Sound Check — Geoff Carter: Horton Heat gets a little hotter with ‘Spend a Night’

Friday, March 17, 2000 | 11:22 a.m.

Geoff Carter's music column appears Fridays. Reach him at carter@vegas.com

I'm supposed to be writing about Irish performers today. A traditional group, perhaps, like the Chieftains, or one of those punky-brogue outfits, like the Prodigals or Black 57. But I'm not going to do that. In keeping with my contrary nature, I'm going to sing the praises of a bunch of Texans.

Actually, the members of the Reverend Horton Heat are not, in character, too far removed from the Irish party bands I've known. They're amiable, relaxed, savagely entertaining; they value a pint as much as the next fellow; they're not about to take any excrement off anybody. And with "Spend a Night in the Box," the road rises to meet them once again.

It's a relief. The Reverend's last few records have been largely interchangeable -- fast and furious, and so deep in the realm of "psychobilly" that the band seemed less the spiritual heirs to Jerry Lee Lewis and more a speed metal band with tailored suits with every passing year. Were these the same guys who threatened to keep playing country songs until someone in the Huntridge Theater audience brought them a tray of vodka tonics?

"Spend a Night in the Box," the Reverend's first release on new label Time Bomb, finds the boys changing the course of the party once again. Drop the needle anywhere -- on "Sleeper Coach Driver," on "Big D Boogie Woogie," on "King" -- you'll find a band that's having more fun than its had in years.

"Hand It To Me," in particular, illustrates the band's new lease on life. You can practically see vocalist/guitarist Jim Heath, bassist Jimbo Wallace and drummer Scott Churilla busting through this steady cooker in a tiny club somewhere in Austin, nodding at each other during the solos and choruses. For the sake of the Reverend's collective ego, I'll even say the band is penned in by 21-year-old women in pedal pushers, swaying in time.

Even when the boys lapse into old habits, as they do in the crazy-eyed, lo-fi "Sue Jack Daniels," they never lose their grip. George Jones may cringe at the bit about suing the distiller "for hittin' me / With the trunk of a big old live oak tree," but even he could appreciate how the standoff turns out: with a duel, guitar vs. bottle, "at high noon."

And Jones would kill to get his hands on "The Bedroom Again" -- for my money, one of the best country songs of the past 10 years. It's hard not to smile a knowing smile as Heath pleads with an ex-wife, "would it be a sin / if we make the bedroom / the bedroom again?" Don't hurt anybody, George -- just send the royalty check.

"Spend a Night in the Box" is the Reverend Horton Heat's best record, and a fine introduction to the band. It's as close to straight-up hillbilly swing as the band has ever come, mixing Jerry Lee, Bill Haley, Bob Wills, "Cool Hand Luke" and every dance hall west of the Rio Grande into a cocktail potent enough to scare the ice cubes clean out of the glass. That's not luck -- that's skill.