Those Darlins (Hacienda)
The Horseshoe Tavern, Tuesday, February 9, 2010.
Headed over to the 'Shoe for a free Tuesday show, my movie keeping me occupied a bit longer than I'd expected, meaning I missed almost the whole set from Meligrove Band. I meant to catch up with what they've been doing lately, but I just managed to hear the last two-three songs. Around for a decade now, the band are, to some extent, being overlooked in their own time, staying just active enough to be on the edge of the radar. Four years since their last album and a couple years since I've seen 'em, what I saw of their alt-power-pop was pleasant stuff but perhaps I wasn't there for enough for it to make that much of an impression on me, though they did have a decent crowd of enthusiasts out to catch their set.
Some sources had tipped Hacienda — three brothers and a cousin out of San Antonio that had gained notice while serving as Dan Auerbach’s backing band on his solo tour — as a band to check out. Leading off with an instrumental with a greasy bassline and farfisa-styled organ, the band was tearing it up from the get go. As for their sound, pick your southern-fried Tex-Mex antecedents — for a brief moment I was pegging 'em for a less peyote-addled Meat Puppets, until they flipped it up, slowing down for songs like "Hear Me Crying", bringing to mind the Sahm Dictum1 — a connection that keyb player Abraham Villanueva would underline with some Augie Meyers-like work. The band wasn't afraid to throw in some sunny pop curveballs, as in "She's Got a Hold on Me", indicating a pleasing range to their sound. But all of it was delivered with a welcome mix of high-calibre chops and white lightnin' intensity. Not life-changing stuff, but definitely life-affirming fun for the length of their twenty-five minute set. Or as K. shouted to me over the last fading strains of the last song, "now that's what's good about rock'n'roll!".
Listen to a track from this set here.
Hailing from from Murfreesboro, Tennessee and making their local debut, when I'd first head of Those Darlins the reductionist pitch was "the twangy Vivian Girls". Which, though kinda silly, did, admittedly, cause me to take note. And kept them enough on my radar, I guess, that I was out to see 'em. Playing two minute songs (although a few crept well past the three minute mark) there's certainly a rough and sloppy punkish undercurrent to the band's work, and their milieu is barn-burning country music, so take from that what you will.
Three women — all taking the rock'n'roll surname "Darlin" — plus a hired-hand drummer, the trio up front list themselves with their primary instruments (Bass/Guitar/Baritone Ukulele) but they passed them back and forth regularly and all took turns at the mic. With a sass-back, rebel attitude (evidenced on songs like "DUI or Die"), it was a good racket, and they were generally fun to watch, but I was surprised — even by halfway through the set — that I wasn't finding this as compelling as I was expecting.
But the band was working hard, pumping out songs from their EP and recent album — and even a couple newer ones than that. Plus, they tossed in a couple covers, including the Carter Family's "Cannonball Blues" that showed that they are consciously working within a tradition. Not a narrow tradition, but rather a proud Southern one of mixing different musics together. And if they're far from the first to fuse the kickin'-up-hell elements of country music with punk's raucous clamour, and if there were a couple songs that didn't connect, it was passably entertaining. They picked up steam at the close of the set, with "Red Light Love" leading into a cover of "Shakin' All Over", with which the band made their one extended freakout groove move, by the end crawling on the stage and letting things get generally chaotic. A solid forty-five minutes.2
Listen to a track from this set here.
1 "You just can't live in Texas / if you don't have lots of soul".
2 And proving that casual misogyny is alive and well, after a few juvenile comments here and there throughout the set, the dude behind me shouted "one more, bitches!" as the band left the stage. If only I hadn't've left by rusty castrating knife at home, I could have done some impromptu public service. Stupid menfolk.
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