Now, I've got no love in my musical soul for blues-rock of most kinds, barely able to tolerate The Animals or The Kinks when they get into doing old standards, and a reluctant but ardent admirer of The Rolling Stones "Exile On Main St" album... And so it stands to reason I can't take the White Stripes or the Black Keys or any other nouveau garage/blues hybrid that's popped up in the last little while with two notable exceptions, the first being The Delta 72, and the second being Toronto's Deadly Snakes, who manage to sound like what I always wished the Blues Explosion sounded like, but were criminally unable to pull off. Listen below...
The Deadly Snakes - Burn Down The Valley.mp3
A Luna Red
For most people aware of them, the group seemed to appear and disappear as quickly as the GSL 7" got distributed, but most Vancouver or Victoria indie watchers will know A Luna Red as a fairly prominent industrial/post-punk with a far longer shelf-life than that, and a far less embarassing series of songs than Skinny Puppy. The group was formed by Jack Duckworth (of Radio Berlin) in 1999 or so, along with Erica Neumann and Bill Winslow-Hansen (now of Droom). Erica left to be replaced by Larissa Loyva (of P:ano). Later members included Graham Jackson(also of Droom), Sean Abare(of A Spectre Is Haunting Europe), Marina Stamboulieh (of the Automovement) and Neal Simpson. During the just under 5 years the group existed (with Jack Duckworth as the only consistent member, much like Mark E. Smith of the Fall), they managed to release two albums (one on Global Symphonic and the other on Action Driver), a self-released EP, a Global Symphonic split LP with San Fransisco's Ghost Orchids and that aforementiond 7" on GSL. Undoubtedly, Jack Duckworth is one of the most important figures in Vancouver music, and a criminally underappreciated musician in the larger indie scene as a whole. While it's unfortunate that Radio Berlin and A Luna Red have yet to receive attention on a broader scale, (though the Indie Godhead Pitchfork have heaped plenty of praise on the group) one hopes that with music fans will eventually catch up to him, as they eventually did to Radio Berlin (a group that foreshadowed the post-punk revival that now outfits every indie group with a high-hat-happy-disco-beat drummer)...
Jack disbanded A Luna Red earlier this year, after a lengthy period of adjusting and fine-tuning and opted to form a new group, Primes, with Michelle Synnot, a highly-regarded fixture in the electronica (for lack of a better word) scene in N. America and Europe.
A Luna Red - SLMZK.mp3 from SLMZK 7"
Related mp3s
I mentioned above Radio Berlin, and I plan on writing a lot more about them later, but just for anyone curious, below's an mp3 off of their most recent album, Glass, available on Action Driver Records.
A Spectre Is Haunting Europe - Anarchid.mp3
P:ano - Afterschool Special.mp3
2 comments:
I am not much of an admirer of this garage rock racket myself, but I will add that if you think the Deadly Snakes are all what the Blues Explosion could/should be, you should check out this band the Oblivians from Memphis that were around like 5-6 years ago. Greg Oblivian produced the Deadly Snakes' first two records and was even a member of the band on the I'm Not Your Soldier Anymore LP. Greg's also gone on to front the Reigning Sound who are also a really good band.
Damn, thanks, I'll check it out!
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