Oh Lord, you know I don't ask for much, but please just do this one thing for me: please, please, please don't let the breakthrough success of The White Stripes lead to a blues revival. Now, old blues I can handle, even if it doesn't particularly do it for me-- I file classic blues fanaticism alongside bisexuality and sportscars in the "things I'll never understand, but cautiously respect" column-- but the phenomenon of nu-blues, embodied by the likes of The Soledad Brothers, is an evil worse than hair metal.
The thing is, The White Stripes themselves are accessories to this crime: The Soledad Brothers are known affiliates of the White syndicate. While the blues might be just as much of a conceptual jumping off point for Jack & Meg as their peppermint clothes (\xA9DiCrescenzo, 2003), it's their deviations from the strict blues formula that bought them walk-in humidors, like the fuzzy Buzzcocks emulation of "Fell in Love with a Girl" (\xA9Ott, 2002). The Stripes might show proper reverence for the titans of the genre, but it's funny how their true ancestral excitement always seems to bleed through on covers of decidedly non-blues names like Dylan, Parton, and Bacharach, while "Ball and Biscuit" remains the lamest dog on Elephant.
Soledad Brothers, as shown by their creatively titled live album Live, have never broken free of the strict adherence to the equation Rules = Authenticity = Good. With a singer/guitarist who has-- again, creatively-- named himself Johnnie Walker, the trio rarely deviates from the twelve-bar script or the riff-trance blueprint. From this Toledo-based group's opening "aight, y'all", it's clear that Soledad Brothers are more than happy to hijack the Southern culture they've read about in books to cover up their suburban upbringing.
From the one-chord-and-harmonica rumble of "Stand Up"-- sounding like "I Want Candy" with even worse lyrics ("Stand up! Stand up!")-- to the hey-I-can-play-with-a-beer-bottle slide of "Break Em' On Down", it's clear this band have zero to add to the blues vocabulary: they're subtracting. "Walker" can't get enough of putting himself in rustic-gospel scenarios ("Johnny's Death Letter"), but his thin voice has none of the character necessary to pull off this grizzled act, instead coming off like karaoke George Thorogood. Sure, in a live setting the band is able to get a sweatier sound than they've so far tapped in studio, but it's not enough, leaving me and the ten people present the night they recorded the album cold.
Later, it's made clear by "Teenage Heart Attack" that the Soledad Brothers first heard blues the same way all us crackers did: 'cause the Rolling Stones used to play it. "Teenage Heart Attack" swipes the Stones' taste for S&M; lyrics and a couple riffs from Exile on Main Street, but with a limp tone and lacking that Jaggerian caterwaul, it comes out sounding like those British "greats" Deep Purple. When they reach their grubby hands further back to a cover of "Goin' Back to Memphis", they only sound more ridiculous, the refrain "well, I'm going back to Memphis on Highway 61" failing to obscure the fact that, nowadays, they'd be taking I-57.
"Up Jumped the Devil" may finally be able to sustain a certain level of gritty swagger, but even the lamest bar bands strike gold on occasion. And these days, when there's pedestrian saloon blues for cheap-- from sterilized Memphis, to Goofy's Blooze Shack in Disneyworld-- I see no reason to release this mediocrity on a national level. Jack White endorsement or no, Soledad Brothers are just the home version of that shitty band you're trying to ignore down at the local dive, and pumping through your stereo speakers, there's not even $1 PBRs to take the edge off.
