King Louie & The Loose Diamonds - Memphis Treet

This is an album from a few years ago by Louisiana born King Louie and the Loose Diamonds. It’s long out of print, but I scored a copy of Memphis Treet on eBay and it came in the mail today. The closest I have ever come to finding religion came when the needle hit the bright blue vinyl of this record.

“King” Louie Bankston is renowned for his regular gig as a one man band, but here he teams up with The Loose Diamonds, an all star line-up that features the legendary Jack Yarber (The Oblivians), Harlan T. Bobo, Adam Woodard (Tennessee Tearjerkers), and Chad Booth (Kajun SS).

The resulting sound is, or so the jacket cover says, a mix of power pop and “Memphis grease.” Indeed, this is dirty, grimy, back ally southern fried rock ’n’ roll guaranteed to bring out the trailer trash that lay dormant in all of us. Particularly awesome is a cover of The Exploding Hearts song “Shattered”, re-imagined here as “Gypsy Switch”. Bankston was in The Exploding Hearts, so I guess he has license to turn that punk classic into a truck stop opus.

I had the pleasure of seeing Loose Diamonds in Memphis recently at Gonerfest and let me tell you, this music was made to hear live while consuming copious amounts of Pabst Blue Ribbon. If you ever have the chance to see King Louie live, or buy one of his records, I suggest you do. And if you don’t like this album, even secretly, just a little, well then there is clearly something wrong with you. (Empty Records, 2007)

Sample here...
http://rapidshare.com/files/298702789/King_Louie___The_Loose_Diamonds.rar

Buy here...
http://www.myspace.com/kinglouieandhisrocknroll