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The Asylum Street Spankers
…in which a bunch of kinky pot-heads get the blues.
Have you ever heard Bonnie Raitt’s first album? She recorded it low budget with a few of her Cambridge friends, including a bassist named Freebo. Well, the similarity in the production technique of that album and this album is uncanny. There’s even a singing harmonica player who calls himself Wammo. Vocalist Christina Marrs might not be Bonnie Raitt, but she holds her own, and her writing has a charm all its own. The other members don’t do so badly for themselves, either.
Spanker Madness is a play on the title of the exploitative 50’s flick, "Reefer Madness", and it also borrows that film’s subject matter, but from a decidedly different perspective. Each song on this disk is a tribute to getting wasted. Yeah, the subject of getting stoned out of your mind gets a bit old after thirteen tracks, but the playing is charming and the songwriting is eclectic throughout. Around track nine (the spooky, tedious "Amsterdam"), the drugs seem to be wearing off, but Marrs shoots ‘em right up again with her ukulele-based ode to really good Hawaiian, entitled "Pakalolo Baby". The small band swing of "Wake and Bake" is a cut little number, too, about starting off the day by getting fried.
The Asylum Street Spankers consists of a revolving door of players. It seems that whoever is in the room at the time is a bonafide member, with 4 or 5 different people reporting in for lead vocals and songwriting duties. Other than Wammo and Marrs, Guy Forsyth deserves special mention for some really tasteful picking, not to mention providing some admirable vocals to the two songs he wrote - Hey, it’s not an easy task to be ‘tasteful’ when the subject matter is getting rocked.
If it weren’t for the oddball presentation and the left-field subject matter, this might have been just another cool CD that mixes the blues with a bunch of time-period kitsch. But tracks like "Beer" (it’s a hoot), "Blade of Grass" and "Orion" show that these folks have much more up their sleeves than just another hokey idea. Spanker Madness is one of those rare CD’s where the music is just as cool as the cover packaging.
Grade: 
 
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