Recent Articles

Recent Articles by Dan LeRoy

National Features >

  • Broward-Palm Beach New Times

    Sexual Healing

    For Florida's sole remaining sex surrogate, love is a many splintered thing.

    By Michael J. Mooney

  • City Pages

    Your Friendly Neighborhood War Profiteer

    It's not just giant companies cashing in on America's defense industry.

    By Jeff Severns Guntzel

  • The Pitch

    Supersizing Sonic

    How a throwaway idea at the Barkley ad agency became the "Sonic Guys."

    By Justin Kendall

  • Houston Press

    Temples of Tex-Mex

    A diner's guide to Texas's oldest Mexican restaurants.

    By Robb Walsh

Heavy Trash

With the Sadies. Thursday, September 21, at the Beachland Ballroom.

By Dan LeRoy

Published on September 20, 2006

The tattooed and pompadoured corpse of rockabilly is regularly exhumed by kids young enough to be its great-grandchildren. Few of them have the guts to treat it irreverently and take a whiz on its grave, angering it enough to rise from the dead for an hour. Former Madder Rose bassist Matt Verta-Ray and Blues Explosion frontman Jon Spencer are willing to take a shot, resulting in Heavy Trash, a rockabilly band for everyone who doesn't own a bowling shirt.

Yes, "The Hump" -- as well as some of the medium-fi rave-ups -- owes an uncredited debt to West Virginia's late, great wild man, Hasil Adkins. But fun is fun, and Heavy Trash's Yep Roc debut has it in spades, channeling the lighter side of Gene Vincent and Johnny Cash in a twangy, twisted free-for-all. For maximum trash appeal, there's even a song ("Gatorade") that adds new terminology to pop music's oral-sex lexicon.