Cub KODA & The Houserockers – The Joint Was Rockin’, Live 1996
Blues
The Joint Was Rockin’ is a raw, rowdy and deliriously fun record capturing Cub Koda live with the Houserockers in the early ’80s. The Houserockers bash away like they were supporting Hound Dog Taylor and Cub proves that he can play the blues with true passion and feeling. More than anything, however, The Joint Was Rockin’ is a bracing jolt of energy and fun that’s just as good as Live at B.L.U.E.S. 1982, his previous live set with the Houserockers.
During the second half of the ’90s, Koda increased his presence as a writer, in addition to staying musically active. In addition to editing The All Music Guide to Blues, he wrote and edited Blues for Dummies. He also continued writing liner notes, contributing work to retrospectives of the Trashmen, Jimmy Reed, JB Hutto, the Kingsmen, and the Miller Sisters, among others. He also supervised the 1996 release of ****The Joint Was Rockin’,**** a live album of Cub with the Houserockers in the early ’80s, plus a 1998 Norton reissue of recordings he made with the Del-Tinos.
Cub wasn’t just an archivist during this time. In 1997, he released Box Lunch on J-Bird Records, his first collection of new material since Abba Dabba Dabba. Box Lunch was a solo, all-acoustic album unlike anything he had recorded in the past. Koda returned to hard-driving, loud rock & roll with 2000’s Noise Monkeys, an album he recorded live with a reunited Points in 1999. Released in the spring, Noise Monkeys was receiving strong reviews, including a positive notice by Robert Christgau in The Village Voice, when tragedy struck. Koda had been sick for a while, but he was slowly recovering. In the spring, he was put on kidney dialysis, and he was recovering, but then he suddenly took sick during the evening of June 30, 2000. He died early in the morning on July 1, 2000 at the age of 51. Considering that he was sick, perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise that he succumbed to his illness, but Cub kept working and rocking until the end — he was writing and recording music in the last week of his life. He never lost his love for music and he always shared that love anyway he could, whether it was as a musician, journalist, DJ, or friend. As he said, he was “somewhere between a cult figure and rock & roll legend,” and to anyone that knew him, that was the gospel truth.
By Stephen Thomas Erlewine. AMG.
**
Cub Koda- Vocals,Guitar
Brewer Phillips- Guitar,Vocals
Ted Harvey- Drums,Police Whistle
**
01. Bad Boy 5:10
02. Give Me Back That Wig 4:40
03. The Sky Is Crying 5:23
04. Dust My Broom 6:27
05. High & Lonesome 4:47
06. Whole Lot Of Lovin’ 4:21
07. Last Night 2:54
08. That’s Alright 3:35
09. The Dirty Dozens 3:35
**
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