Johns, Evan

Panoramic Life

MP3 $9.90

01/08/2016 721616048124

FLAC $11.99

01/08/2016 721616048124

Evan Johns is supposed to be dead… but he’s indestructible and back to boogie after nearly a decade in and out of hospitals and rehab clinics. He’s still thirsty for red-hot rockabilly and ready to tear you to pieces with his raw twang and surf blues. Alternative Tentacles is tickled to announce the addition of Evan Johns’ albums Panoramic Life and Somewhere Over The Skyline to its excellent digital catalogue.
Johns grew up in Virginia but was born to be a road-dog travelling musician. He started hitch-hiking cross-country with an acoustic guitar and cans of beer when he was a kid, going to shows and listening to vintage bluesmen moan on-stage and shoot the shit off-stage. He got his first electric guitar when he was 17 and moved to DC to jam with local rockabilly heroes like Danny Gatton. Johns wrote three songs on Gatton’s album Redneck Jazz before forming his own band called the H-Bombs.
Alternative Tentacles founder Jello Biafra caught a Evan Johns’ and the H-Bombs gig back in the 80’s and described it as “a little Tex-Mex here, garage punk power there, all whipped into a witch's brew of spitfire guitar and Evan's trademark vocal growl. This is the real stuff.” Johns had fire in his eyes, passion wailing out off his guitar strings, and a 12-six-packs-a-day bar tab. He was just as wild off-stage as he was on-stage.
By 1984 Johns was causing chaos and making music with various groups in Austin, Texas. He joined the LeRoi Brothers for the release of their LP Lucky Lucky Me, and in 1985 he performed on a guitar orgy compilation album called Trash, Twang, and Thunder, which earned a Grammy. By 1986 Johns was ready to be in charge again and got the H-Bombs back together in Texas.
Johns’ years of touring and drinking gained him a notorious party boy reputation. It wasn’t uncommon for Johns to be passed out drunk during opening acts, only to stumble on-stage at midnight to spit at the audience, growl in the mic, and blow the opening bands off the stage!
Evan Johns and the H-Bombs continued throughout the mid-80’s and 90’s until Johns’ health began to decline. Even after doctors gave him two days to live in 1998, he could still smoke any guitarist alive! Since then he’s been releasing records & destroying stages with his rockabilly growl and blistering guitar work and proving those doctors wrong every day. The evidence is on 2013’s “Panoramic Life” (Virus 481) and 2014’s “Somewhere Over The Skyline” (Virus 482).
These most recent releases are 2 of the most unforgettable rockabilly-tinged roots-rock and twang from this indestructible spitfire!