The Mentones at ?Club Tropical, March 3

These guys are my homeys, and they are the shit — angular modjazz surgically implanted into James Cotton’s brain as he drives a 1959 Olds Rocket 88 into an apocalyptic SoCal landscape. Drummer Joe Berardi crushed giant tin cans like a Ph.D.; Bill Barrett sucked a tornado into his chromatic harp and blew it back out again; Tony Atherton pulled a razor out of his sax and cut our throats. All the while, mastermind Steuart Liebig laid down that backbone bass and snapped the big whip like the overseer on a Mississippi chain gang. Now, that was blues and the abstract truth for real.

Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.