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CATL “Bide My Time Until I Die” 2018. Romanus Records, custom tricolored variant (limited edition) vinyl. We saw catl perform last night at one of my favorite local bars, Boone & Crockett and the venue was perfect for the Toronto duo’s punk-blues, southern-fried Americana rockin’ rhythm and blues (ie taxidermy, super-dim lighting – hence the less-than-stellar photos – wooden barrel tables, etc).

CATL are Jamie Fleming on guitar and vocals and Sarah Kirkpatrick on drums, vocals and “shakin’ around” awesomeness. Their overall sound reminds me of Boss Hog (like Jon Spencer and Cristina Martinez, they are also a couple and share vocals; Jamie often punctuating Sarah’s singing with a “YEAH”) mixed with some Southern Culture on the Sklds humorous juke joint honky-tonk. Complete with some choice groan-level dad jokes (example: “What’s the opposite of irony? Wrinkly.”)

Bide My Time Before I Die is catl’s fifth album, and – I think – their third since becoming a two-piece around 2012. They played several tracks from the LP last night including (I hope I’m getting this right!) “Drive,” “Cocaine Blues,” “Sundown and Slow,” “Misunderstand” (an awesome mid-tempo stomper on which Sarah takes the vocal lead) and a great audience participation song “Hot Baked Cornbread and Spice.” I remember that one especially from their performance at last summer’s Romanus Fest in Indianapolis, the first time we saw catl. On the LP there’s a lot of harmonica (though none last night) on several of the tracks which, combined with the raucous punked-up energy (see “Superfly Lady in particular), reminds me of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (always a good thing). All songs on Bide My Time Before I Die are written by catl except the last track, “Keys to the Kingdom,” a traditional gospel blues song, the first (maybe) variant was recorded back in 1929 by Washington Philips or by Bessie Johnson and the Sanctified Singers, also 1929 (not sure which was released first).

CATL are on a brief tour through the Midwest: they play tonight in Minneapolis and will play Chicago on May 4th. I highly recommend seeing them. They put on an absolutely excellent and high-energy show and are also really nice people.

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“All She Wants To Do Is Rock” was one of Harris’ biggest hits, landing at #1 on the R&B charts in 1949. The B-side, “I Want My Fannie Brown” was an answer song to Ray Brown’s “Miss Fanny Brown” – Harris’ b-side also charted, hitting #10. (Brown was also, of course, a huge influence on early rock-n-roll, especially his hit “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” a song that Brown originally offered to Harris but Brown ended up recording himself. It hit #13 on the R&B chart in ‘48; Harris then recorded his own version later that year and it went to #1.)

“All She Wants To Do Is Rock” is on the King Records label, which operated from 1943 to 1975. Based in Cincinnati, it originally specialized in “hillbilly” music. Its subsidiary Federal Records recorded many early and successful R&B, jump blues, and rockin’ rhythm artists, including Wynonie Harris. It also launched James Brown. This mixture of country and R&B artists (recording, mastering, printing, pressing and shipping were all done in-house) helped foster the blending of genres – country artists would cover R&B tracks and vice versa – which further aided the evolution of rock-n-roll. This record was likely originally purchased in the 1940′s at the Harlem Record and Appliance Shop in Milwaukee, a shop no longer in existence.

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