Real good ol' %$$#&*kicking rock and roll and a relief to hear at a time when most everything else sounds like it's for a kids birthday party. You won't be disappointed. Get it.

Rev Neil Down American Friend Burn Barrel If Jim Morrison and Captain Beefheart could've had a baby and moved into a Nashville railer Park to raise it, It might've grown up to be the Mighty Rev Neil Down. This fine release didn't come from Nashville though. This was recorded, engineered, and mastered in the Yukon Territory. Who would've thought we'd have an emerging music scene in the up there? Well, maybe we don't, but I really do hope that there's more like the Rev Down. Even if there's not, he probably would qualify as a one-man scene. Down's influences appear to include Captain Beefheart on a couple of levels, Jim Morrison on a couple more, and maybe even a helping of Tom Waits on some others. Mix all these influences with a broad mix of musical styles in both vocals and instrumentation, and you end up with something that sounds like it's been around forever, yet it's distinctly different from anything I've yet heard. Standout cuts include "Finish Your Dreams," "American Friend," and the unforgettable "The Trench," with lyrics like "Horseshit and gun smoke, I've seen my share. Up to my neck, concrete in my hair. I made it through that gauntlet, never got me no scratch. When it come to love, I was just no match." Who out there could not relate to this? David White Ink19

Rev. Neil Down, American Friend, Burn Barrel Records Thank God for the eccentric musical individualists... like Rev. Neil Down, a singer/songwriter/guitarist who calls Skagway, Alaska home. Down's slightly left-of-center music crackles with excitement, and his lyrics bristle with raucous, offbeat humor, irony and occasional tenderness, straddling stylistic fences between minimal blues, folk, rock and country. One will hear the influence of artists like Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Albert Collins and alt country kingpin Steve Earle. Down is an engaging singer and taut guitarist with a discernible streak of non-conformist edginess. Bass guitarist Jerry Scheff, a longtime studio veteran, who counts Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand, Elvis Costello and The Association among his past clients, plays throughout, and provides a very steady bottom end.............

REV. NEIL DOWN American Friend (Burn Barrel Records) Alaska's Rev. Neil Down makes the kind of slightly eccentric music that can only come from isolation. With nothing around to influence him but his own memories, Down creates his own kind of roots rock. It has echoes of the blues, country and rockabilly, but only echoes—the guitarist/songwriter/singer definitely follows his own muse. "I can still recall yet a harder time/When I was stayin' with a friend of a friend of mine/Crashin' underneath the Hollywood sign/Wakin' up flea-bitten with a twisted spine/The queen was freebasin' in Room 436/This joker down the hall he was cookin' up a fix/Gun shots goin' off in the flat below/But baby that day was nothin'/No, that day was slow" he hollers in the title track. He seems hellbent on crossing Tom Waits with Willie Dixon and Johnny Cash, and for the most part he succeeds. He's a solid, tasteful guitarist, and while his voice sometimes threatens to careen off its tracks like a runaway train, for the most part he knows exactly how to use his flawed larynx. Aided by former Elvis (both Presley and Costello) bassist Jerry Scheff, as well as local musicians (yes, apparently Alaska has some), Down consecrates the record with a powerful dose of roadhouse rock 'n' roll. Expect a laying on of hands any minute. SHINOLA