Li'l Mo And The Monicats - Authentic US Rockabilly.
1.Every kind of music but Country 2.Two hearts (tender, loving and true) 3.Packin' up and movin' out 4.Let's invite them over 5.Put up a fight 6.Too many 7.That cat 8.Sideburn daddy 9.Out of business 10.Paradise, lost 11.You took me 12.She-wolf
Li'l Mo And The Monicats
No Depression 1997 Here in Nashville, I find myself in the grip of a persistent hope that one day I'll walk into an unknown bar and there, onstage, will be an unknown singer swinging through standards and songs that sound like standards except that somebody on the bandstand wrote 'em. Oh, and the singer in this discovery myth has to be something special, not just somebody going through the motions. Kind of like one imagines might have happened in, say, 1968. Monica Pasin, late of the Twanglers (who appeared on the original Rig Rock compilation), is resident in New York's Rodeo Bar and, alternately, the Louisiana Bar & Grill, but none of my hip Manhattan friends have ever heard of her. From the sound of her debut, they're missing a sure bet. She opens with Tim Carroll's alt. country anthem 'Every kind of music but country', reprises the George Jones - Melba Montgomery duet, 'Let's invite them over' and digs up a nugget I wish I'd heard before, the soaring 'Out of business'. Passin's originals fit seamlessly around these well-chosen covers. The best, 'Put up a fight', is a damning portrait of a couch-bound lover too emotionally dead even to try to fight for his relationship. 'Too many' and 'Sideburn daddy' highlight well-considered rockabilly notions. Even the slighter songs drift by pleasantly, so much so that the disc plays like a well-tuned jukebox. The backing band hits all the licks like obedient sidemen, which about fits the era evoked by the music, but maybe they're just on a short budget. Passin's voice - and it's not quite of this caliber, but close - ranges from Loretta Lynn to a not-quite teenage Wanda Jackson, full of sass and womanly worldliness. That she is from Long Island makes all this the more unexpected a pleasure. I'm not sure Monica Passin is any kind of major talent (or that she's not). Hell, maybe this disc is just like my periodic cream soda binges, or like my certainty that the Tasmanian Devils were an amazing power-pop band for one record. But I damn sure know where I'm heading next time I'm in New York and I haven't gotten more pleasure from anything released this year. Grant Alden
"I can't say enough good things about Li'l Mo's new band, The Monicats. Having attended a solo performance after the dissolution of the Twanglers, I was well aware of her prodigious gifts of voice and song, but was unprepared for the full dose of Li'l Mo unleashed, the roller coaster ride of joy and heartache that she takes her audience on." Derick Evans, The Musicians Exchange, Feb, 1996
"Li'l Mo is a li'l fish in a big town right now, but expect big things from her as soon as she can get out on the road." Paul Gaita, Cornfed Issue 7, Summer 1997
"Hank Williams has been reincarnated as a female and she's learned from her mistakes. A live band first and foremost, containing only A-list players, The Monicats are worth travelling to see." Derick Evans, The Musicians Exchange, Feb, 1996
"This is country that jumps and swings, twangs and slides. It's downright fun!" FB, Musicians Exchange May 1997
"While some of the twelve tracks are permeated with the pathos and pain inherent to hillbilly heartache, several others - 'Sideburn Daddy', 'She-Wolf' and the darkly brooding 'That Cat' - stand out as contends for rockabilly canonization." B. Fury, LoFi #5, Spring 1997
Li'l Mo And The Monicats - Authentic US Rockabilly.