Mad Trucker Gone Mad takes a UFO tour on Born To Be A Trucker
Before taking in Madison psychobilly band Mad Trucker Gone Mad's 2009 album Born To Be A Trucker, or the band's New Year's Eve set at the High Noon Saloon, it'd be wise to give yourself a crash course in what we'll call "rural sensitivity." The best place to start would be late comedian Bill Hicks' routine about UFO sightings in Alabama. Hicks (who grew up in the South, in addition to toting that unfortunate last name around for all of his short life) proposed that "maybe we'll be lucky and it's some type of sterility-dentistry program they've got going" for the abducted. Get used to the characters Hicks is talking about, because on MTGM's CD, you're stuck in a semi-cab with one of them, and he's not gonna hit the brakes until he runs out of beer and meth.
On opening track "Thirsty Hole," this caricature of a trio tears through a wacky vampire fantasy. Drummer Five Card Jack, bassist Legendary Billy Gas (really Chris Langkamp, founder of Madison punk label Crustacean Records) and singer-guitarist Del Monte Carlo keep up a pretty solid punk backbone on this track, tightening up the kind of upstroke-heavy, "thwack-AND-thwack-AND-thwack-AND" rhythm that zillions of less-competent bands have tripped and slopped all over. Even during "Boxa' Wine," an affectionate tribute to your average Bubba's drinking habits, these guys aren't ready to fall off the porch just yet.
Sure, the overalls chafe once in a while. The title track, a souped-up cover of the Red Simpson song, ends with an actual UFO-sighting skit: "What's that? God damn! UFOs! Prohibition! Goddamn government satellites! Take my gun, will ya!? Grow yer own damn food!" But even if your patience for redneck jokes is as worn-down as a loyal Skoal customer's gums, it helps that MTGM really tries to identify with the drunken oafs of its songs, instead of just cruelly sneering at them.
The flamenco-meets-rockabilly acoustic strumming of "Two Bits... Too Late" captures a tense moment on a dark country road with what you might almost call class. On the bitchy satire "Land Of The Fee," Mad Trucker pulls the prank of saying something pretty universal through the gaps in its teeth. Whether or not your home is decorated with items from Stuckey's, it's probably stuck in a pit of debt: "And when the bills get outta sight / Another loan should set you right..." But as long as there's some cash left over for a case of PBR and a new set of mudflaps, we'll be okay, right?
