Th' Legendary Shack-Shakers and "A Van Orsdel Apparition Occurrence"

Local psychobilly hero George Van Orsdel won't go on the record as to what exactly "A Van Orsdel Apparition Occurrence" will consist of at Churchill's this Saturday. It'll be either George playing a DJ role, or the entire Van Orsdels band, reformed after a seven-month hiatus, doing a set. "I explained to Tom from Churchill's that we wouldn't be ready to play by the sixteenth," George explains, "but that if there was any possibility at all that we could pull a last-minute performance, we would."

Ah. So they might play on Saturday. "I was hoping we'd be ready to play, and we were shooting for that goal, but our bassist had to go out of town for personal business and put us behind schedule."

Okay. So they're not ready to play, so they won't. "Well, there is still a very slim possibility that we might play, but I wouldn't bet the farm just yet."

Fine. Killer headache in place, I turn to Col. J.D. Wilkes, singer/harp-player of Nashville punkabilly maniacs Th' Legendary Shack-Shakers, whose music is the aural equivalent of Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre chasing Bugs Bunny over hill and dale. Their most recent album, Pandelerium, came out in January 2006 on Yep Roc Records. "It's a monstrosity," boasts Wilkes, "and I mean that in a good way. Lots of polka-punk and psycho-circus music from some long-lost Fellini movie."

In his spare time, Wilkes is also hammering out a documentary called Seven Signs, due out before Thanksgiving. "It's all about the South. It features odd, Southern-gothic vignettes that prove the deep, dark South of Faulkner still exists." -- Eric W. Saeger