Johnny Walker and Joe at Psych Fest 2023

All-Seeing Eyes at PsychFest
Lance Kaufman, center
Johnny Walker, right

Hung Up was the first full-length from the Cut in the Hill Gang project (Johnny Walker has been prolific in projects and recordings dating back to the late 90’s with his work in Soledad Brothers). It’s down ‘n dirty punk blues, their sound one writer describes like “a sweaty summer night in a dirty bar with an undersized air conditioner.” There are some sultry tracks, like “Bird on a Wire” but also some rockers, like my favorite “Stitch in Time” which adds a dash or two of 70’s glam. Also amazing is relentless driving blues of “Johnny’s Quixotic Dream” which was first released as a 7″ (b/w their version of The White Stripes’ “Sugar Never Tasted So Good“) in 2007 as well as their cover of “Diddey Wah” (by Willie Dixon, also famously covered by Captain Beefheart).

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Poet, blues scholar (and manager of the MC5) John Sinclair penned the liner notes for the LP. He writes, “Guitarist and vocalist Johnny Walker and drummer Ben Swank pay serious tribute to the three legendary black revolutionaries, not only assuming their name but honoring the black liberation struggle with a stripped-down, seriously raucous blues attack deeply rooted in the rawest idioms of the African American musical tradition…The Soledad Brothers are no cornball blues revival act but make a fresh, idiosyncratic, soulful extension of the blues into their own life experience and out into the world at large.”

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