The Deadly Snakes - "I Can't Sleep At Night". I first heard the Snakes at a "rearing, frenzied, soulful" show as part of last year's bluesfest. And here they are on record with that same bat-wild energy - the stomping rhythm&blues riffs, the thudding drums, the rooting sax. Max ("Age Of") Danger is one of the band's two vocalists, here presenting a fantastically cracked croon, a persuasive-but-crazed shout. As one of their labels puts it, "Maybe they're the mongrel sons of 1960s Stax soul, Them era Van Morrison, The Wild Magnolia Mardi Gras Indian Band, and The Band backing Bob Dylan. But that’s just what I think. Ask the boys, and they probably think they’re the Stones." This song is red-eyed and raw, fuelled by an insomniac's madness. There's an exhilerating delirium in the chorus, as the band yells back and forth to each other: "Hey!"/"Hey!"/"Hey!!". Everyone spins and tumbles into an unconscious heap.
The Deadly Snakes - "Oh My Bride". Also from Ode to Joy, "Oh My Bride" is punched through with handclaps and even more group hollering. This time it's Andre Ethier on lead vox, crying out a moonshine-soaked blues. He's kicking himself in the pants, rolling his eyes, feverishly grabbing at pills. There's a gospel fervour, shaking arms, and an electric guitar's vigorous, commanding yell (BOOM BOOM BOOM go the drums). If the White Stripes recruited a gang of ne'er do wells, turned in guitar hooks for gnashing, ebullient raving.
Andre Ethier - "She Will Never Be Your Girl". A short clip from Ethier's solo album, released this year on Sonic Unyon. The record (which is burdened with a stupidly lengthy title), wanders away from the Deadly Snakes' garage soul and towards Dylan, Waits, and other drunk-but-clomping singers. "She Will Never Be Your Girl" is a bittersweeter number, Ethier's plain voice above a flimsy ukelele strum, piano notes like drops from a tap in an empty kitchen. The lyrics are fast coming, with fine rhymes and an accelerating, resigned sadness. "And even Jesus Christ himself / would be loosening his belt / and even Stalin in his tomb / would rise inside her womb. / But she's never been a girl." It's enough to break a drunkard's heart. (I mean it.)
Did I mention that they're from the deep South Toronto?