The Crutch: July 2006

No. Shut It. and you’ll come out the other end looking like you’ve been wedging your hands in every crevice of the 289 on your ’65 Mustang.

They haven’t released a full-length since 2004, with the release of their Leper Parade 7" on Dusty Medical this year and a recent tour with Miss Alex White and the Red Orchestra, we may see something new soon. Immortal Lee County Killers –
Chet “Cheetah” Weise came from Quadrajets fame – another band that could fit in this movement. The Killers easily carry one of the heaviest sounds out of these bunches of bands, but their punk blues gets your attention like stepping on a nail.

The hard riffs are catchy and the drumming is simple, but they have managed to push some envelopes with their three full lengths. They’re loud and…fun – yes, fun – and they’re still on the scene, releasing These Bones Will Rise to Love You Again on Funhouse Records this year.
The Horrors –
These hawkeyes may have crafted one of the best albums in the last 10 years with their 2003 In the Red Records release, Vent.

A little on the blues-rock end, The Horrors came and went before NME could call them the best band in the world. It’s quite a shame, but luckily they left us a couple albums to listen to and wonder “what if…”
Porch Ghouls –
Another tragedy of this era, the Porch Ghouls only released two albums. Their first was a self-titled 10” – produced by legendary Jeffrey Evans, and filled with blues covers, including R.

L. Burnside, Willie Dixon, and Hound Dog Taylor tracks. Their second, Bluff City Ruckus, is a fucking barnburner, and was released by Roman Records (Joe Perry of Aerosmith’s label, who personally brought them in) and Columbia, but nothing came of it.

It’s surprising, since this dirty country blues album blows away anything the widely popular Black Keys have ever recorded. Drummer, Bruce Saltmarsh, also briefly played in ’68 Comeback, but otherwise, these Memphis kids completely disappeared from the map.
Vue –
First known as The Audience, San Francisco’s Vue was one of the more promising bands of the late 1990s.

Jumping from GSL to Sub Pop, and finally to RCA, they had the backing to do something. They also had a sophomore stunner in Find Your Home. There isn’t a bad track on that album, but plenty outside of it.

With a the Marc Bolan and Jim Morrison influences, they quickly found themselves regurgitating their own work and sound. Regardless, Find Your Home still stands as one of the better albums of 2001.
In 1972, Jac Holzman (founder of Electra Records) and Lenny Kaye (guitarist for Patti Smith and Jim Carroll) put together one of the best compilations ever assembled: Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968.

It contained 27 obscure garage bands, highlighting a group of artists that would've otherwise been forgotten, including Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Electric Prunes, Shadows of Knight, and Count Five. All of these bands, and even more that made the inevitable Nuggets box set released in 1998 by Rhino Records, sat in the shadows of the British Invasion, but with the original Nuggets and the later box set, there is a recorded testimony for all music fans to remember bands that can easily be counted as some of the most influential to come out that era. Names like Captain Beefheart and Love still get thrown around as influences, and The Sonics could even be seen as the godfathers of punk.

30 years later, in the late 1990s, those who were paying attention saw a similar type of moment happening in rock and roll, with a number of bands forming and following in the practically invisible footsteps of rock revivalists like The Gories, Thee Headcoats, '68 Comeback, Gibson Bros., Cheater Slicks, Flat Duo Jets, and The Oblivians. But by 2002, there was an accelerated repeat of the grunge era's final years, where the big media began noticing the surge, shamelessly touting every new band as the next big thing, and the major record labels started snatching up every band they could possibly fit into the marketing tag of "garage rock.

" The term was not only inaccurate in most cases, but it also quickly became the label of death - for the bands branded and also for a rock and roll movement that never happened.
Detroit got the most attention, but bands were popping up everywhere - New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Austin, Memphis, Toronto, London - Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. There were many bands mining similar sounds, but the diversity of the music was actually quite impressive, and the quality gave many the tingling feeling of a possible rock and roll movement about to explode - after all, we were, and are still over due.

However, like the underground movement in the mid-to-late '60s, there are only a few bands from this most recent period that found success and that remain on the international scene today. Most have either dismantled, changed their sound to be more marketable, have been demoted to the basements of major label PR departments, or simply have never got popular enough to consistently tour and play in front of large audiences.
The White Stripes and The Strokes are the only two bands out of the 1997-2005 crop that have gold records hanging on their walls, and some others who got exposure by the media actually saw a backlash from the underground rock dwellers, but in the end, it was an exciting and prolific time for modern rock and roll.

And just because we no longer have a viable environment for another rock and roll movement, due to our over zealous media trying to force revolutions instead of allowing them to evolve, doesn't mean we have to forget the bands and the songs that could have made a much bigger impact on the history of rock and roll and also the current music world.
Hopefully, someday, someone will compile an official release so that these great songs and artists won't be written in the wind. Until then, The Crutch is happy to provide blocks of an unofficial compilation: The Crutch: The Movement That Never Was 1997-2005.