Patricia Vonne is dangerous, in a good way. Â Like some kind of artistic superhero, she excels in whatever she decides to focus her efforts on. Â Modeling in New York. Â Acting in movies. Â (Check her out as Zorro Girl in Sin City, her brother Robert Rodriguez’ movie.) Songwriting with Rosie Flores, Doyle Bramhall, Alejandro Escovedo and others. Â Singing, like on her newest album, Rattle My Cage.
Although not arranged this way, the album could be divided into two sides. Â Side 1 is rock and roll, with a dark undercurrent. Â It’s not so much that the topics are dark, just that Vonne’s band manages to put an ominous tone to the sound. Â The title cut, with its initial brooding drum and bass line interrupted by a squealing guitar is right on that track. Â Dark Mile could easily be on the soundtrack of a Quentin Tarrantino (or Robert Rodriguez!) movie. Â There’s also one of my favorite Rosie Flores songs, This Cat’s In the Doghouse, that it turns out Vonne co-wrote. Â It’s not really dark, but trouble is definitely a theme.
Side two is a heavily Latin-influenced collection of songs. Â Dulce Refugio is a bi-lingual number with a Spanish cosmopolitan mood about the labyrinths our brain can take in the wee hours of the morning. Â Que Maravilla is more a Latin rock and roll song. Â And Mexicali de Chispa brings to mind all the classic spaghetti westerns.
 It’s hard to put a label on this record.  As you can tell from the previous couple of paragraphs, it covers a lot of ground.  Yet it hangs together as an album, even on outliers like Paris Trance, an ode to Paris written in a Bakersfield, CA, style.  I suppose it boils down to the fact that a bunch of well-written, well-performed, enjoyable songs will always hang together and that describes Rattle My Cage as well as anything.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.