Two Headed Cow

They Say...

Review by Mark Deming, All Music Guide

This live album begins with an MC calling the Flat Duo Jets "the damndest people -- two people who have more sound coming off this stage than any two people you've ever seen in your life." For the next 50 minutes, Dexter Romweber on guitar and vocals and Crow behind the drums prove beyond a doubt that the host for the evening wasn't talking through his hat -- this is roots rock at its most raw, primal, and alive, and Two Headed Cow captures the joyous low-tech roar of the Flat Duo Jets with impressive accuracy. This album is the soundtrack to a long gestating documentary about the band (directed by Tony Gayton, who gave the Flat Duo Jets an early showcase in his film Athens, GA: Inside/Out), and the liner notes offer next to no information about these recordings -- while they appear to be live tapes (an audience is often audible), Gayton either doesn't know or isn't telling when or where the show (or shows) took place. But that isn't half as important as the music, and on that score Two Headed Cow delivers the goods in style. Romweber's guitar throws rockabilly, blues, jazz, and country styles into a big aural blender, filters the broth through a no-frills/pure-energy punk rock mindset, and pumps the results through a big amp that lets the glorious din ring like fuzzy church bells, and Crow's frantic but rock-solid drumming pushes the music forward while keeping the songs on the rails at the same time. And while covers dominate this disc (as they did at a typical Flat Duo Jets show), when Dex and Crow finish playing "Rock House," "Hoy Hoy," "Rockin' Bones," and "Frog Went a Courtin'," they don't sound much like anyone else's property. Two Headed Cow arrives close to ten years after Flat Duo Jets called it a day, and the fire and fun of this disc are a potent reminder of what a loss that was, as well as what a singular talent Dexter Romweber truly is. Dig it.