How many people who live in walk-up apartments have a garage? I know I don’t have one! Come to think of it, I can’t recall ever having a garage! Even during times when my family owned an automobile we never had a garage. And the people I’ve known who were members of what would classically be referred to as “garage bands” invariably practiced in rented warehouse spaces, not garages. Be that as it may I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time this Summer listening to what might be considered “Garage-Rock.”
Born during the ’60s and ’70s, the time when kids first figured out they and a few friends could form a Rock band if they had the requisite space in which to practice, Garage-Rock has remained popular in one form or another ever since. It’s most vital descendant may be the Punk genre, and it’s most commercially successful offspring ’90s Grunge, but stripped-down, rawly recorded, lo-fi, unpolished, and some might argue unskilled Rock has enjoyed a commercial revival this Millennium thanks in large part to popular acts as stylistically disparate as the White Stripes and The Strokes, among many others.
From the Garage-Soul of previous Blogarhythms featurees King Khan and The Shrines, to discussions sparked by dumping MC5 and Nirvana albums onto a friend’s iPod, to re-issues of Question Mark & The Mysterians‘ first two albums (more on that Friday), and even the song by The Clash from which this post’s title was ganked, there’s been enough Garage-Rock in my life of late to fill an actual garage if I had one. One of the latest items that needs to be crammed into my imaginary Garage-Rock-overflowing garage is Austin, Texas-based trio White Denim’s debut full-length Workout Holiday.
Like the aforementioned King Khan’s “hits” collection The Supreme Genius of… the largely uptempo jams on Workout Holiday strike me as stompin’ party-time music. That doesn’t mean the songwriting is necessarily fun or that the music White Denim makes should be confused with Dance-Punk, but it’s propulsive and aggressive and it bubbles like a kid’s chemistry-set (the sort of thing I assume angry suburban parents might hide in the garage afterwards) after an experiment gone wrong, which is the sort of thing that theoretically makes people move. Granted, they’re moving because they fear for their life, not because they want to “get down,” but you get the idea.
White Denim, with their jackhammering drums, swift-fingered guitar shreddery, phlegmy bass grooves and old-school review-inspired white-boy Soul-shouting, are in the business of making you sweat, and not because you’re in mortal danger either. To the contrary, Workout Holiday is the sort of album that begs one to throw wide the (imaginary?) garage door, clear out the junk, set up the sound system and invite friends over one humid Summer’s night (if there are any more this year) for a good ol’ fashioned dark-n-sweaty strobe-light-illumined party! And there are songs, like the multi-movement “Mess Your Hair Up,” the clap-a-long rave-up “Shake, Shake, Shake,” the New Wave-y group sing-a-long “Darksided Computer Mouth” and the cowbell-break driven “I Can Tell You,” that are tons of fun and indeed seem tailor-made for such occasions.
White Denim “I Can Tell You”
The band is diverse though, and while they stick to the gritty Garage aesthetic they don’t just keep retreading the same riffs and chords the same way over and over. They freak a retro Psyche/Soul Summer of Love acid-trip vibe like Traffic meets The Animals meets Cream complete with wakka-wah-wah guitars and an ill sitar breakdown on “All You Really Have to Do.” “IEIEI” takes the Hippie trip to a bit more of an experimentally “folky” place, resulting in a spaced-out tune with a feather-soft acoustic outro that’s a few paisley-festooned steps to the side of Animal Collective and even reminds me a bit of their “Peacebone” melodically. While “WDA” and “Don’t Look That Way” skirt the fringes of both jam-band and Math-Rock territory, with the latter’s spiky chords and intricate string pluckery sounding refreshingly progressive.
Workout Holiday is only available as an import via Full Time Hobby in the UK for the time being. However a handful of songs from the LP are also available in two of White Denim’s self-released EPs, and another batch of them will be featured, alongside a number of new song, on the band’s upcoming self-released album Exposion, which is due out November 3rd.
Hopefully you’ll make some room for them in your garage by then.