There are a lot of familiar names on this month's Rip This Joint CD – among them, Uncut favourites like Patterson Hood, from the Drive–By Truckers, former Trucker Jason Isbell, Ian Hunter, Chuck Prophet, The Gourds and Dan Baird, who with his new band, Homemade Sin, is rocking as hard as he did in The Georgia Satellites, whose 1985 Keep The Faith mini–album I seem to remember describing in Melody Maker as the record Keith Richards and Gram Parsons might have made if their druggy plans to work together had ever come to anything.

There are a couple of bands on the CD, though, that I'd never heard of before I started compiling it. Thanks, then, John Mulvey for passing on to me the new album from Austin's The Strange Boys. And thanks, also, to reader Stevie Dal, for turning me on to Bloodkin. Stevie wrote to me after reading a review I wrote on uncut.co.uk last December of a Club Uncut show at the Borderline headlined by Deer Tick, also on this month's CD, wondering if I'd heard their new album, Baby, They Told Us We Would Rise Again.

I hadn't, at the time. But, hell's teeth, I'm a big fan now. It's a terrific record, highly recommended also by Patterson Hood, who wrote the album's sleevenotes.

Baby, They Told Us We Would Rise Again is their eighth album, so they're not exactly fresh–faced newcomers. In fact, the band's co–leaders and songwriters, Daniel Hutchens and Eric Carter have been together for nigh on 23 years, since they bonded as teenagers over a mutual love of Dylan and the Stones, which, judging by the new album has barely abated over the years.

The Strange Boys were formed in Dallas, Texas, in 2001, by 22–year–old guitarist and singer Ryan Sambol when he was still at school. They're now residents of Austin. On their new Rough Trade album, Be Brave, they often manage an uncanny replication of the Stones' ramshackle wooziness on parts of Exile On Main St. And, as with Bloodkin, there's more than a hint of Dylan in there. Johnny Marr is apparently quite a fan. Me, too…

Enjoy the issue!

allan_jones@ipcmedia.com