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singing over slide guitar. ‘Headshaker’ has Grant playing dirty distorted
harmonica on a riff-y ‘Smokestack Lightning’-sounding number, while ‘Luisa’

has the feel of a Tom Waits song with Grant’s echoey vocals, picaresque lyrics

and more harmonica.

‘Picture’, ‘Didn’t Sell My Ring’ and ‘Judgement Day’ all reminded me of
Captain Beefheart with their obscure lyrics and bluesy, droning backing,

with ‘Judgement Day’ stealing the ‘Rolling and Tumbling’ riff. ‘Sunny Days’
has a slightly lighter sound and with two layers of slide guitar and this

cleaner production is also evident on the more whimsical ‘Lucky Frog’.

The final track ‘Sacred Ground’ is a rolling 12-bar blues with trad-sounding
electric slide guitar and a distorted blues harp solo. Grant’s influences are

fairly obvious – delta blues, Beefheart, Tom Waits and G. Love – however
while this could have been an interesting mix I didn’t think that the song

writing, production and instrumentation were strong enough to make the
performances here distinctive enough.

Graham Harrison

Mikey Junior—Travelling North—8th
Train Records

Singer/harp player Mikey Junior (Anthony
M. Hudak) is from New Jersey and his latest
album features originals and covers and

was produced by Dave Gross, who also

plays guitars and keyboards. The opener
‘Old Enough to Know’ is a moody,
restrained original that features the core

band - Greg Gumpel (guitar), Matt Raymond

(bass) and Michael Bram (drums) and the
following ‘Taboo Love’ is by Jersey musician
Danny DeGennaro and has Gross on lead guitar.

‘You Hurt Me’ and ‘Crazy Over You’ are also in the same vein – restrained,
very bluesy with Mikey’s expressive voice and ‘Crazy Over You’ also features

great piano from Victor Wainwright. If you thought ‘Way Too Fast’ was going
to up the pace you’d have been wrong, it’s another laid-back number by

Danny DeGennaro with tasty slide guitar from Josh Roberts, while ‘Brown
Derby Liquor’ features guitarist Matt Daniels from Mikey’s road band and