As of two days ago, Memphis blues rockers Dirty Streets are on tour heralding the Sept. 29 arrival of their new album, Who’s Gonna Love You, through Blue Élan Records. They’re out supporting Radio Moscow-offshoot El Perro, and they’ve unveiled the second single from the upcoming record to further mark the occasion. “Get Out” appears in a live-in-studio video, as if to prove once and for all that Dirty Streets‘ mellow boogie isn’t the result of some studio chicanery, they’re actually just that sharp as players. The funk underlying “Get Out” is emblematic of a decent portion of Who’s Gonna Love You in songs like “Bitter End,” “Just for You” or the earlier “Blinded,” and it builds off the maddeningly catchy hook of album-leadoff/prior single “Alright” in hinting at some of the shifts throughout the 11-tracker as a whole.

To wit, “Who’s Gonna Love You” — the title-track quickly arriving behind “Alright” — meshes acoustic and electric guitars atop an ever-solid rhythmic foundation provided by bassist Thomas Storz and Andrew Denham dropping hints early of sweetening up the groove of “Helter Skelter” but taking its own direction ultimately. The subsequent “Poison” ups the bluesy quotient with a soulful underpinning in guitarist Justin Toland‘s vocals, which are always a strength for the band and help ease the dynamic shifts from “Poison” into “Blinded,” “Blinded” into the semi-twang ’90s ballad “Not That Man,” “Not That Man” into the soft-shoe reset of “Get Out” as the centerpiece, and so on. “Ghost” is as quiet as they get, approaching a minimal take on heavy blues, which fits the back and forth as “Bitter End” looses its strut to begin the closing salvo with “Just for You” and “Sunday” wrapping in likewise more rocking fashion, the latter pulling from Led Zeppelin similar to how the title-track worked off The Beatles. But let’s be honest. This is the sixth full-length from Dirty Streets. Their sound is nobody’s but their own.

I suppose if that seems incongruous for something that’s also so much steeped in classic styles and atmospheres, then yeah, you get the point of what Dirty Streets do. They make that not incongruous. More than a decade after their second album,  Movements (review here), sent them out on the road in 2011/2012, and four years since 2018’s Distractions (discussed here), their latest LP with the 2020 live album Rough and Tumble (review here) notwithstanding, Dirty Streets are assured of who they are, set on their process in terms of crafting sweet, almost-humble-feeling songs that balance heavier and softer, louder and quieter impulses while remaining memorable unto themselves. Long and persistently underrated among heavy rockers, Dirty Streets reaffirm their essential character on Who’s Gonna Love You while finding new avenues of expression through songwriting. If you don’t know them, the only barrier to getting on board is hitting play. They could hardly be more welcoming.

The live clip for “Get Out” follows here. The “Alright” video is down near the bottom of this post. We’re still a while away from the release date, but if you’re the preorder type or just enjoy marking your calendar for things, maybe that’s a thing worth thinking about.

Oh yes, and the tour dates are below as well, while we’re thinking.

Enjoy:

Dirty Streets, “Get Out” live video

DIRTY STREETS are releasing more new music – second single, “Get Out,” is available now and a live video shot at Southern Grooves Studios, is premiering today. The trio also just hit the road with El Perro for a U.S. tour ending July 1st in Louisville, see below for full itinerary.

Dirty Streets spent the last two years of their pandemic-induced forced time off creating new music and finding a new home with the Los Angeles-based independent label, Blue Élan Records. Their seventh studio album, Who’s Gonna Love You, was produced by Grammy Award winner Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price, John Prine) and is set for release on September 29.

“Get Out” is a song about the illusion of escapism. As singer, Justin Toland explains it, “The first line refers to ‘moving out west to the rolling hills’ which is really just the concept of any place other than here. Moving around throughout my life and going on tour has really made me think more about how the idea of going to a new place can be so inspiring, but can also be a trap within itself. The song is really just about how there is no escape from life itself.”

DIRTY STREETS TOUR w/El Perro
Wed 6/8 – Lafayette, LA – Freetown Boom Boom Room
Thu 6/9 – Houston, TX – Black Magic Social Club
Fri 6/10 – Dallas, TX – Three Links Deep Ellum
Sat 6/11 – Tulsa, OK – The Whittier Bar
Sun 6/12 – Colorado Springs, CO – Vultures
Mon 6/13 – Denver, CO – HQ
Wed 6/15 – SLC, UT – Garage on Beck
Thurs 6/16 – Boise, ID – The Shredder
Fri 6/17 – Seattle, WA – Funhouse
Sat 6/18 – Tacoma, WA. – The Plaid Pig Live Music Lounge
Sun 6/19 – Portland, OR – High Water Mark
Mon 6/20 – Eugene, OR – Old Nick’s Pub
Tue 6/21 – San Francisco, CA – Bottom of the Hill
Wed 6/22 – Los Angeles, CA – Permanent Records Roadhouse
Thu 6/23 – Palmdale, CA – Transplants Brewing Company
Fri 6/24 – Las Vegas, NV – Count’s Vamp’d Rock Bar & Grill
Sat 6/25 – Tempe, AZ – Yucca Tap Room
Sun 6/26 – Albuquerque, NM – The Historic El Rey Theatre
Tues 6/28 – Oklahoma City, OK. – Blue Note Lounge
Wed 6/29 – Lawrence, KS – Replay Lounge
Thurs 6/30 – Eureka Springs, AR – Chelsea’s Corner Cafe
Fri 7/1 – Louisville, KY – fifteen TWELVE

DIRTY STREETS:
Justin Toland – guitar/vocals
Thomas Storz – bass
Andrew Denham – drums

Dirty Streets, “Alright” official video

Dirty Streets on Facebook

Dirty Streets on Instagram

Dirty Streets on Bandcamp

Dirty Streets website

Blue Élan Records on Facebook

Blue Élan Records on Instagram

Blue Élan Records on Bandcamp

Blue Élan Records website

New song new song new song. Memphis blues rockers Dirty Streets got a new label — hi there, Blue Élan Records — a tour coming up, and a new record on the way. All of that’s great, but today they’ve also go a new song posted and that’s where it’s at. You might recall their last release was 2020’s live album Rough and Tumble (review here), and the Sept. 29 arrival of Who’s Gonna Love You will mark their first studio offering since 2018’s Distractions (discussed here) — a four-year break that’s the longest of the band’s career, though one could easily chalk that up to either the search for another label, the global pandemic, or, most likely, both and more besides.

Either way, as they look to get out again in June before the album’s release, they would seem to be full speed ahead, and that’s likely a steady, bluesy roll when it comes to them, thoughtful in melody, classically grooving in rhythm, and resting on the borderline between heavy rock, blues, Southern rock and any number of other microgenres. However you want to classify them, they’re killer and they’ve got new stuff coming. And a new song up.

So get on it:

Memphis-Based DIRTY STREETS Joins Blue Élan Records’ Eclectic Roster

New Album – Who’s Gonna Love You – Produced by Grammy award-winner Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price, John Prine) Due September 29, 2022

The Memphis-based rock band DIRTY STREETS spent the last two years of their pandemic-induced forced time off creating new music and finding a new home with the Los Angeles-based independent label, Blue Élan Records. The bluesy rock trio join an eclectic roster, which includes Soul Asylum, KT Tunstall, Liz Brasher, America’s Gerry Beckley, Grammy-Award winning guitarist Eric Johnson, and more. Their new album, Who’s Gonna Love You, is set for release on September 29 with the first musical taste, single “Alright,” out today – Listen HERE: https://dirtystreets.lnk.to/alright

In late 2019, when the band headed into the legendary Sam Phillips Recording studio to record Who’s Gonna Love You, with the Grammy-award winning Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price, John Prine) in the producer’s chair, the band immediately felt the connection. “Matt Ross-Spang is like nobody I’ve ever worked with,” recalls singer/guitarist Justin Toland. “Bringing the songs into the studio, he really listened and sat with them. Most of the time he would be laying on the floor with his eyes closed, or hunched in the corner on a chair, just fully open. He was really into us performing them in the room while he just concentrated and soaked it all in before making any swift judgements.”

Justin continues, “There is a knack some people have for sensing a feeling in one bone of a song and building a whole skeleton. Matt is one of those people. He works more like an artist than a producer, shaping sounds and guiding without effort. It was just such a natural relationship between us that I felt like he was in the band the entire time we were recording. Some of the songs took an entirely different direction from the original concepts we had, but we were able to trust his insights, because they seemed to have an essence of purity and true creativity.”

Writing the album went quickly for the band, using forced time off of the road and their life experiences to carve out most of the material. Says Justin, “Our first single, ‘Alright,’ originally came out of the pressures of everyday life. Working, deadlines, disasters and all the other things you have to fight through. Into the pandemic it seemed to become more of an anthem for the pressure that we feel every day. This all happens while telling ourselves that we are making it just fine. In the end, that’s an attitude I try to stick with. I’m not in denial about what’s going down, but I just think of hardships as a means to grow and learn. The song is sort of a one-two punch against the world falling apart around you. I wanted to create a picture of tenacity against relentless storms so that I could mirror it in myself.”

DIRTY STREETS TOUR w/El Perro
Tue 6/7 – Memphis, TN – Growlers
Wed 6/8 – Lafayette, LA – Freetown Boom Boom Room
Thu 6/9 – Houston, TX – Black Magic Social Club
Fri 6/10 – Dallas, TX – Three Links Deep Ellum
Sat 6/11 – Tulsa, OK – The Whittier Bar
Sun 6/12 – Colorado Springs, CO – Vultures
Mon 6/13 – Denver, CO – HQ
Wed 6/15 – SLC, UT – Garage on Beck
Thurs 6/16 – Boise, ID – The Shredder
Fri 6/17 – Seattle, WA – Funhouse
Sat 6/18 – Tacoma, WA. – The Plaid Pig Live Music Lounge
Sun 6/19 – Portland, OR – High Water Mark
Mon 6/20 – Eugene, OR – Old Nick’s Pub
Tue 6/21 – San Francisco, CA – Bottom of the Hill
Wed 6/22 – Los Angeles, CA – Permanent Records Roadhouse
Thu 6/23 – Palmdale, CA – Transplants Brewing Company
Fri 6/24 – Las Vegas, NV – Count’s Vamp’d Rock Bar & Grill
Sat 6/25 – Tempe, AZ – Yucca Tap Room
Sun 6/26 – Albuquerque, NM – The Historic El Rey Theatre
Tues 6/28 – Oklahoma City, OK. – Blue Note Lounge
Wed 6/29 – Lawrence, KS – Replay Lounge
Thurs 6/30 – Eureka Springs, AR – Chelsea’s Corner Cafe
Fri 7/1 – Louisville, KY – fifteen TWELVE

Photo by @loudandclearphotography

DIRTY STREETS:
Justin Toland – guitar/vocals
Thomas Storz – bass
Andrew Denham – drums

https://www.facebook.com/thedirtystreets/
https://www.instagram.com/thedirtystreets/
https://dirtystreets.bandcamp.com/
http://www.dirtystreetsmusic.com

https://www.facebook.com/blueelan/
https://www.instagram.com/blueelan/
http://blueelan.bandcamp.com/
https://blueelan.com/

Dirty Streets, Rough & Tumble (2020)

 

Dirty Streets and the parable of the band in-between. In the widely splintered umbrellar existence that is rock and roll, it happens a lot that bands, styles, sounds, get put into groups. One sees this all the time in arguments of genre: “Is this heavy,” “does it doom,” and so on. The truth of the matter is who cares if it’s good, but given the chance to do so, humanity has proved time and again to be ready and willing to separate itself into tribes and microcultures, even when the thing uniting people in doing so is the need to splinter off from the larger subset.

These are generalizations — it’s easy to imagine a sociologist with rolled eyes — but when I think of Memphis three-piece the Dirty Streets, they seem to fit that bill of the outlier act who’ve perhaps suffered by not being so neatly cast as one thing or another. Fronted by guitarist Justin Toland, with Thomas Storz on an ever-righteous bass and Andrew Denham offering a classic swing on drums, they’ve been at it for well over a decade at this point, releasing their first album, Portrait of a Man, in 2009 before following it with 2011’s Movements (review here) and getting signed for 2013’s Blades of Grass (review here) by Alive Naturalsound Records, which has backed their offerings ever since.

Now, that’s not inconsiderable backing to have, but as 2018’s Distractions readily demonstrates, the Dirty Streets are a better band than people know, and they have been all along. What do you do with the fuzzy opener “Loving Man” except groove? What about the heavy blues of the “The Sound” or the later “Take a Walk” — with its subtly trippy vocals and rhythm so set to move you it feels like it inspired the name of the song — or the acoustic-led, semi-twang vibing “On the Way” ahead of the rousing funk-riffed “Trying to Remember?” There’s 10 songs on this record, it’s 34 minutes long, and from the slide guitar in “Dream” to the trucker-blues of “Death’s Creep,” there really isn’t a dud in the bunch.

This is what the Dirty Streets have always done. They’ve put together a killer collection of killer songs. Classic sound that’s not too much tipped toward vintage stylization, organic performances from all three players — and all three players of a caliber that would be a standout in another band; a multifaceted power in the power trio — quality material, quality sound. Distractions works from a high standard, and it’s a standard that the Dirty Streets have seemed to have set for themselves all along. And they’ve still managed to grow as a unit over time, only developing more chemistry and nuance of arrangement while making their songs sound almost humble for how unindulgent they are. Like “oh nothing too fancy just a hook that’s gonna be in your head for the next three weeks.” If this was another group, there’d be keyboards and strings all over “On the Way” and it’d be eight minutes long, or “Can’t Go Back” would have a 10-minute jam in the middle.

And maybe that’d be awesome, but that’s the thing about Dirty Streets — it’s not their bag. For all the accolades one might shower on their performances or production, they’re a songwriting band. “Can’t Go Back” is damn near perfect. So’s “The Sound.” I mean, really, what more would you want rock and roll to be? But that’s part of it too, because while Dirty Streets have been doing this thing and doing it so well for so long now, they’ve never really been willing to either jump up and down for attention in the pandering way of modern social media — “hey everybody what’s your favorite song of ours?” blah blah “you want us to tour?” blah blah — or to pigeonhole themselves into a niche within their niche. On the broadest level, they’re a heavy rock band, but that doesn’t account for the blues, the country, the soul, the classic heavy (well maybe that) or even the sometimes-there edge of psychedelia in their sound.

I don’t know if it’s that Distractions is doing anything so different from, say, 2015’s White Horse (review here), which preceded, but it shows the trio going full-on with who they are. They’ve never sounded more efficient or refined than they do in these tracks, and maybe even the sheer level of class in what they do is part of what’s kept them so consistently underrated. “Riding High” is a party and if you’ve got a fuzz quota, they fill it early with “Loving Man.” Why isn’t this band on tour with Clutch? Why am I not getting vague, largely-info-less press releases about their records six months in advance to start building the hype?

The obvious answer is maybe that’s not what the band wants. Maybe they don’t want to be on the road all the time, or to have all the inflated hoopla surrounding their outings. Maybe their endgame is that the records do the talking for them, and frankly, that’s fair enough, because often in the parable of the band in-between, that’s exactly what happens. The Dirty Streets are underrated now. Maybe in 20 years, divorced from the context of the various genre-tribes as they are now — of course there’ll be different ones then, no worries, and they’ll probably call themselves the same things — someone steps up and reissues their catalog and they’re heralded as lost classics. The kind of records that, in hindsight, leave listeners scratching their heads like, “Why wasn’t this band huge?” like so many Akarma-unearthed ’70s LPs or any number of Euro treasures from the original ’90s stoner rock era waiting to be re-pressed. Email me for a list.

Seriously, I don’t know that that’s ever going to happen or it’s not, but it’s certainly possible. What I’d say instead of waiting around for that is that you take the time today — not even that much time, damnit! 34 minutes! — to put on Distractions and try to listen without them for a while. Put your head in the right space and go where the record takes you. I think you’ll find the Dirty Streets are worth appreciating in the here and now, and that whatever comes however many decades down the line or doesn’t, you’ll not regret having already been on board.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

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I could detail you any number of mundane miseries from the week or tell you about feeling disconnected and wrong in my own body, wanting not to eat, eating, not sleeping, but I’m gonna go play with my kid in the snow. Great and safe weekend. Have fun, hydrate, watch your head. All that stuff.

FRM.

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The thing about Dirty Streets is they’re really, really good. This poses a peculiar kind of challenge when it comes to writing about the Memphis three-piece, because when it comes right down to it, what more do you really need? After some five studio albums, the heavy-blues-soul rockers present Rough and Tumble through Alive Naturalsound with 10 tracks and an unassuming sub-35-minute runtime, live-recorded for Ditty TV in Memphis, shot and recorded straight through as a set. And you know what? It’s really good. They’re a really good band. There you go.

One recalls being taken aback by the clearheaded professionalism of their second record, Movements (review here), in 2011, and the simple truth of the matter is they’ve never wavered from the standard they set there or even on 2009’s debut, Portrait of a Man. Founded by guitarist/vocalist Justin Toland and bassist Thomas Storz with Andrew Denham on drums before they even set about recording that first album — formative, grittier than they’d wind up, but still headed in the direction they went — the band seem to have always known their purpose in terms of writing classic heavy blues and soul songs, and Rough and Tumble highlights not just the chemistry that their maturity has wrought across the last decade-plus, but the effectiveness of the craft that’s driven them all along.

As players, there is not one single member of Dirty Streets — sometimes also The Dirty Streets — who, if you put them in another band, wouldn’t be very likely to be the best player in that band. Denham‘s strutting snare pops on “Take a Walk,” for example. The F-U-N-K funk in Storz‘s bassline on “Think Twice” from 2015’s White Horse (review here), and Toland‘s follow-the-guitar vocal melody at the outset on “Good Pills” from that same record, leading the shuffle and initial kick of energy to get things rolling — each one of them brings something special to what they do. Further, each one makes the band stronger. I won’t deny Toland is a significant presence here and throughout the band’s history — I said as much just the other day — but as Rough and Tumble plays out, it’s not just about him, or just about Storz, or Denham. It’s all three; how they communicate as players and how they convey the material that comprises this utter joy of a set.

Cuts come from as far back as the slide-infused “Itta Benna” off Portrait of a Man, and after “Good Pills,” the trio shift into two covers of ’70s Americana-ish singer-songwriter Joe South in “Tell the Truth” and the more twang-inflected “Walk a Mile in My Shoes,” the hooks of both tracks blending almost seamlessly with those of the original songs that follow as “Itta Benna” leads into “Can’t Go Back” from 2018’s Distractions, the band’s latest studio LP. That particular pairing highlights the point above — while Dirty Streets have certainly grown as a band and the sound of their records bears that out from one into the next, the underlying aesthetic mission has been steady all along. One way or the other, new material or old, originals or covers, Dirty Streets are locked in. That’s really all there is to it. They’ve never operated any other way. At this point, I don’t think they could if they wanted to.

Among their albums, Movements and 2013’s Blades of Grass (review here) — the latter of which was their first for Alive Naturalsound — are unrepresented, and the focus is rightly on Distractions as the most recent outing. “Can’t Go Back” leads into “Think Twice” smoothly, the start-stops of the latter’s verses opening into a fluid and memorable chorus, with Denham moving to the crash to drive a solo section ahead of a final runthrough of the hook later on. Structurally sound, perfectly paced, mellow but heavy, it’s nothing less than Dirty Streets at their best. By this point in the proceedings, the vibe is set and Toland, Storz and Denham are absolutely on a roll, which only makes the arrival of “Take a Walk” with its funky wah guitar and push of drums all the more welcome.

Understand, it’s not a flawless performance throughout Rough and Tumble in the sense of a live album that’s been overdubbed and worked on in the studio. But would you really want that? What Rough and Tumble presents instead is Dirty Streets as they are, and frankly, that’s plenty. I’m not sure either they or the record live up to moniker or title — they’re not particularly dirty and the songs are hardly rough — but there’s no question Dirty Streets are in their element performing live like this. It’s worth noting that the two longest tracks on Rough and Tumble are “Walk a Mile in My Shoes” (5:10) and “Itta Benna” (4:11). A cover and a song from their first LP. The rest of what surrounds is on either side of three minutes long.

That includes, tellingly, the closing salvo of “Trying to Remember,” “The Voices” and “On the Way.” The bookends come from Distractions, and “The Voices” from White Horse, but the meatier riff of “Trying to Remember” picks up from “Take a Walk” and carries that energy forward in more winding fashion in a transition to something of a comedown at the end of the set, as “The Voices” and “On the Way” are both acoustic. This was likely done with the video presentation in mind, but it works surprisingly well on the live album too, making it so that there’s not so much a big-rock-finish or blowout at the end, but a more pastoral feel in line with the country-soul they’ve shown elsewhere. Denham moves to a shaker rather than the full kit, and even though none of the final three tracks is over three minutes long, they still manage to make some of the most striking impressions of Rough and Tumble as a whole.

So you see the dilemma. It’s not that one would want to rag on Dirty Streets or offer some non-constructive critique of what they do. Far from it. However, “golly this band is good” doesn’t exactly cut it as hard analysis either. But they are, and what they do continues to defy the notion that stylistic achievement requires high-minded progressive genre blends — nothing against them — or anything more than an organic conversation between players. Dirty Streets have their roots and they know it, but they’re their own band and one can only be thankful for that.

Dirty Streets, “Walk a Mile in My Shoes” (Joe South cover)

Dirty Streets on Thee Facebooks

Dirty Streets on Instagram

Dirty Streets on Bandcamp

Dirty Streets website

Alive Naturalsound on Thee Facebooks

Alive Naturalsound on Instagram

Alive Naturalsound website

Bands and festivals have begun to announce 2021 dates and all that, but let’s be realistic: it’s going to be years before live music is what it once was. Especially in the United States, which is the country in the world hardest hit by the ol’ firelung in no small part because of the ineptitude of its federal leadership, an entire economic system of live music — not to mention the venues, promotions and other cultural institutions that support it on all levels — needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. It isn’t going to be just as simple as “social distancing is over and we can all crowd into the bar again.” Maybe not ever.

You’ve likely seen a band do a live stream at this point, even if after the fact, and I have too. Not the same as a real-life gig, duh, but if it helps raise some funds and keeps creative people working on something and gives an act a way to connect with its audience, you can’t call it bad. I’ve found, though, that with the dearth of live music happening and the nil potential that “going to a show” will happen anytime soon, I’ve been listening to more and more live albums.

This, in no small part, is because there are plenty to listen to. Some groups attempting to bring in cash either for themselves or relevant causes have put out live records in the last few months and made use of the downtime that would’ve otherwise been given to actually being on a stage or writing together in a room or whatever it might be. It’s been a way for a band to not just sit on its collective hands and wonder what the future will bring. When so much is out of your own control, you make the most of what you’ve got.

In that spirit, here’s a quick rundown of 10 recent live outings that I’ve been digging. If you’ve found you’re in the need of finding comfort in live music and whatever act you want to see isn’t doing a stream just this second, maybe you can put one of these on, close your eyes, and be affected a bit by the on-stage energy that comes through.

Thanks as always for reading, and thanks to Tim Burke, Vania Yosifova, and Chris Pojama Pearson for adding their suggestions when I asked on social media. Here we go, ordered by date of release:

Arcadian Child, From Far, for the Wild (Live in Linz)

Released Jan. 24.

Granted, this one came out before the real impact of COVID-19 was being felt worldwide, but with the recent announcement of Arcadian Child‘s next studio album coming out this Fall, including From Far, for the Wild (Live in Linz) (discussed here) on this list seems only fair. The Cyprus-based four-piece even went so far as to include a couple new songs in the set that’ll show up on Protopsycho as well this October, so it’s a chance to get a preview of that material as well. Bonus for a bonus. Take the win.

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Kadavar, Studio Live Session Vol. 1

Released March 25.

Germany began imposing curfews in six of its states on March 22. At that point, tours were already being canceled, including Kadavar‘s European run after two shows, and the band hit Blue Wall Studio in Berlin for a set that was streamed through Facebook and in no small part helped set the pattern of streams in motion. With shows canceled in Australia/New Zealand and North America as well, Kadavar were hoping to recover some of the momentum they’d lost, and their turning it into a live record is also a part of that, as is their upcoming studio release, The Isolation Tapes.

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Øresund Space Collective, Sonic Rock Solstice 2019

Released April 3.

Of course, I’m perfectly willing to grant that Sonic Rock Solstice 2019 (review here) wasn’t something Øresund Space Collective specifically put out because of the pandemic, but hell, it still exists and that enough, as far as I’m concerned. As ever, they proliferate top notch psychedelic improv, and though I’ve never seen them and it seems increasingly likely I won’t at the fest I was supposed to this year, their vitality is always infectious.

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Pelican, Live at the Grog Shop

Released April 15.

Let’s be frank — if you don’t love Pelican‘s music to a familial degree, it’s not that I think less of you as a person, but I definitely feel bad for you in a way that, if I told you face-to-face, you won’t find almost entirely condescending. The Chicago instrumentalists are high on my list of golly-I-wish-they’d-do-a-livestream, and if you need an argument to support that, this set from Ohio should do the trick nicely. It’s from September 2019, which was just nearly a year ago. If your mind isn’t blown by their chugging progressive riffs, certainly that thought should do the trick.

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SEA, Live at ONCE

Released June 19.

Also captured on video, this set from Boston’s SEA finds them supporting 2020’s debut album, Impermanence (review here) and pushing beyond at ONCE Ballroom in their hometown. The band’s blend of post-metallic atmosphere and spacious melody-making comes through as they alternate between lumbering riffs and more subdued ambience, and it makes a fitting complement to the record in underscoring their progressive potential. The sound is raw but I’d want nothing less.

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Sumac, St Vitus 09/07/2018

Released July 3.

Issued as a benefit to Black Lives Matter Seattle and a host of other causes, among them the Philadelphia Womanist Working Collective, this Sumac set is precisely what it promises in the title — a live show from 2018 at Brooklyn’s famed Saint Vitus Bar. I wasn’t at this show, but it does make me a little wistful to think of that particular venue in the current concert-less climate. Sumac aren’t big on healing when it comes to the raw sonics, but there’s certainly enough spaciousness here to get lost in should you wish to do so.

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YOB, Pickathon 2019 – Live From the Galaxy Barn

Released July 3.

They’ve since taken down the Bandcamp stream, but YOB’s Pickathon 2019 – Live From the Galaxy Barn (review here) was released as a benefit for Navajo Nation COVID-19 relief, and is an hour-long set that paired the restlessness of “The Lie that is Sin” next to the ever-resonant “Marrow.” Of all the live records on this list, this is probably the one that’s brought me the most joy, and it also inspired the most recent episode of The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal, which jumped headfirst into YOB‘s catalog. More YOB please. Also, if you haven’t seen the videos of Mike Scheidt playing his guitar around the house, you should probably hook into that too.

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Dirty Streets, Rough and Tumble

Released July 31.

If you’re not all the way down with the realization that Justin Toland is the man when it comes to heavy soul and blues guitar, Dirty Streets‘ new live record, Rough and Tumble, will set you straight, and it won’t even take that long. With the all-killer bass and drums of Thomas Storz and Andrew Denham behind, Toland reminds of what a true virtuoso player can accomplish when put in a room with a crowd to watch. That’s an important message for any time, let alone right now. These cats always deliver.

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Amenra, Mass VI Live

Released Aug. 7

Look, I’m not gonna sit here and pretend I’m the biggest Amenra fan in the world. I’m not. Sometimes I feel like they follow too many of their own rules for their own good, but there’s no question that live they’re well served by the spectacle they create, and their atmospherics are genuinely affecting. And I know that I’m in the minority in my position, so for anyone who digs them hard, they put up this stream-turned-record wherein they play a goodly portion of 2017’s Mass VI, and even as the self-professed not-biggest-fan-in-the-world, I can appreciate their effort and the screamy-scream-crushy-crush/open-spaced ambience that ensues.

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Electric Moon, Live at Freak Valley Festival 2019

Releasing Sept. 4.

Yeah, okay, this one’s not out yet, but sometimes I’m lucky enough to get things early for review and sometimes (on good days) those things happen to be new live records from Germany psychonauts Electric Moon. The Always-Out-There-Sula-Komets are in top form on Live at Freak Valley Festival 2019 as one would have to expect, and they’re streaming a 22-minute version of “777” now that rips so hard it sounds like it’s about to tear a hole into an alternate dimension where shows are still going on so yes please everyone go and listen to it and maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll really happen. The magic was in you all along.

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I recall distinctly being bummed out in 2018 when Dirty Streets were getting ready to release their fifth LP, Distractions, and I never got to hear it for review. I did what I do in those cases, which is roll on to the next thing, but the Memphis three-piece have been undervalued since their outset as purveyors of heavy soul blues and, well, they’re fun to write about. That release was independent and their new one, Rough and Tumble, is a live-in-studio outing — you can hear “Can’t Go Back” from it below, and you absolutely should — which will be out July 31 on Alive Naturalsound. More often than not, I’m not cool enough to get their promos either. Woe, and such.

For what it’s worth, I just hopped on the Dirty Streets‘ Bandcamp to buy a copy of the CD — the stream of Distractions, also below, sounds awesome — and there are none left. None on Amazon either. One on Discogs for a $45 that seems prohibitive on the day my wife finds out about being furloughed at work. Serves me right. Next time I’ll have to listen to that FOMO impulse, I suppose.

Here’s news about the new one:

DIRTY STREETS – New album “Rough And Tumble” out 7/31/20

Check out the single “Can’t Go Back” here!

Scan the press on soul-groove outfit Dirty Streets and you’ll see numerous references to rock, soul, and dirty-blooze touchstones like the Faces, Humble Pie, Otis Redding, CCR and more. Spin Dirty Streets’ records and you’ll hear all of those echoes, plus others—some jazz timing, some acoustic balladry. But by and large, what you’ll hear is a raw, rowdy blend of Motown, Stax and rock—the pure American blood-beat moving through the heart of Memphis groove.

Austin-born Justin Toland (guitar/vocals) found his own musical food early through his father, a classic-rock aficionado who turned Justin on to the Stones, Creedence, soul music and the Stax sound. At 17 Toland moved to Memphis and met Thomas Storz (bass), a native of the city, through mutual friends; the pair found common musical ground and began playing groove-grounded rock with a series of temporary drummers. Andrew Denham (drums), a Shreveport-born drummer and British hard-rock fan, joined up with Storz and Toland in 2007.

The trio began demoing using a basic setup: a single cassette recorder, no tracks, no real separation, just mics on the bass/drums and guitar and vocals live in the room. Without the option to isolate, tweak or sweeten after the fact, Dirty Streets became accustomed to running through a take 40 or 50 times as they worked to get it right, all the way through. By the time they began gigging live, that level of discipline had honed Dirty Streets into an instinctual, responsive outfit. Bootleg recordings of their shows in and around Memphis helped to generate buzz, and established Dirty Streets’ rep as a band whose timing was as sharp as their sound was ragged.

Albums followed—Portrait of a Man (2009), Movements (2011), Blades of Grass (2013), White Horse (2015), Distractions (2018), and their forthcoming live effort Rough and Tumble, an LP drawn from an in-house performance for the DittyTV Americana music television network. All of these albums are steeped in the raw rock-soul groove that serves as the band’s taproot, the musical core from which all of its explorations still proceed. And within that core, too, is the element that gives their music, the music they love and play, its unique character.

Rough and Tumble includes eight positively explosive takes from three of the Memphis trio’s previous studio albums, and also features two meaty, revved-up covers by the great Joe South.

https://www.facebook.com/thedirtystreets/
https://www.instagram.com/thedirtystreets/
https://dirtystreets.bandcamp.com/
http://www.dirtystreetsmusic.com
https://www.facebook.com/AliveNaturalsoundRecords
http://instagram.com/alivenaturalsound
http://www.alive-records.com/

Dirty Streets, “Can’t Go Back”

Dirty Streets, Distractions (2018)

Underrated heavy blues rockers Dirty Streets have a new record coming out, and if you’ve ever dug on some choice riffing, laid back grooves and weighted soul, you probably already know that’s good news. It’s been given the title Distractions and judging by the cover — which I’m told I’m not supposed to do but am doing anyway — it would seem to be somewhat in conversation with the business of our age. To wit, I believe I see a reference to cat memes on the bottom there (the cat), but if you look at the center of the eye in the middle of the piece, you’ll see there’s nothing good, so, you know, the message is pretty clear.

With the Dirty Streets though, the groove and melody are always key. Their last record was 2015’s jeez-I-hope-they’re-not-on-the-bad-drugs White Horse (review here), which was released by Alive Records, and as the 2015 LP found them on tour with the likes of Lo-Pan, The Atomic Bitchwax and Spirit Caravan for months at a clip, one expects the new one to do likewise. It’s been a while since I’ve seen these cats, and I’ll gladly say out loud that I’d be happy to again. Details are pretty few and far between on the album as of now, but there’s a new live video posted for the song “Loving Man” filmed for I Listen to Memphis that finds them very much in their element. If the rest of the long-player pans out in similar fashion, we’ll all be lucky.

From the social medias:

Hailing from Memphis, Tennessee, a hub of historical soul and blues that crafted much of the world’s modern music, Dirty Streets have spent years on the road and in the studio forging their own style. They’ve moved from DIY, independant recordings to ambitiously self-produced studio ventures over the course of five albums. Their fifth, and latest, LP, Distractions, is an explosively charged follow-up to their acclaimed 2015 release White Horse, which contains a unique style of heavy, soulful and sometimes psychedelic rock. Recorded at the historic Sam Phillips Recording studio in Memphis, the album pushes the sonic palette of the band to the next level with an eclectic mix of songs. Drawing from influences that span from the bluesy twang of Howlin’ Wolf and Wilson Pickett, to the heady expansiveness of Hendrix and Donovan, Distractions lives in its own time and place. The album was recorded live in the studio by Matt Qualls and Wesley Graham in the room where the raw and explosive energy of the Yardbirds’ iconic “Train Kept a Rollin’” was originally put to tape. This album continues the tradition.

Dirty Streets’ Distractions will be available September 14th on vinyl, CD, digital and streaming formats.

DISTRACTIONS TRACK LISTING:
01 Loving Man
02 The Sound
03 Dreams
04 Riding High
05 Can’t Go Back
06 Distractions
07 Take A Walk
08 Death’s Creep
09 On The Way
10 Trying To Remember

DIRTY STREETS is:
Thomas Storz
Justin Toland
Andrew Denham

https://www.facebook.com/thedirtystreets/
https://www.instagram.com/thedirtystreets/
https://dirtystreets.bandcamp.com/
http://www.dirtystreetsmusic.com

Dirty Streets, “Loving Man” live at The Beach House

Okay, so I know I already posted these tour dates from the perspective of The Atomic Bitchwax, who are headlining this tour for which Memphis heavy blues rockers Dirty Streets will provide support. In my defense, I’ll say only that the tour kicks ass and if you can’t get down with someone trying to spread the word about shows you should go to, you’re probably on the wrong site. I don’t know how you got here, but feel free to move along. You know what? I got a press release today with the same dates from Lo-Pan, who are also joining for part of the trek. I’m gonna post them tomorrow. Take that, if you even can.

The Dirty Streets head out as they continue to proselytize their fourth album, White Horse (review here), as they’ve done pretty steadily since it came out on Alive Records last year. They’ll do the entire run with The Atomic Bitchwax and then some, and they’re even getting an early start tomorrow night in Murfreesboro, so the dates would seem to be easily worth a look on their own.

Dig it:

DIRTY STREETS US tour dates
8/18-Murfreesboro, TN @ Media Re-run
8/19-Charlotte, NC @ The Milestone
8/20-Hattiesburg, MS @ The Tavern
8/21-New Orleans, LA @ Siberia
8/22-San Antonio, TX @ Limelight
8/23- Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall
8/24- Austin, TX @ Grizzly Hall
8/25- Fort Worth, TX @ Rail Club
8/26-Albequerque NM @ TBA
8/27-Las Vegas NV @ Hard Rock Hotel and Casino
8/28-San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar
8/29-Hollywood, CA @ Viper Room
8/30-San Francisco, CA @ Elbo Room
8/31-Portand, OR @ Dantes
9/1-Vancouver, BC @ BIltmore
9/2- Seattle, WA @ El Corazon
9/3-Bellingham, WA @ Shakedown
9/4-Missoula, MT @ VFW hall
9/6-Minneapolis, MN @ Grumpy’s
9/7-Chicago IL @ Double Door
9/8-Cleveland OH @ Grog Shop
9/9-Philadelphia PA @ Kung Fu Necktie
9/10-Brooklyn, NY @ Black Bear
9/12-Savannah, GA @ El-Rocko
9/17-Memphis, TN @ Cooper Young Fest
9/23-Memphis, TN @ DKDC

https://www.facebook.com/thedirtystreets
http://www.alive-records.com/artist/the-dirty-streets/
http://dirtystreets.bandcamp.com/

The Dirty Streets, White Horse (2015)