Today sees the release of the “4 Songs EP” by The Roxton Giants, the first sign of life from the group in fifty years. Their spaghetti-western-scented rocksteady has been lying fallow until Per Thorsell called in their record at an auction.
Little or nothing is known about The Roxton Giants. The band seems to have been active in or around Roxton, Texas in the late ’60s, possibly into the ’70s. The only known copies of their records turned up at an auction in Sweden the other year and the buyer – Per Thorsell, known from bands like Robert Johnson and Punchdrunks and The Hi-Winders – took a gamble and called them in. He was not disappointed. The reissue of the 4 Songs EP is the first sign of life from the group in 50 years.
From the EP we pick Greasy, an instrumental, lilting, and unsettling blend of ska/rocksteady and Italian spaghetti western. The song was recorded in the US probably in the late 60s and is reissued from the only known copy of the band’s perhaps only EP.