The Defibulators (not defibrillators) are a rootsy country band from Brooklyn, NY with an out of control sound that blends bluegrass, country, jug band, honky tonk, rockabilly, Dixieland jazz, and folk music for a good-time sound that has a cross-generational appeal. The six-man, one-woman band -- singer/guitarist Bryan Jennings, singer/percussionist Erin Bru, mighty lead guitarist Roadblock, Justin Smitty on fiddle, standup bass man Freddy Epps, drummer Mike Riddleberger and Metalbelly on washboard, percussion, and harmonica -- calls their music whackabilly. They honed their chops at the Rodeo Bar, a New York City club that caters to young country music fans winning an audience with hootenannies that had a
Carter Family-meets-
Ramones vibe.
Corn Money may be their debut album but it presents a band that's fully formed, with an eclectic acoustic/electric sound all their own.
Corn Money was made in the studio but it's put together like a live show interspacing songs with short interludes like "Steal Harmonicas" and the tossed-off pedal steel solo "Rusty Nights" that leads into an instrumental called "The Gravy Shake" that combines swinging acoustic fiddling from Justin Smitty and Roadblock's twanging surf guitar licks. It may be the first cowboy surf tune ever waxed. The title tune delivers on its promise of debauchery: it's a jazzy celebration of teenage drinking and the troubled married life it leads to with Smitty's fiddle and Roadblock's guitar trading solos as the tempo rapidly increases until the band falls into a boozy jumble. "Ol' Winchester," is another unruly drinking song, a bluegrass/punk tune played at a galloping tempo with a searing harmonica interlude that includes a
Spike Jones-like instrumental bridge. Bryan Jennings and Erin Bru show off their vocal chemistry on the playful Dixieland-meets-Texas swing tune "Honey, You Had Me Fooled" while Bru steps out on her own for "Get What's Coming" a sly blues full of double, and single, entendres that puts her purring alto to good use. They also contribute two sold highway songs: Justin Smitty's fiddle adds a vaguely Eastern European gypsy feel to "Drive You Off," the tale of a guy trying to drink and drive away his blues in a big motor home, while "Go-Go Truck" is a three-chord honky tonk rocker with a solo that careens down the track like a semi full of nitro rubbing sparks off the guard rail with its out of control energy.
The Defibulators ain't gonna save you from your next heart attack, but the album's irrepressible energy will have you up and dancing around your hospital bed in no time. ~ j. poet