Review: Mr Airplane Man - Long Lost

Back in the day I had a few years when I listened to nothing except garage punk (sort of acted as a bridge between my formative punk days and my love now for all things fuzzy). I had many favourites - Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Oblivions, The Gories, the list goes on. One of those favourites was Mr Airplane Man, the 'Moanin'' 'Red Lite' and 'C'mon DJ' albums (all released on the veritable Sympathy For The Record Industry label) were never far from my turntable/CD player. So it more than piqued my interest when Dirty Water Records sent through the promo for 'Long Lost', an album originally recorded at The Money Shot (with Bruce Watson of Fat Possum Records) in 1999 and has not been previously released.

Mr Airplane Man are a female duo (Margaret Garrett - guitar/vocals and Tara McManus - drums/vocals/keyboards) who play some nasty, low-down blues punk that make The White Stripes seem like the Cheeky Girls. The music comes straight from the traditional juke joint blues but inflected with scorching punk attitude.

The 'Long Lost' session predates all of the above mentioned albums, but the trademarks are already present, from the slide guitar of opener 'Sun Sinking Low' to the blues thrash of 'Tell Me Baby'. The slower numbers such as 'I Work Hard' float dreamily in a bluesy haze and are reminiscent of the UK's own Holly Golightly *sigh*. Special mention must go to their cover of The Gun Club's 'Love of Ivy', an impassioned romp through Jeffrey Lee Pierce's noir love song. It is when the duo let rip that the shivers run up and down your spine - the fire and the passion, the sympatico that the pair have, Garrett's stripped down blues guitar complemented perfectly by McManus' drums. They seem to have an inbuilt sense of what the blues are and how they should be played. THIS is exactly why I used to love garage punk, and has got me digging out all kinds of goodies from the back of the shelves.

Kudos to Dirty Water Records for giving this a wider release (it was released digitally at the back end of last year). The vinyl is available for pre-order at the band's Bandcamp page here. This really is a fantastic album and signposts, albeit in hindsight, what Mr Airplane Man would become - true purveyors of stripped down, raw rock'n'roll.