (also first-wave but heading into the early-‘60’s), namely what poured from Memphis and Jackson (Tennessee…home of the Rockabilly Hall of Fame for a reason) when 45s could be purchased in hotel lobbies and full-blown songs were recorded upstairs in the rooms. Aside from a little splitting of fidelity hairs and the fact that the record lacks decades of wear, Hurtt original “Lonely Mardi Gras” sounds like an old Satellite A-side (meaning, it’s up-tempo) and “Orbit Twist” probably sounds like the slow, obscure ballad that the crack band is covering. With disrespectful plagiarism infecting every corner of rock and roll today, it matters little if Hurtt sees punk rock as a musical Book of Revelations or if the walk-he-walks and talk-he-talks mirrors a time some fifty years in the past. There’s something to be said for an artistic copyist flexing a creative mind this dedicated to the chosen source material. (www.myspace.com/hauntedhearts)
(Andrew Earles)
