In 1964,
the Who coined the term "Maximum R&B," summing up the brawn,
blues and ecstasy in their pop art. A full 50 years later, on March 18th, the
Strypes – a quartet of hard looks, long drive and tender years, founded in 2011
in Cavan, Ireland, and still 18 and under – skidded into New York's Bowery
Ballroom sounding like "My Generation" and Five Live Yardbirds only
came out yesterday and anyone muttering the words "boy band" would be
skinned alive.
Celebrating
the U.S. release that day of their debut album, Snapshot (Island/Def Jam),
singer-harpist Ross Farrelly, guitarist-singer Josh McClorey, bassist Pete
O'Hanlon and drummer Evan Walsh came out at high speed and, for most of their
hour-and-small-change on stage, got faster, zooming through Bo Diddley's
"I Can Tell," the Specials' "Concrete Jungle" and their own
teenage nervous breakdowns "What a Shame," "Mystery Man"
and "Blue Collar Jane" with taut impatience, like they were in a
hurry to come of age. They have already done a lot of that work. Walsh kept
manic time like a stoic-precision mix of Charlie Watts and Tommy Ramone –
racing, never rushing. O'Hanlon thrashed his wide-body bass like it's a
deep-throated rhythm guitar – John Entwistle with power chords.
McClorey
has a fierce, accomplished grip on the precedents in his slicing clang: At one
point, he threw the Yardbirds lick from "Over Under Sideways Down"
into the Delta-blues avalanche "Rollin' and Tumblin'," connecting
those histories at Damned-like velocity. Farrelly's echoes were a Liam Gallagher
bray loaded with the Yardbirds' Keith Relf and a husky-Chicago minimalism on
harp. He didn't crack a smile the whole time, but it was the proper
advertising. The Strypes are serious about the homage and striving in their
fun.
Future
Blues
There
was nothing new in this furor. That's no problem or surprise. British pop often
cycles back through this kind of power-blues purism, like a cleansing ritual.
In the mid-Seventies, Dr. Feelgood – with McClorey's most obvious guitar
ancestor, Wilko Johnson – swept the landscape clean for punk; the Inmates and
the Godfathers kept the Chess-45 and Nuggets faith during the post-punk era and
the New Romantics' cheek.
The
Strypes have more distance to cover – they have arrived at a time when their
most famous fans, including Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Elton John (the band is
signed to his management), are now the vintage of the blues elders those stars
worshipped and modernized. But the ruckus on Snapshot and the Strypes'
no-dead-air rush in performance is so old – and determined in its purity – that
it's radical: a blunt refusal to believe that this kind of blow-up has been
beaten to cliché. The closing run at the Bowery – Nick Lowe's "Heart of
the City"; that "Rollin' and Tumblin'"; encores of the Ramones'
"Rockaway Beach" and Richard Berry's "Louie, Louie" – and
made it clear: The Strypes operate according to their own calendar, maps and
hunger, jumping oceans and decades for their lessons and inspiration. (Extra
credit: their surprise appearance at SXSW, with Irish PR legend and DJ B.P.
Fallon, covering "Vicious" at a Lou Reed tribute.)
As
songwriters, the Strypes value concision – the right stuff in this music – and
have a precocious knack for hooks ("What the People Don't See") and
retro wit (the line about spaghetti-western villain Lee Van Cleef in
"Angel Eyes"). There is the issue of vision – what comes after you've
found and mastered your roots – and the thin line between passion and pastiche.
But the Strypes are still at an age of discovery, with the chops to apply their
learning. They can't be the new '65 Kinks, Rolling Stones or Yardbirds – that's
been done to perfection – but they're at the right starting line, making an
impressive entrance.
No comments:
Post a Comment