by Thom JurekUpon glancing at the awesome cartoon cover of Johnny Paycheck's classic The Lovin' Machine album, one thing becomes immediately apparent -- that you know the music in the grooves will be as amazing as the cover. Another oddity makes itself apparent when you flip it over: There are 14 tracks instead of the standard ten that usually appear on country albums. Finally, there is one more, a single performance credit: Lloyd Green on pedal steel. Musically, this is the hardest of honky tonk records. First there's the loopy title track, where it becomes difficult to tell whether Paycheck is talking about a woman or his ride that he picks up women in. Next comes "Miller's Cave," a murder ballad of the most desperate kind, with a character who is unrepentant and yet gains his punishment by becoming lost in the same cave where he buries the bodies of his lover and her backdoor man. In typical Paycheck psychobilly fashion, this is followed with a cheating torch song. Side one's most chilling song, however, is Paycheck's definitive outlaw mayhem ballad, the Mayhew-Lytle song that is as infamous as it is great, "(Pardon Me) I've Got Someone to Kill." Green's steel colors the end of each line with an atmospheric tension that grows with every syllable. It's the story of a cuckolded man whose revenge will not be complete until he kills everyone, including himself. "This gun will buy back the pride they took from me/And also end this life of mine that's worthless now." In addition, there's a killer read of Merle Haggard's "Swinging Doors," done in swinging honky tonk style. As if "I've Got Someone to Kill" wasn't enough, there's an avenging rocking honky tonker in "The Johnsons of Turkey Ridge," which celebrates the mass murder of a family. But the classics don't end there; Paycheck's stellar read of "Between Love and Hate," with it's sonorous cello underneath the mix, is moving and strange. The set ends with "I Know I Never Will," with Green playing counterpoint to Paycheck's devoted romantic lyric, although he still sounds menacing. In all this is a crazy golden-era honky tonk record, one that allows for no compromise, no Nashville input (a good portion of it was recorded in New York), and no allowance for resolving any of the contradictions in Paycheck's voice and delivery. It's a true masterpiece.