White Mystery – White Mystery (2010)

Side A

1. White Widow
2. Power Glove
3. Lions Of Tsavo
4. Overwhelmed
5. Vorpal
6. Switch It Off
7. Farmer

Side B

1. Take A Walk
2. Don't Hold My Hand
3. Halloween
4. Respect Yourself
5. Aaron
6. Ye Olde Stone
7. Trance

I saw them on 16 January at the Cactus Club in Milwaukee--balls out two person (brother and sister, natch) garage rock.* Drummer Francis White lays down heavy, stomping beats and singer/guitarist Alex White rams her Rickenbacker through a Big Muff pedal. They kick ass both on stage and on record, and I'd never heard of them until a mere two hours before I went to show. I'd found The Onion A.V. Club's recommendation and was glad I did, because White Mystery delivered the goods that night—total energy, total abandon. Alex jumped around and never missed a note and Francis kept the Scott Asheton-style drumbeats coming. After the show, I chatted with Alex and Francis a bit and picked up their self-released LP. Like their show, it's consistently rocking and energetic, perhaps too consistent, since all their songs fall into the mid to mid-uptempo range and have multiple fuzz guitar breaks. Most of the songs sound like they were recorded in one take, perhaps more than one song at a time. The LP definitely sounds live, which plays into my “keep it as live as possible” credo, so that's some added bonus points right there. I take their song “Take A Walk” to heart, since it extols the virtues of walking and going car-free all while riding a hard blooze groove. The song could have summed up my college career.

8/10.

More info: White Mystery's Myspace page.

Addendum: some thoughts on two person guitar/drum/vocal bands...

Intensity = The key to a successful two person band. Play so hard people forget the bass isn't there. Overactive drumming helps to fill in some of the aural gaps. Fuzz guitar always helps. Playing notes 'n' chords guitar riffs a la the Black Keys or White Stripes also works. But above all, if a two person band's going to play rock and roll, they need intensity and power.

*Like Mr. Airplane Man with less blues or Magic Potion-era Black Keys with more fuzz. Or the White Stripes' "Black Math" sound stretched out to 45 minutes.

Playlist: January 2011 in review

Playlist: January 2011 in review

First, the new songs and bands:

• Sleater-Kinney – All Hands On The Bad One. Favorite songs: All Hands on the Bad One, You're No Rock 'N' Roll Fun, Leave You Behind, The Swimmer, Pompeii
• The Gossip – Live in Liverpool. Favorite songs: Yr Mangled Heart, Don't Make Waves, Eyes Open, Standing in the Way of Control, Fire/Sign
• Lou Reed – Walk On The Wild Side: The Best Of. Favorite songs: Wild Child, Sweet Jane (live), White Light/White Heat (live), Coney Island Baby,
  • from The Definitive Collection: The Blue Mask, Looking For Love
  • from Transformer: Vicious, Wagon Wheel
• Elvis Costello – This Year's Model. Favorite songs: Pump It Up, No Action, Lipstick Vogue, The Beat, Radio, Radio
  • from Armed Forces. Favorite songs: Oliver's Army, Green Shirt, Senior Service
• Plexi-3 – We Know Better 7” Favorite song: Stabbing Fantasies
• White Mystery – White Mystery. Favorite songs: Power Glove, Switch It Off, Take A Walk

- A damned good month for new music. I knew next to nothing about Sleater-Kinney's music until I picked up All Hands at the library on a whim and stuck it in my car's CD player. It's been in there two weeks running now. I'm liking their occasionally wiry, interlocking guitars and autobiographical lyrics.

- Hardly anyone does live albums anymore, which bothers me because I think Live In Liverpool's an excellent overview of the band's catalog. The show finds them blending the newer, more danceable Standing In The Way Of Control songs with their older garage blooze material. The bonus DVD shows the band rocking full tilt, especially with the tirelessly energetic Beth Ditto jumping around onstage.

- Despite knowing “Walk On The Wild Side” since I could walk and listening to The Velvet Underground for years, I've never played much of Lou Reed's solo stuff. It's one of those strange instances where I know he's there, I know he's good, and I know I'd probably like him, but it never happened until now. It started with a Goodwill purchase of Best Of for $.50, which gave me those two live rendition's of “White Light/White Heat,” “Sweet Jane,” plus some of the songs above. I've always liked the original Velvets version of “White Light,” but I didn't love the song until I heard the live version. Oh boy, were Lou and the band rocking out on that one. The dueling guitars on it knock me out!

- Fans of garage rock will definitely like White Mystery. I caught them at The Cactus Club recently and they put on a good show. Raw, fuzzed out guitar, pounding drums, and howled vocals. Also, they wrote a song about the Vorpal sword from the “Jabberwocky” poem. Too cool.

The old classics:

• D.O.A. - Take A Chance
• The Byrds – Positively 4^th St., Eight Miles High
• Screeching Weasel – Hey Suburbia, Dingbat
• Tacocat – Muffin Top, Bike Party
• Drive-By Truckers – Guitar Man Upstairs, Zip City, Puttin' People On The Moon (live)

Play these songs in any order.