The first time I ever saw the Tight Bro's play, I was having one of the shittiest days of my adult life. I entered the club audibly groaning. But by the time super-speedy, explosive, cock-rock lunacy took the stage, I was actually smiling, for crying out loud, to say nothing of feeling the need to raise the red hand of rock and holler like a demolition obsessed, mullet-sportin' tweaker at a monster truck show.
As one of the more unique names on the Kill Rock Stars roster, the Tight Bro's From Way Back When have, since 1997, become one of the preeminent Friday night party-rock bands for otherwise uptight indie kids looking to get plowed, go nuts, practice air guitar, and unleash their inner hesher without looking over their shoulder to see who's watching. Listening to the Tight Bro's is hardly an intellectual activity-- though, don't get me wrong, they know what they're doing. The Tight Bro's are vocalist/screamer Jared Warren (formerly of Karp), guitarists John "Quitty" Quittner and Dave Harvey (of Behead the Prophet), bassist Sean Kelly (of Gene Defcon), and a fairly impressive list of ex-drummers for a band that's only been around for five years. A quick gander at the Lend You a Hand cover art, featuring the smiling head of Charlemagne, some lightening bolts, and the multicolored faces of the band members would seem to verify that the Tight Bro's are not inclined to take themselves too seriously.
Lend You a Hand, the band's sophomore full-length, is 37 minutes of tightly packed, over-the-top rock action that unabashedly channels AC/DC by way of the Stooges, without diluting the formula with masturbatory solos or pretentious harmonic noodling. Cartoon liner notes urge listeners to sing along-- "If you're having a hard time figuring out which lyrics to sing along with, let the Tight Bro's lead the way... or make up your own, clap hands, etc." If you're even remotely inclined toward guitar rock, it won't be hard to do as instructed-- especially when the opportunity presents itself in the first song to howl, "You're vicious, you're nasty," along with Warren (don't try this at the office).
The first track, "Make It A Habit," builds out of a din of feedback and a baying coyote into a driving rhythm and the style of hyperkinetic guitar licks your fourteen-year-old cousin with the subscription to Guitar Player wishes he could play. It's hard to stay still while listening to this song. This is followed up by "Bless Me," with its slightly raunchier, roadhouse feel-- truer, perhaps, to its AC/DC influence. Much of the album vacillates between roar and raunch, occasionally meshing them into the same song, one example being the metal swing of "Gimme the Key."
There's little extra racket on this album. I could have probably done without the Blues Explosion/Black Sabbath hybrid "My Bad Luck," which takes too long to hit its groove, but this is a minor complaint. The energy rarely flags on Lend You a Hand-- no small feat for an album that comes out of the gate at full-throttle roar. Even the covers-- Joe Tex's "Show Me" and the Animals' "Inside Looking Out"-- come off seamlessly. The latter even reveals that Jared Warren has a better-than-average blues voice.
The current rock revival has spawned a number of vault-mining bands with old-fashioned tastes. The Tight Bro's are not the first to resurrect this genre (nor, from the looks of things, will they be the last), but there's a nice immediacy to their stuff. It feels good to listen to this right now, and imagine hiring them to play your most debauched backyard barbeque, without having to worry about the real effects of incipient madness at the first song. Good stuff.
