Terry Allen onstage at the Tornado Jam, Lubbock, TX, May 3, 1981. Photo by Milton Adams.

Terry Allen and the Panhandle Mystery Band Announce Smokin the Dummy and Bloodlines Reissues, Featuring Remastered Audio and Expanded Artwork.

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Papa Rat. Well, today we are thrilled to announce deluxe reissues of internationally celebrated songwriter and visual artist Terry Allen’s albums Smokin the Dummy (1980) and Bloodlines (1983), comprising our sixth and seventh releases by Allen and the eagerly anticipated continuation of our acclaimed, GRAMMY-nominated archival series in collaboration with the artist. 

Remastered from the original master tapes, the expanded editions of these two beloved, and interrelated, records represent the first-ever reissues on vinyl (unlike previous editions, the Smokin the Dummy CD also restores the original, unabridged tracklist, with “Cocaine Cowboy.”) Both vinyl and CD editions—gatefold and trifold, respectively—feature inserts with lyrics, new notes, and other texts (including a 1981 letter from Allen to his friend and mentor, the artist H.C. Westermann), as well as restored, new, and alternate artwork and photographs by Terry and Jo Harvey Allen and friends (now including more switchblades and skulls).

Both albums are scheduled for worldwide release on May 6, 2022, the day before Allen’s 79th birthday. Read on for more details, and click below to pre-order the albums and to hear “The Heart of California (for Lowell George)” (from Smokin the Dummy) and “Gimme a Ride to Heaven Boy” (from Bloodlines). 

Smokin the Dummy (1980, PoB-065)

$3.00 – $35.00

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Recorded exactly two years after acclaimed visual artist and songwriter Terry Allen’s masterpiece Lubbock (on everything), the feral follow-up Smokin the Dummy is less conceptually focused but more sonically and stylistically unified than its predecessor—it’s also rougher and rowdier, wilder and more wired, and altogether more menacingly rock and roll. The first album by Allen to share top billing with the Panhandle Mystery Band, here featuring Jesse Taylor on blistering lead guitar alongside the Maines brothers and Richard Bowden, Dummy documents a ferocious new band in fully telepathic, tornado-fueled flight, refining its caliber, increasing its range, and never looking down. 

Some of the strangest art-rock you ever heard … desperado dadaism. Dummy is environmental art at its best. – The Village Voice (1981)

Like The Grapes of Wrath revisited … masterfully done. Call it Lubbock New Wave. It’s going to offend some people, like the best rock and roll should. One of the best albums I’ve heard in a long time, period. Dazzling. – The L.A. Times (1981)

  • The first-ever vinyl reissue of the feral 1980 follow-up to Lubbock (on everything), remastered from the original analog tapes. Unlike previous editions, the CD restores the original unabridged track list.
  • Deluxe LP edition features 140g virgin vinyl; a gatefold jacket and inner sleeve with restored, new, and alternate art and photos by Terry and Jo Harvey Allen; an insert with lyrics, original notes, and Terry’s letter to H.C. Westermann about the songs; and a high-res download code.
  • Deluxe CD edition features a trifold jacket and inner sleeve with original notes and restored, new, and alternate art and photos by Terry and Jo Harvey Allen; and a six-panel insert with lyrics and Terry’s letter to H.C. Westermann about the songs.

The Smokin the Dummy Button

Smoke the dummy (that’s Bob the Dummy to you) with Terry to commemorate our reissue of his 1980 album. Enhance any lapel with irreverent style and grace. This exquisite artifact measures 1.5″ in diameter, with a durable steel pin-back. The text on the rim reads: TERRY ALLEN & THE PANHANDLE MYSTERY BAND / SMOKIN THE DUMMY.

$3.00

In stock

BUY HERE

Bloodlines (1983, PoB-066)

$5.00 – $35.00

This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page

Purchase from PoB above or support via

On his manifold fourth album, acclaimed songwriter and visual artist Terry Allen contemplates kinship—the ways sex and violence stitch and sever the ties of family, faith, and society—with skewering satire and affection alike. Bloodlines compiles thematically related but disparate recordings from miscellaneous sources both theatrical and historical: two songs written for plays; two full-band reprises of selections from Juarez; the irreverent hellfire-hitchhiker-on-highway ballad “Gimme a Ride to Heaven Boy” (featuring Joe Ely); and the poignant eponymous ode to the arteries of ancestry and landscape (the debut recording of eight-year-old Natalie Maines, later covered by Lucinda Williams). 

One of the most compelling American songwriters working today. He is making the most unique art-pop of our time … The bloodlines coursing through this alternately rueful and rowdy work are the marks of blood as a sign of family lineage, an effect of violence, an emblem of sex and death, the price of sacrifice and sacrament. – L.A. Herald Examiner (1984)

I’ve never heard such a consistent assortment of unpopular styles. – Dave Hickey (1983)

  • The first-ever vinyl reissue of Allen’s manifold, moving fourth album, remastered from the original analog tapes. 
  •  Deluxe LP edition features 140g virgin vinyl; a gatefold jacket and inner sleeve with restored, new, and alternate art and photos by Terry and Jo Harvey Allen and friends; an insert with lyrics and original notes, and a high-res download code. 
  • Deluxe CD edition features a trifold jacket and inner sleeve with original notes and restored, new, and alternate art and photos by Terry and Jo Harvey Allen and friends; and a six-panel insert with lyrics and alternate art.

The There Oughta Be a Law Against Sunny Southern California Bumper Sticker

Put some illegal vibrations on that bumper, and show the open road how you truly feel about SoCal. A ferocious full-band reprise of “There Oughta Be a Law Against Sunny Southern California,” originally released on Terry Allen‘s immortal 1975 debut album Juarez, appears on 1983’s Bloodlines.

Printed on thick, durable vinyl this 3″ x 11.5″ bumper sticker is resistant to scratches, sun, and water.

$5.00

In stock

BUY HERE

Terry Allen Tamale Shirts Are Back in Stock

Is there any more perfect koan? We print these shirts in small batches to coincide with occasions such as today’s announcement. Get them while they last. Hot tamales!

$25.00

This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page

Terry Allen Live Dates and Events

Today, March 16, 2022, at 1pm ET, Allen will participate in a livestream discussion of his art exhibition MemWars with curator Carter Foster. Register to watch the free event here.

An exploration of memory, autobiography, storytelling, and songwriting through a three-channel video installation (featuring Allen and his wife and frequent collaborator, the actor and writer Jo Harvey Allen) and related songs, drawings, and texts, MemWars runs through July 10 at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas. 

From March 21 through 24, the Terry and Jo Harvey Allen Center for Creative Studies at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, will host 3 Women, 3 Films, featuring film screenings and discussions with directors Sara Driver, Anne Rapp, and Tamara Saviano. 

On May 28, Terry Allen and the Panhandle Mystery Band are slated to play Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival at MASS MoCa in North Adams, Massachusetts. 

Watch Allen cover Wilco’s “One Sunday Morning” on Austin City Limits below. 

On June 23, Allen will perform at OFF THE RAILS, the annual benefit for SITE Santa Fe in Sante Fe, New Mexico, with special guest Kurt Vile, whom Terry personally invited. Panhandle Mystery Band member and acclaimed solo artist Shannon McNally opens.

Additional dates will be announced soon.

Terry Allen and the Panhandle Mystery Band on Austin City Limits

“The Lubbock Tornado (I don’t know)” (from Smokin the Dummy)
“Gimme a Ride to Heaven Boy” (from Bloodlines)
“One Sunday Morning” (Wilco cover)

No veteran country songwriter sounds more attuned to the national mood. His songs still feel like little guidebooks for staring down a harsh universe. – The Washington Post

A reigning deity of a certain kind of country music since the mid-70s. – The New York Times

The kind of singular American artist who expresses the fundamental weirdness of his country. – The Wire

It has always been a fool’s errand to frame Allen in terms of other artists—there was nobody like him before he showed up, and the subsequent forty years have been equally light on plausible peers. – Uncut

More From Terry Allen and the Panhandle Mystery Band

Terry Allen Links

Paradise of Bachelors | Facebook | Instagram | Spotify | Bandcamp

Terry Allen Streaming

Rescquiat in Pace

Our reissue of Bloodlines is dedicated to the brilliant writer and critic—and Terry’s close friend—Dave Hickey (1940–2021), one of the very best to ever do it. Thank you, Dave—for everything.