Obsessed with the Stones on Silver Mountain

The Reverend has many theories about music, several of which include charts, various graphs, and even semi-dangerous laboratory experiments involving beakers and Bunsen burners. Curiously enough, few of these theories involve the use of actual instruments like guitar, drums or didgeridoo. Regardless, here’s a current pet hypothesis, as of yet unproven by the Rev’s R&D department: every generation has its own Rolling Stones. You know – that dangerous gang of devil-may-care rock-n-roll B-Boys that reek of charisma and anarchistic pheromones that drive the little girls crazy and drive the boys to the mall to buy leather jackets, biker wallets and rub-on removable tattoos.

The ‘60s generation, of course, had the original Stones – the one with Brian Jones – these British Invaders the prototype of radioactive rock, a shambling wreck of a band where anything could happen on any given night, and sometimes did. Hell, just look at Altamont for proof of that equation. By 1973 or so, Mick, Keith & the boys had become fat-and-sassy complacent, and they only became more toothless as the decade wore on. In their place, Led Zeppelin became the de facto ‘70s-era Stones for mutants like the Reverend, wild twenty-something’s weaned on the excesses of the decade previous and eager to write their own chapter in the book of decadence. The ascension of Zeppelin to the throne included increased commercial fortunes to go along with their obscene level of fame.

In the ‘80s, we had the Replacements, even more unpredictable and at loggerheads with tradition than any before, the band literally falling apart before our very eyes in a stumbling drunken haze. Kurt Cobain didn’t even wait for Nirvana to become the new Stones in the ‘90s, choosing instead to believe Pete Townshend’s credo about “hope to die before I get old” and following Jimi Hendrix, Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley and many others into the eternal rock iconography, the mass grave of “those-who-died-too-young.” In his place stepped Chris Robinson and the Black Crowes, a poor substitute for the originals to be sure, but they were nevertheless provided some degree of providence by performing with Zep’s Jimmy Page.

So far nobody has surfaced during the new millennia to grab the Stones’ mantle, and it may be that this theory dies an unhappy, painful and inevitable death on the reefs of a fragmenting musical landscape of media oversaturation, recordco ignorance and here-today, gone-tomorrow amateur media hype. I’m keeping my eye on Detroit’s Deadstring Brothers as potential contenders for the crown, tho’. The band’s rough-hewn sound is equal parts roots-and-late-60s-Brit-rock. Also, Deadstring Brothers founder Kurt Marschke has obviously put some time in with weather-beaten, well-worn copies of Exile On Main Street and Beggar’s Banquet, mixing more than a little Glimmer Twins influence into his band’s already-raucous sound.

Of course, country music has always enjoyed an unspoken but powerful influence on the Motor City. Back in the day, young factory drones would pay big dollars to see Seger or the Nuge out on the island, or hit up the New Miami or Uncle Jams to hear the Sonic Rendezvous Band. As they grew old on the job, they’d slowly turn to country jams, checking out one of the many bands playing at some sleaz-e dive bar out on the ass-end of Telegraph Ave. You know, the kind of perpetually darkened wood-and-mirrored-glass stankholes where they still serve all the cornbread-and-whitebeans that you can eat for a quarter, and you wash ‘em down wit’ 50-cent draft beers.

But I digress…Marschke’s well-documented Stones fixation aside, Deadstring Brothers pursue a raw, shambling alt-country sound that has Jagger wearing his finest Camden-town twang. However, Deadstring Brothers maintain a heavier, rock-oriented perspective on Nashville’s nightmare, kind of like Slobberbone without the Southern Goth or reckless Texas spirit, and this particularly hard-rocking viewpoint is much in evidence on Silver Mountain, the band’s third album. Although released late in 2007, it should be one of the first CDs that you pick up in ’08…those of you still buying CDs, that is….

Silver Mountain cranks up the voltage from the very beginning with the album-opening “Ain’t No Hidin’ Love,” a ‘70s-sounding throwback complete with Gospel-tinged Booker T-styled keyboard riffing and big-lunged, Merry Claytonesque “Gimme Shelter” style vocals courtesy of the impressive Masha Marjieh. “Meet Me Down At Heavy Load” is the kind of blues-infused country-honk that Clapton helped Bonnie & Delaney put on the early-70s hippie-rock map. Here, with Masha and Marschke kicking out the vox, the band weaves a cocoon of sound from funky rhythms, manic keys and guitar flourishes that, for some reason, evoke memories of Little Feat rumbling with the Dixie Dregs at a summer bar-b-que.

There’s plenty o’ other stuff here to smile about, too: “Queen of the Scene,” for instance, brings Masha back to the forefront of a galloping soundtrack that includes some of Marschke’s tastiest fretwork, a fine Spencer Cullum slide-guitar solo, a mid-song breakdown and change of direction and, throughout it all, Ross Westerbur’s ever-present and powerful Jerry Lee-styled madman keyboard sledgework. The title track slows down the pace a bit, almost to the speed of a frenzied Tennessee waltz, proving that the exotic Masha can do more than shout, her soulful vocals wrapped around Marschke’s Motor City twang and deliberate, majestic instrumentation. Bill Monroe would feel right at home picking to “You Look Like the Devil,” a pedal steel-and-strings-driven po’ boy shuffle that wouldn’t feel out-of-place in one of Nashville’s remaining Lower Broadway honky-tonks.

Yeah, every generation has…and needs…its own version of the Stones, and there’s no telling whether or not Kurt Marschke and his ever-evolving band of musical merry pranksters will eventually fill the large shoes of Mick, Keith, Brian, Bill and Charlie. As long as Deadstring Brothers keep releasing spirited, ambitious and helluva-lotta-fun discs like Silver Mountain, though, it doesn’t really matter now, does it? (Bloodshot Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Silver Mountain from Amazon.com)