SpringfieldNewsSun.com

site web

Without a doubt, Crazy Joe and the Mad River Outlaws is the best local band ... that almost never plays locally.

After a few spins through the band's new album, "The King of Nerd-A-Billy," the band's near-total absence from Clark County is even more regrettable.

But it has little to do with snobbery (although Joe and the boys do have a pretty amusing song in their catalog about the proliferation of mullets in Springfield).

Instead, it has everything to do with something quite simple — where could a '50s-style rock band led by a 20-something electrical engineer with thick black glasses even play?

One of their earliest shows here, at Forever Sports, drew all of about 12 people. (The band will, however, return to town to play the free Oktoberfest at 8 p.m. Oct. 6 in Veterans Park.)

What these guys do — twangy roots rock with the occasional surf turbo-boost — has "niche" written all over it.

Too bad, too.

With "The King of Nerd-A-Billy," Greenon High grad Crazy Joe Tritschler gives 12 reasons to hail, hail rock 'n' roll.

The music is definitely retro, but it's not exactly like sitting through one of those Time-Life infomercials, either.

For starters, nobody in the band — Greenon grad Hep Cat Matt Duffey on bass, North grad Honest Rob Heiliger on rhythm and Kettering native Reliable Brian Hoeflich on drums — is old enough to have a preconceived notion of the "good ol' days."

So what ensues over 12 songs will be a history lesson for some and a reminder for others.

This is what the inside of the original rock 'n' roll melting pot sounded like when the ingredients — country, pop and R&B — came to a boil for regional little record labels across the U.S.

Recording for Dayton-based Atom Records (get the disc at atomrecords.com), the Outlaws should be commended for a one-two punch of good taste and great musicianship.

Two tracks alone — the opening cover of Johnny Horton's "Wise to the Ways of a Woman" and the original "I Knew You'd Be the One" — could pass for recordings done by Buddy Holly and the Crickets in middle-of-nowhere New Mexico.

The entire disc was recorded on analog tape for that vintage sound.

A cover of Sam Cooke's 1962 tune "Nothing Can Change This Love" scores big points in the taste department.

The big revelation on the disc, though, is the rise of Crazy Joe as a guitar-slinger.

On the instrumental "Flight of the Beverly Bumblebillies," he somehow merges "Flight of the Bumble Bee" by Rimsky-Korsakov with the "Beverly Hillbillies" theme — and it works. You can picture his fingers flying about as fast as a hot rod down the drag strip.

If you can fault these guys with anything, it's that they're sort of like Civil War re-enactors. Their era of choice in history ain't ever coming back.

Then again, nobody ever set out to leave the likes of Buddy, Elvis, Bo and Little Richard in the dust of the past.

The Beatles and Stones idolized this music.

By happenstance, everybody else started following the Beatles and Stones.

Crazy Joe is merely re-routing evolution.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com