New York-based heavy rockers Mick’s Jaguar make their debut on RidingEasy Records June 22 with Fame and Fortune. It’s not the first time the L.A. imprint has extended its hand to the other side of the country to pick up a band, but something here feels different. While unsurprisingly given both the snark in the band’s moniker — they started out playing Rolling Stones covers — and the blood-and-sex rawness of the album art, it’s safe to say attitude plays a large role in their approach, the brand of heavy rock and roll (with emphasis on both the rock and the roll) is nigh on definitively of New York. The myth is that New York rock died. It didn’t. It just got priced out of Manhattan, like everything else that wasn’t J.P. Morgan or owned by the president or a racist coffee chain. But to be a band “from New York” is to invite immediate suspicion. You say you’re from New York? Prove it. Like someone wants to see your birth certificate or something.

To wit, the first line in Fame and Fortune opener “The Real Boss” is, “I was born in New York City,” and then, as if to prove the ultimate New York perspective, there follows, “What a horrible, smelly town.” Love New York, defend it vigorously to outsiders, and then despise it. To be fair, Manhattan in summertime, no matter how much of a billionaire playground it has become since Rudy Giuliani had the homeless secretly killed — don’t worry, 15-plus years of returning veterans has made sure there’s plenty more homeless to replace them — smells like urine, but New York’s love/hate relationship with itself is an essential facet of its culture, and Mick’s Jaguar, who present a clean, classic-feeling 10 tracks in the 38-minute stretch of their first album, are smart to put it front and center. That theme of intelligence continues throughout the six-piece’s lyrics, which contain several Stones and other references — “sticky fingers,” paraphrasing the Stooges with “street-walking jaguars,” shouting out Miles Davis, etc. — amid shifts in sound from heavy rock to early metal of “Here Comes the Night” the aggro-boogie of “Where We Go” to the crash-led “Country & Punk,” which in the span of 1:49 gracefully manages to be neither.

Apart from its attitude, what draws the album together throughout these twists and turns of style is a consistent sans-frills production and a penchant for big hooks in cuts like opener “The Real Boss” and its side B counterpart, “Hellride,” as well as “Pay to Play,” “Hellride,” the twin-guitar-led “Blood on the Snow,” and so on. Songwriting, in other words. It’s one of those records that seems to come across like vinyl no matter the actual format being played, and the visceral sound of the recording is a benefit as much to the actual impact of the material as to the aesthetic statement being made, but without that core of craft beneath the recording would have nothing to stand on. The movement from the ’70s-chugging “Here Comes the Night” — who doesn’t love a good song about “the night?” — the barroom twin leads of “Blood on the Snow” and the hard rocking cynicism of “Hellride” would simply fall flat. As the album progressed, I’ll admit I was a little sad when “Damnation” wasn’t an Opeth cover, but its lyrical journey tying together the late ’60s/early ’70s and the early ’90s is fairly emblematic of the roots of heavy rock and the roots from which Mick’s Jaguar are ultimately working. Then, naturally, they throw a wrench in the gears with “Country & Punk,” because screw you for thinking you know what you’re getting.

If Mick’s Jaguar are a New York band, as the narrative — blessings and peace upon it — argues fervently they are and I tend to agree when it comes to their style and specific grit-coated swagger, then it’s only fitting they should be as self-aware as they are. From the start of the record through the harmonica-laced closer “New Orleans Blues,” with its lap-steel-gone-psychedelic and anchoring drum progression, they’re telling their own story both lyrically and instrumentally. Their style ultimately has more reach than many will give it credit for, and they move through Fame and Fortune with a fluidity that belies this being their first album; I don’t actually know this, but if you were forcing me to guess I’d say some of these songs have been around a while, as they sound like they’ve been chopped down to their most essential pieces. Whether Mick’s Jaguar can bring the same intelligent confrontationalism to their work and still manage to develop stylistically over the longer term of course will remain to be seen, but what they bring to Fame and Fortune isn’t to be undervalued as a statement of their purpose and a declaration of their penchant for mining classic elements and reshaping them to suit their needs.

I have the pleasure today of hosting a track from Fame and Fortune as a premiere that you’ll find on the player below, followed by more info from the PR wire. Once again, the album is out June 22 on RidingEasy Records.

Please enjoy:

Rock and roll is dead in New York City. Long live New York City rock and roll. Mick’s Jaguar is bringing noisy, wild, unafraid big rock back to NYC. Crazy rents, corporatized venues, and kids listening to DJ’s: it’s hard being a band in this town.

This isn’t LA and Mick’s Jaguar is a product of their environment: a windowless dungeon practice space 20 feet below the trash covered sidewalk of the Lower East Side. Rats, grime, the sounds of the city; Mick’s Jaguar gleefully pillages the history of rock music to create thoroughly modern, but classic rock and roll. Not quite punk, but not metal either, this is hard rock and roll that’s been put through the brain blenders of 6 musicians who pair their Judas Priest shirts with Steely Dan hats. They claim no musical lineage to New York – they just live there. If you need to compare them to something, the night AC/DC played CBGB’s would be about as close as you can get.

The group formed as a drunken Rolling Stones cover band, and after a few years of mainlining Stones songs and playing sporadic shows marred by violence and sprayed by beer, they started writing originals that attracted the attention of RidingEasy Records. And their new album, Fame and Fortune, sounds absolutely nothing like the Stones. The three guitarists — yes three guitars — open the album with a riff of buzzsaw intensity that would make a Ramone proud. But then like Jim Morrison sashaying into a wine shop, it drunkenly careens into a big sounding rock and roll album somewhere in between Van Halen and Tres Hombres. Guitar solos abound, Thin Lizzy harmonies soar, the bass and drums make a groove that will shake the asses on the dance floor and put a rumble in your loins. Songs about life, death, cars, blood, murder, sex, drugs and booze are the world of Mick’s Jaguar. Don’t forget – this is what rock and roll is all about. Listen close and you’ll hear hat tips to your bands, Mick’s Jag knows their history and likes to rip it apart.

Recorded in Brooklyn at Figure 8 Recording by engineering wizard Philip Weinrobe, and fueled by a steady diet of Allen’s Coffee Brandy, the Fame And Fortune sessions resulted in only one hospital visit and it just might be your favorite album of 1978, 1988, or 2018. This is music that’s made for listening to while driving fast in your car, and while relaxing at the local strip club. It’s okay to have fun. Cute indie bands make everyone puke. That shit stops now. Let there be rock.

Fame and Fortune will be available on LP, CD and download on June 22nd, 2018 via RidingEasy Records. Preorders are available at ridingeasyrecs.com

MICK’S JAGUAR LIVE:
06/19 Brooklyn, NY @ Saint Vitus

Artist: Mick’s Jaguar
Album: Fame and Fortune
Label: RidingEasy Records
Release Date: June 22, 2018

01. The Real Boss
02. Pay to Play
03. Where We Go
04. Here Comes the Night
05. Blood On the Snow
06. Hellride
07. Damnation
08. Country & Punk
09. Call the Guy
10. New Orleans Blues

Mick’s Jaguar on Thee Facebooks

Mick’s Jaguar on Instagram

Mick’s Jaguar on Bandcamp

RidingEasy Records website