The Value of Nothing

Left to his own devices, Supersucker Eddie Spaghetti indulges in a redneck renegade shtick, and on The Value of Nothing, his fourth solo venture, he's decided to push that persona as far as it can go. He's abandoned other people's songs, choosing to dedicate this 2013 LP to all originals, but he's conscientious about not letting this slide into the scuzz-rock of the Supersuckers (although the breakneck "F****n' with My Head" does flirt with extremes). Everything is anchored on an acoustic guitar, even when he's spitting out vulgarities, which he does with some regularity and no small dose of humor. His misanthropic anthem "People Are S**t" is a Tex-Mex two-step worthy of Doug Sahm, and the catchiest, poppiest thing here is called "If Anyone's Got the Balls." Beneath the jokes and rage, Eddie Spaghetti is reckoning with mortality, slyly playing with his advancing years on the May-December romance "You Get to Be My Age" and, tellingly, bringing the album to a close with the matter of fact "When I Go, I'm Gone." On both, the rocker realizes he's no longer a young man but, The Value of Nothing proudly isn't young music: this is steeped in tradition, from the outlaw music he loves to the raw rock and punk that fuel the Supersuckers, and Eddie Spaghetti isn't so much fighting the shifting times as much as he's digging in and taking a stand for who he is and what he loves.