Reminiscing about Concerts past- The Bottletones

I have long wanted to collect past concert memories, and today you will hear about a small Chicago-based rockabilly band named the Bottletones. They were in my opinion the best band in my then hometown (Carbondale, Illinois) in the 1990s before moving to Chicago. There really wasn’t much of an Americana genre yet so who knows if they might have arrived later. 

They were kind of jokey- what you would call psychobilly like the Cramps or Rev Horton Heat, with a cover of Tom Waits “Jockey Full of Bourbon” as their signature live song. I generally don’t rhapsodize about local scenes but when they put out Corn Rampin in 1995 there were a few really good local bands and it was exciting. I didn’t know the band but had mutual friends. Vocalist Scratch Bottletone seemed older than he probably was, and more depraved than he probably was (and yes they all had the last name Bottletone a la the Ramones).

They were one of the few bands of the time with stand up bass when the Stray Cats were about the only band that did that (Sure there were bands like the Guana Batz and the Meteors but most Americans didn't know them. Today, there are plenty of bands like this touring -Nekromantix, Koffin Kats, and so on that popped up in the late 90s and after). The guitarist played fast like Billy Zoom from the band X. In 1999, there was the Sheriff of Bottletone County as the band had moved to Chicago and trying to break in, still playing Carbondale quite a bit. 

That album really captures their sound and I would put it up against any Rockabilly album of the last 30 years. It's that good. I know the band had sort of broken up or (at least weren’t in the Carbondale area) on the early 2000s but I know that they recorded with Steve Albini (their Facebook page details how they gave him a can of pork and beans that he treasured) and they recorded a final album in 2001 Adult Time (possibly named for an adult book store off the interstate in Southern Illinois).

They reunited in 2019, placed a few live dates and released a new album that year “Alone & Rollin” which is quite good. All their albums are up on streaming and they don’t have a ton of monthly listeners, so check them out. Their Bandcamp is mainly odds and ends with a 1999 live concert that they didn’t plan on releasing. Right now I couldn’t say that I was in the crowd, but the odds are pretty good. There are a few articles on the internet about them (one of the members must have played in a Chicago area band called Hillbilly Idle that is now defunct). I always thought the Bottletones were a fun band and deserved a bigger audience.