THE BORE
General => The Superdeep Borehole => Topic started by: GilloD on September 06, 2007, 11:11:22 AM
-
(http://www.quintronandmisspussycat.com/lodgephotos/hires/blacklips300.jpg)
Have you ever gone down to the market and gotten a farm fresh apple and you got that shit home and bit into it and it's juicy and delicious and the very essence of Apple-ness and you go, "Oh, this is what an Apple is supposed to taste like". Listening to the Black Lips is a lot like that except at the end you go, "Oh, this is what rock 'n roll sounds like".
The first time I saw the Black Lips they threw up on stage, kissed each other and played guitars with their faces. And they didn't miss a beat. They play music that could come out of Timothy Leary's garage: sick with the humidity of the Southern heat, ugly with viscous phsychadelic stomp and manic with the thrash and flail of early hardcore punk. There's no one else playing music like this, the only regular critical touchstone being the over before it's time rockabilly movement, courting one hit wonders like Tommy Bell or Maylon Jennings.
A song like "Bad Kids" skips with the eager energy of a Happy Days sock hop while "Katrina" is an early punk invective about the hurricane. It's good stuff. And they're absolutely unstoppable live. Seeing them in New York's Silent Barn was like figuring out why people played music live in the first place. It was 100 degrees, easy, the room was completely packed and I was soaked in equal measure by sweat and beer, no one could stand still. And some coked out, rail thin blonde was running around on stage with a knife digging deep gouges into the ceiling. Good stuff.
Black Lips: Cold Hand
http://www.vicerecords.com/blacklips/Black_Lips-Cold_Hands.mp3 (http://www.vicerecords.com/blacklips/Black_Lips-Cold_Hands.mp3)