Butt-Probe Rawk!

Photo by Mike AndersonThrow Rag
Desert Shores(full-length cd)
BYO Records

Throw Rag, the punk/blues/roots sextet from the Salton Sea (okay, more like Huntington Beach, but we'll play into their shtick), have hit dry land once more with this, their second slathering of trashy, voodoo grooves. After putting in mad time on the road touring with the likes of the Supersuckers and Social Distortion, this band of boys with the fake first names all ending in o—Taco, Jacko, Dino, Franco, Chango and Tae-bo (a.k.a. The Captain)—took time out of their oh-so-busy schedule to record a dozen new tracks for superindie producer Tim Kerr (the Big Boys and the Monkeywrench). Dressed to kill in their matching filthy-white kicks and armed with probably the only full-time washboard player in rock (ornamented with a 666 license plate, no less), Throw Rag somehow manage to take their brand of sick, sweaty, sinful boogie and turn it into sing-along material. "Hang Up," with its repeated chorus of—well, "Hang up!"—is just as anthemic and blood-pumping as the "walla-walla-hoo's" on their last album, Tee-Tot. But it ain't just the we-will-rock-you that gets us shakin'; it's also the quality love songs like "Space Hump Me"—which orgasmically delights at the idea of being alien-abducted and butt-probed—that really get us off. Good clean fun, we'll call it, even though it feels very weird to call anything associated with Throw Rag "clean."

Contact: www.throwrag.com

Throw Rag perform with the Supersuckers and the Bronx at The House of Blues, 1530 S. Disneyland Dr., Anaheim, (714) 778-2583. June 25, 8 p.m. $15. All ages.

OC and Long Beach bands and musicians! Mail your CDs and tapes (along with your vital contact info, plus any impending performance dates) for possible review to: Locals Only,OC Weekly, P.O. Box 10788, Costa Mesa, CA 92627-0247.