Mojo's White Trash Wit

Mojo Nixon & The Toadliquors - Sock Ray Blue
(Shanachie Records)
2 1/2 stars (out of 5 stars)

By Tony Bonyata

He was the honorary captain of the 1998 Olympic Luge team. He graced the cover of the Wall Street Journal the same week he appeared buck naked in Future Sex Magazine. He had to hire an armed guard at one of his shows due to death threats from an angry Don Henley fan. He was joined onstage by Don Henley to sing along on his song "Don Henley Must Die". He was an answer on Jeopardy. His Joe Cocker impersonation impressed a young John Belushi so much that Belushi decided to use it in his own repertoire.
The man in question here is none other than folk/rock hellraiser Mojo Nixon.
Nixon has managed to enrage people, corporations and organizations throughout the years with his cynical, barbed wit, no-holds-barred truth-telling candor and down-and-dirty, no-nonsense rock-n-roll. Not only did he receive death threats from the aforementioned Eagles fan for releasing his song "Don Henley Must Die" but he's also been in legal litigations over his song about Geffen Records president, "Bring Me The Head Of David Geffen". Even the seemingly harmless can't escape his wrath, like when he picked on an '80's throw-away star on "Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant With My Two-Headed Love Child".
Now on his twelfth full length album, Sock Ray Blue, Mojo's up to his old tricks again as he unleashes his forked tongue on sacred cows such as Princess Di on "Drunk Divorced Floozie (The Ballad Of Diana Spencer)", a greasy, rockin' roadhouse number where he growls, "She's just a jet set party girl, gone to meet her maker. That nobility crap don't stop the undertaker". He further lashes out on Walt Disney and McDonalds on "Disney Is The Enemy", exposes the corporate sell-out of Cleveland's Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame on "Rock n Roll Hall of Lame" and declares his own guilty verdict on an ex-football hero who allegedly murdered his ex-wife and her boyfriend, and got away with it, on "Orenthal James", with Nixon lifting the the melody for it from another old murder folk ballad "John Hardy".
With a redneck gusto he proclaims his distaste for on-line pornography on the internet in favor of the real thing on "I Don't Want No Cybersex" and claims all new music, including techno, hip hop and house, is nothing but bad disco on the raw and gritty medley "Machines Ain't Music", with Muddy Waters' "I Got My Mojo Workin'" weaving in and out.
Although Nixon's lyrics are often hysterical in their scathing truth, the jokes start wearing thin as his overall negativity permeates through every song on the album.
Mojo Nixon's 'good-ol-boy' rock-n-roll spiked with biting humor and white trash know-how may be a hoot, but just be sure that if you find yourself enjoying it you're close to a shower, 'cause you're gonna feel dirty.

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