Last year Bob released his memoir – See A Little Light.  It chronicles his rise to the status as a post-punk-guitar legend, his side-ventures into techno/dance music and professional wrestling script writing, and eventually his assimilation and self-acceptance into the gay culture of Brooklyn and San Francisco.   It’s a great read if you have even a passing interest in any of these subjects.

But finally there’s Silver Age – Bob’s new record.  With Jason Narducy on Bass and harmonies and powerhouse Jon Wurster (Superchunk) on drums, the shows have been amazing.  Silver Age is more Sugar and Hüsker than anything he’s done since.  Don’t miss it!

Bob’s Top 5 According To Me:

1. The Hüsker Dü Holy Trinity – Zen Arcade/New Day Rising/Flip Your Wig (1985-6):  These guys didn’t look really cool or act like the guys on MTV but they took the melodies from 60s pop and set them on top of the guitars that sounded like the Buzzcocks and Ramones and laid the groundwork for every alternative band to follow from Nirvana and The Pixies to My Bloody Valentine and Green Day.
2. SUGAR – Beaster EP (1993): I know, everyone loves Copper Blue, but Beaster was ANGRY!  The middle 3 songs pack such a punch that we thought we had “Angry Bob” back for a few months.
3. Bob Mould – Workbook (1989): What’s he gonna Dü now?  Trade in the V for a Strat and write some of the best songs of his career.  This was uncharted territory for Bob – acoustics and clean electrics and even cello.  He proved that he could be every bit as intense and dark without the distortion.  It’s an amazing record.
4. Bob Mould – Silver Age (2012): Bob follows up his memoir with a record that somehow captures the spirit and energy of his glory days without sounding retro or done-before.  It’s short and full of all the hooks you’d want.
5. Bob Mould – Turning of The Tide (1994): This deep cut was Bob’s contribution to the Richard Thompson Tribute Record Beat the Retreat.  What makes it so awesome is that John Doe and DJ Bonebreak from X are backing him up, and Doe takes the harmonies.  It was my favorite Thompson tune before Bob did it and, well, just forget it now.  Great guitar work.

Bob Mould & Band – Magic Stick – Detroit

Saturday, March 2, 2013 at 9:00 PM | $25

Magic Stick Event/Tickets

Jon Wurster’s Awesome Twitter Feed

Jeremy Porter

More Posts - Website

It’s been a while since I stepped foot in Ann Arbor’s Blind Pig.  Walking up I was remembering some of the great shows I’ve seen there – mostly in the early 90s – Soundgarden, Nirvana, Social Distortion, and Afghan Whigs, to name just a few.  Those were the days!  People went to shows!  Touring bands stopped in Detroit or Ann Arbor between Toronto and Chicago!  It all came back to me as I entered the sold out Blind Pig – wall to wall with hipster college kids drinking beer, buying T-shirts and crowd surfing.

New York City’s K-Holes took the stage and established a noisy, heavy-groove filled set that reminded me of Ann Arbor’s early-90s Laughing Hyenas at times and Sonic Youth at others.  The singer, sporting a Nancy Spungen look, and the guitarist – who looked, but played nothing like Lindsey Buckingham – led the band while the bassist and saxophonist laid a reverb-drenched backdrop.   The K-Holes were working hard and were very well received.  Not totally my thing, but fans of mid-80s and early 90s Touch & Go and Amphetamine Reptile stuff would probably dig it.

After a short break Ty Segall came out and quickly re-set the noise meter with another wall of sound.  Ty and his band had the tightness of a group that has been on tour for a while – clicking on every level, communicating without trying, and generally tearing it up and making it look easy.  They were riff-heavy too, but unlike the K-Holes Ty’s songs have hooks embedded into those riffs and that’s what kept me engaged.  Think early Mudhoney on a Black Sabbath binge all mashed-up with Donovan (maybe?).  Beside the hooks, Ty’s guitar playing was the highlight.  His leads were somewhere between Greg Ginn and Tony Iommi, with a fuzzy tone that cut through the wall just right.  Just retro enough to make you smile, but a great modern crossover feel too.

After the show it was head-first into the great blizzard of 2013.  My ears were ringing as I crawled home doing 30mph on the freeway.  But it felt good knowing that the Blind Pig and the bands who stop there are still killing it!

Ty Segall Website

K-Holes Website

Jeremy Porter

More Posts - Website

The Sights – Left Over Right

The Sights’ new record Left Over Right is a sweet collection of high-energy rock and soul from this Detroit quintet who have been pounding the pavement for some 14+ years now.  I instantly latched on to the fast and poppy stuff, but after about a listen-and-a-half I was starting to fall head-first into their slower, catchy grooves and infectious hooks too.  Fans of Sloan will easily relate to the up-tempo tracks (Left Over Right, Anything to Anyone) but the core of this record is the more groove heavy, slower tracks like Prayer and You Are the Sunshine.  Then there’s the 70’s am-radio gem Mercy, which kicks in sort of lo-fi before taking on the warm, full production prevalent throughout the rest of the record, and the surprise-left-turn countrified closer Easy Living that wouldn’t be out of place next to Glen Campbell or the Ozark Mountain Daredevils circa 1975.

It seems apparent that great thought went into what goes where – this organ riff, that sax solo, a double vocal here, a dropout there, but the record does not come across as overthought.  Taking it all in does require a commitment from the listener, though.  The deepest pop-hooks are the ones that you pick up after hearing a song a couple times.  “Hey – I remember that from when I listened to this yesterday!” rather than the easy shots taken by lesser-songwriters and producers that grab you right away but fade quickly as the record is passed over for the next new thing.  The Sights have it down and the reward is at the creamy center.  This one will be in rotation for a while.  Keep an eye out for these guys who will hopefully be doing some more local gigs when they return from supporting Tenacious D. on tour all Summer!

http://www.sightsarmy.com/thesights/

Jeremy Porter

More Posts - Website

Hitless Wonder – A Life in Minor League Rock And Roll

Columbus, Ohio’s Watershed plays Small’s this Thursday.  Bassist Joe Oestreich has a new book out–a memoir of his life on the road with the band.  This is more than just another band passing through Detroit on tour, though. A good chunk of the band’s history and subsequent content of Oestreich’s book take place in the area.

They’ve come a long way since they contributed a track to A Fist Full of Chaos on Detroit’s own Chaos Records in 1991, whose founder Sue Summers was an early champion of the band.  She’s been telling me for no less than 20 years that I would love these guys, and we should trade shows, and we’re cut from the same cloth.  Goddamnit, she was absolutely right.  I was 5 pages in to Oestreich’s book and the band is bonding over Cheap Trick deep cuts, listening to Bastards of Young on the juke box at Small’s (before taking the stage in front of 5 people) and washing down percocets with PBRs.  A few pages later they’re forming a deep friendship with John Speck (Generals/Hoarse/The Fags/HiFi Hand Grenades) and eventually recording at the Loft in Saline with Tim Patalan.  I’ve lived these pages, more or less, but I suspect a lot of people from bands in places like Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and St. Louis have lived them too.  We didn’t all get signed to Epic, we haven’t all played to sold-out amphitheaters or toured with The Smithereens, but a lot of us have lived some portion of that dream, and there are even a few of us who are still at it.  Whether they realize it or not, they’re carrying the torch for every one of us who used to play places like Lili’s 21, Finney’s Pub and Cross Street Station.  Most of the vets of those days have traded in their guitars for Disney DVDs and corporate day jobs, but some of us are still at it, and Watershed – through their refusal to quit – give us a cause to continue.

In the book, Oestreich nails it – the lonely girl back home who kinda gets it, but kinda not, the techniques that bands learn to keep from killing each other while driving through New Jersey in a dying van that smells like pizza puke, and the romantic notion that even if it only means something to us, then it’s worth doing.  This isn’t your standard Rock N Roll memoir style of writing.  Although both the Sammy Hagar and Ace Frehley books were interesting reads, they weren’t exactly expanding anyone’s vocabulary.  Oestreich narrates in a literary, descriptive style that is more image provoking and engaging, almost like fiction. But anyone who can relate to any of the above scenarios knows this ain’t fiction.  The rest of you might wonder.

It all comes back to Watershed though.  These guys have it down – the great songs, the dual-vocal duties, the biting guitars and sharp hooks they may have borrowed from that Cheap Trick deep cut, or John Speck riff, or some other power-pop anthem and made it their own.  They’re supporting their new record Brick & Mortar which you can stream on their site and buy at Small’s.  Go to the show, get the book and the record, and either live vicariously through Watershed and remember the good old days or get your ass home and figure out a bridge for that new tune that you’ve been stuck on for a week.  Either way, you won’t regret it.

Joe Oestreich will be reading from the book and playing some tunes on Thursday at The Lido at 7pm.  It’s  free and open to the public. 33535 Woodward Ave. in Birmingham, 248-792-6248 or check out www.springfed.org for more info.

Watershed plays Small’s Bar on Thursday Night.   Details HERE.

Watershedcentral.com

JoeOestereich.com

Jeremy Porter

More Posts - Website

Get Yer La La’s Out

Chris Richards And The Subtractions new record – Get Yer La La’s Out – is chock full of the tasty hooks and melody you’ve come to expect from this Detroit trio.  It’s no surprise that the songs are great and served up on top of a thick bed of jangly-but-edgy guitars and the harmonies are all sweet and “oooooh”-ey.  What is surprising, though, is that they’ve actually one-upped their last effort – 2009’s brilliant Sad Sounds of the Summer.  This time around, they seem even more comfortable in their shoes and confident in their step.  Like they’ve got nothing to prove (and they don’t, really).  There’s elements of The Beatles, Kinks, Matthew Sweet and Cheap Trick. I’d bet Chris listens to The Raspberries on his way to band practice.  Then Hüsker Dü on the way home.  Then The Bangles on Sunday morning (no shame in that!).   Given these influences, you’d expect the songwriting to be top-notch, and it is.  The driving power-pop if It’s Something keeps your head boppin’ while I’m No Saint keeps the balls-out attack restrained just enough to allow the hook to sit front and center.  There’s no runt in this litter, and the LP version includes a Who cover bonus-track.

Make sure to see Chris Richards & The Subtractions at the Release Party for Get Yer La La’s Out at The Berkley Front this Friday June 22!  Support bands Ryan Allen & His Extra Arms and The Corktown Popes.  $10 gets you in – PLUS a copy of the new CD – PLUS your choice of any additional CD from the CR+S catalog!!!

Chris Richards & The Subtractions Website

Record Release Show Facebook Event

Jeremy Porter

More Posts - Website

From the opening drum pounding of Lucy and the Butcher Knife from their latest LP Sweet Saint Me, both singer/guitarist Micah Schnabel and bassist/occasional singer Shane Sweeny are shot out of a cannon, bouncing off each other  and falling around their guitars in some sort of a spastic trance of blistering melody and volume.  The glue that holds this band together is clearly the bond between these two, who have seen drummers and second guitarists come and go over the years.  The backbone is Micah’s songs – combining the perfect blend of angst and urgency with moments of honest poetry and sharp hooks that seem to come one after another before you’ve even processed what you’ve just heard.

For the next 45 minutes they relied heavily on that backbone and glue,  drawing mainly from their last couple records, sometimes conferring between songs and sometimes just transitioning on auto-pilot (they never use a set list).  Their catalog is deep and strong, but the Sweet Saint Me songs are the focal point of the set and showcase their evolution in songwriting over the years.  Other highlights included the 2 tracks from 2007’s Three – Come Back to Shelby and No Shame and the closer – a raw but well-nailed version of  Elvis Costello’s (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love & Understanding.

The only downsides to the night were the poor sound and overcrowded 5-band bill. The room was unforgiving and the PA system was inadequate, providing inaudible vocals through crappy mics against a modest backline that most venues would have been better prepared for.  And I am not sure why small clubs too often feel the need to pack 5 bands on a bill that should have been 3 tops.  Two Cow was touring with The Only Sons (Murfreesboro, TN) who’s dirty-blues/Southern Rock would have been a perfect opener with maybe a complementing local band playing an early, short set.

In the end it was all worth it though.  Two Cow Garage were as grateful to the late Sunday stragglers at Fletch’s Last Call as they were to the crowd at the Abbey years ago, and at the end of the night, as Shane toasted the crowd on “their Sabbath,” we could only look forward to the next time they come back to Michigan.

Jeremy Porter

More Posts - Website

Lucero at the Magic Stick - Friday April 13, 2012

When a Lucero tour hits Detroit, the show is a bit different than it is in other cities.  People are crazy here.  “Just let me get through this song.” front man Ben Nichols begged the aggro-hardcores up front who were hell-bent on slam dancing and stage diving though even the quietest, slowest and darkest songs.

Ben Nichols of Lucero at The Magic Stick

Lucero fans know I am talking about The War, the closing song from 2005’s Nobody’s Darlings.  And Detroit Lucero fans know what I am talking about because this happens every time they try to slow it down in this city.  Nichols steps out alone to tear a hole through the hearts in the audience with a story about his grandfather’s time overseas driving a tank into Belgium and spending time in a trench during WWI.  Unfortunately for 99% of the sold-out Magic Stick crowd, the moment was all but ruined as bodies slammed into the singer and forced several interruptions to the should-have-been poignant moment.  That doesn’t happen in other cities, Nichols has said, wondering exactly why Detroit has embraced Lucero as their excuse to tear shit up.  At the same time, however, Detroit has been very kind to Lucero – supporting the band with consistently well attended shows and long lines at the merch table over the years.  The guys are well aware of this and repeatedly make it clear that they love playing here and appreciate the support.

Perhaps the irony is that the rest of Lucero’s set would be expected to invoke such insanity, but compared to previous stops in Detroit, the crowd was relatively calm.  I think the compact mass of humanity played a factor, but it certainly wasn’t due to any less whiskey consumption or loss of energy and execution from the stage. This is a band peaking live, but still very much on their way up.  They won’t be playing venues like this for long as they are poised to take that next step into territory currently held by veteran bands like Drive-By Truckers and Wilco.

Ben Nichols and Brian Venable toasting 14 years of Lucero at the Magic Stick

Lucero blazed through a couple hours of their whiskey-drenched catalog of heartache and longing with Nichols and guitarist Brian Venable leading the way.  It was fourteen years ago to the night they played their first show and the band was in a celebratory mood, sharing shots and smiles.  They are out supporting their new record  Women and Work, and like their previous effort, 2009’s 1372 Overton Park, the record and live sets are saturated with home-town Memphis blues and soul mingled with country rock and rowdy bar-punk.  They’re traveling with horns, and they are integrated with a bit more tact than they were on the `09 tour, adding appropriate swing and texture when needed, but taking a back seat to Nichols gravelly voice and Venable’s biting Telecaster leads.   The set was dominated mostly by new material, which is strong and played with an extra bit of gumption, but there was a higher level of emotion from the audience when they dug into their back catalog of darker, more raucous songs.  Either way, a Lucero show is quite the event – especially in Detroit.  Catch these guys while you can still see them in a club!

http://www.luceromusic.com/

Jeremy Porter

More Posts - Website

The Dumb Easies - Love Love Love!

35 years after the first Ramones record came out and it’s still a landmark of punk innovation and youthful energy.  Fast-forward to 2012, somewhere just south of Detroit in Northern Ohio.  The Dumb Easies take the torch, add some earlier and later influences, and throw Love Love Love (Cytoblast Records) right in our face.  11 catchy-as-hell tracks of bubble-gum rock and roll like the Ramones – and the bands that influenced them – used to make.

Cory Andricks leads the Easies on a rolling journey through the history of real rock and roll and they don’t miss a beat.  They would have fit right in on a bill with the Go Go’s circa 1981, or with the Undertones a few years earlier.  They should have contributed a track to Grease and had a guest spot on the Sha Na Na Show.  The dual background vocals of Ted Trumann and Kaela Thomas take you back to the Do-Wop bands of the 50s while supporting Andrick’s part Gene Vincent, part Jonathan Richmond baritone.

Love Love Love is a collection of hooky 4 chord numbers with scorching post-punk guitar riffs and sometimes anthemetic, sometimes understated choruses over a bed of classic song structures.  They venture into power-pop territory occasionally too, keeping the sound fresh and frisky.  Fading Away is my pick here for best track, but there’s not a runt in the litter.  The album is an easy listen from front to back and when it’s over you’re kinda disappointed – wanting just one or two more.  The hooks keep you humming along and tapping your toes for hours.  This one’s a winner.  Get your copy today at Amazon, iTunes, or at the Cytoblast Records website.

http://cytoblast.com/

http://www.thedumbeasies.com/

Jeremy Porter

More Posts - Website

40 Stitches Later - Rust Belt Never Sleeps

40 Stitches Later, an Americana/Alt-Country outfit from Lansing, offer up some good North-Midwestern twang against a bleak setting of unemployment and everyday blue collar struggles on their new CD Rust Belt Never Sleeps. The title of the record is a nod that’s setting the bar a bit high, fellas, but the images behind it seem appropriate. The characters and stories are dark, but it’s not always sunshine and smiles in the 21st century Rust Belt.

At times reminiscent of The Flying Burrito Brothers, like on the opening track “Ballad of Blackman Township” and at others channeling Bottle Rockets (“Unemployment Blues”), 40SL have embraced some strong influences. They’re strongest material is delivered in minor keys and slower tempos. Those tracks (“Parkersbug, WV”,”Die Tool Maker” for example) seem to flow with a bit more authenticity, provoking images of the slow-moving days and biting winds of rural Michigan Winters. The more upbeat material has its moments too – “Vacant Lot” is catchy with its Tom Petty cadence verses and octave guitar vamps, and the title track ironically invokes Mr. Young himself.

The dying art of making a record might be rare in this age of iTunes and YouTube, but Rust Belt Never Sleeps is a balanced collection of well written songs that are more like chapters in a book than individual stories. You’ll enjoy the transition from one to the next, even when the lyrics of some hit a bit close to home. We all know someone – or might be someone – who has lost their job at the factory, has a bit too much to drink sometimes, or ought to try to spend a bit less time at the black jack table. This is life in the 21st century Rust Belt.

http://www.40stitcheslater.com

Jeremy Porter

More Posts - Website

The High Strung - Posible -O- Imposible

?Posible –O- Imposible? – the new offering from Detroit’s The High Strung – is an energetic slice of power-pop sunshine. They’ve taken queues from 60’s-era WHO (think Happy Jack & The Who Sell Out) and added a bit of Donovan Psychedelia and Beach Boys bounce. They’ve wrapped it all up with some Guided By Voices-like hooks and arrangements to create a well rounded collection of memorable songs. It’s some refreshingly well made guitar-pop-rock. The production is ideal – loud enough to keep a little edge, but smoothly blending the basic tracks into a warm bed that supports singer Josh Malerman’s vocals and Stephen Palmer’s guitar leads.

It sounds great, yeah, but it could have been recorded on a boom box in the corner of a damp garage in Garden City and the songs would still be catchy as hell. Whether they are exploring some spacier moods, like on the title track, with its descending riffs and reverb-drenched guitar solo, or getting down with some more straight Rock (“Giant”) it’s pretty obvious that these guys have been playing together for a long time and know how to construct a damn fine tune. The hooks are undeniable and the arrangements are simple and precise. With nothing exceeding the 4 minute mark there’s no fat to trim here. The vocals come right in and the fades are short. There are moments of texture just when you’re ready for them – like the organ in “Brain K” and the driving keyboard in “Single_Alone” – but the record doesn’t suffer from excessive instrumentation. Care was taken in every arrangement and fill but it sounds spontaneous and fresh – and super fun. Can’t wait to hear this stuff played live. Don’t miss `em this Spring!

The High Strung – ?Posible –O- Imposible? Will be released on April 17, 2012 on Paper Thin Records.

www.thehighstrung.com

Jeremy Porter

More Posts - Website