aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser
005 – BIG DRAG – ‚I’m A Lonesome Fugitive’ (Unlean Records, ’79)
Hello friends,
today I have both for you, in fact: a neat song, one I always adored (and will adore) plus this song is being performed by a band I always loved: the mighty Big Drag!
Their output isn’t big really, there are two singles and an album. But each of the three records is a killer, and that’s for sure. Finding something interesting about Big Drag on the internet gives you a hard time, so what I’ll do is I shamelessly copy and paste what their bassist said in an interview some 27 years ago, a time when the band were at their peak by and large. I say ‘peak’, you know what I mean: obviously they never had a platinum album, but 1994/1995 was when the three records came out, so ….
Anyway, here’s what Colin Jones had to say back then:
“They made the little girls dance.” This is what Big Drag bassist Colin Jones suggested be Big Drag’s epitaph, when asked. It fits like a steel condom, too. Ever since they first skulked in from San Antonio a couple of years back, the laconic trio has brought with them hordes of incredibly nubile women, doing up-and-down-and-round-and-round moves that would make Chubby Checker spit green to Big Drag’s garbage-can guitar-pop. “That’s always been my favorite part of Big Drag,” drawls Jones, who started the band in 1991 with singer/guitarist Milton Robichaux and drummer Dillon Phillips, following the demise of Robichaux’s similarly minded Happy Dogs. “Generally, every show we play, the first two or three rows of people in front of the stage are almost all girls. I dunno why, I guess it’s just that danceable beat, that surfy-kinda beat that you can twist to or whatever. (…)”
In my humble opinion, this pretty much sums up all you need to know about Big Drag: the music will do the rest, promised!
Now, the song I went for is, as I said, one I always loved: ‘I’m A Lonesome Fugitive’. Made famous by Merle Haggard back in 1966, but written (for Merle) by Liz and Casey Anderson (don’t tell me this series doesn’t have some educational aspects too!).
I have often wondered why it is that I love this tune so much. I mean, quite obviously I never ran away from the law or similar (which, in rainy Germany, wouldn’t be much romantic in the first place anyway), nor have I ever been much of a desperado. I once tried to be faster on my moped than the blokes from customs when smuggling a carton of cigarettes. Didn’t work out and I had to pay a fortune. Does this make me an outlaw? Probably not. Then again, one doesn’t need an explanation for everything in life, right?
Alright, San Antonio’s finest, friends, with the B-Side of their ‘Gotta Let Me Go’ – 7” from 1994:
mp3: Big Drag – I’m A Lonesome Fugitive
Enjoy – and please let me know what you think of it!!
Dirk
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 