The arrival and sudden departure (via death) of Jack Starr on the underground rough 'n tumble record collector circuit was something that held so much promise but only delivered on one full-length album and two singles that I am aware of. Too bad, because this Starr guy seemed to have had so much potential to cash in on his varied (some might say "sordid") past and crank out a living and breathing
legend for himself the same way that Hasil Adkins (the man Starr was often compared to) did just prior to Our Man's very own rediscovery back in the v. late eighties.
What most Starr fans did
not know about was this particular one-hour cassette of recently-recorded material called
TRAIN TO NOWHERE recorded under the moniker the American Xpress and released on the Strike One label outta Dallas. Sporting a 1989 copyright date, it's really hard to believe that these weren't taken from the same mid-sixties sessions that produced those rare Starr singles that appeared on side two of
BORN PETRIFIED (side one being Starr during his fifties "rockabilly"/Ricky Nelson phase) because the music found here is just as low-fidelity as those punk rockers he did back '66 way! And what's even more surprising is that these songs were recorded by the same backing band that appeared
on those singles which makes this a bizarre twist of circumstances...guys in their late-forties playing the same songs (and recording in the same john!) sounding as if they had not aged a day since! If only the Who could have ages this gracefully!
One track entitled "UFO"
did make it onto that rare In The Red single but the rest of this romp as far as I know has remained unreleased to all but a few. And what makes it even more enticing is that the entire shebang comes off as if it was laid down after a hefty listening session of Bobby Fuller, the Seeds and (if you can believe it) the Doors! Some straight blues, one country creeper, and a whole lotta mid-sixties-inspired
FUN (remember
that word?) that kinda gives me the feeling that after they were done laying these classics to tape the whole buncha 'em got some Great Shakes and settled down to glom an episode of
DOBIE GILLIS! Sure most of you cultured rock-as-art snobs would poo-poo such a base and crude idea as this but sheesh, we can't
all attune our palates to fine wine, lobster and rectum like you
obviously do!
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