Tunes Consumed: the Poutine Silver Platter

The Black Lips. As anyone who, even casually, follows independent music news should know, the band is, at this point, pretty renowned in the scene for their crazy live shows. Like the Iggy Pop (when he was still with the Stooges before getting, you know, ancient) or GG Allin’s of old, the Black Lips’ shows are rumored to be a spectacle in every sense of the word, in which attendance can mean anything from stumbling home, battered & bruised from a skank pit to having to weave around, feebly attempting to dodge everything from vomit to urine and fireworks. A little heaven, a lotta hell.

All that being said, I’ve personally never seen them live. Nor have I really paid much attention to their previous output. They have been on my radar but I just never found the time or the interest to turn my gaze. But, having now listened to their forthcoming release, Good Bad, Not Evil, I can honestly say that, if their other albums are like this one, I’ve definitely been missing out.

The band mixes punk with country, blues with doo-wop… to produce, in essence, the dirtiest Rolling Stones interpretation I have ever heard. It sounds like a party rollicking in a Mexican whorehouse at 3 am. It sounds like if more modern folk artists, like Devendra or Golden Animals, put more emphasis on drinking whiskey straight & rocking the fuck out.

And even when they take a break for their country balled, “How Do You Tell”, it still remains ballsy. An almost traditional country song, until you clue into the lyrics: which is all about telling children about the people around them dying. Morbid, tongue-in-cheek, but hilarious at the same time. And then they pull it right back with some of the best tracks on the album (a few being the completely nostalgic “Step Right Up” and “Cold Hands”, which you can preview below).

Really, the Black Lips have stepped right up to the plate with this one. It makes all the right points of reference, coming together to be such a cohesive package that I cannot help but declare it a very real contender for album of the year. My only complaint? My speakers just will not play the record loud enough.

this is dead leaves and dirty ground, not that icky thump shit:
The Black Lips - Cold Hands.
The Black Lips - Veni Vidi Vici. (removed by request)
The Black Lips - Step Right Up. (removed by request)

The Black Lips will be releasing Good Bad, Not Evil this coming September. Possibilities for distribution include: their own Die Slaughterhaus Records, Vice Records or on In the Red Records, but I’m leaning towards this being a Vice release. Whomever releases it, it would be in your best interest to pick it up, alongside another bottle of liquor, of course.