People tend to obsess over North Carolina's Spider Bags, a nominally identified garage rock band that sputters into broken-down country and spirals into high-flying psychedelics from a firm base of petulant, propulsive, and fun three-minute rock tunes. To wit, Titus Andronicus frontman Patrick Stickles used to perpetually call them the greatest band in the world. Some years ago, when a DJ friend who'd moved several states away returned to the Carolinas for a weekend, she learned that the Bags were performing at a nearby haunt and canceled all of her impending plans. In her mind, at least, the best local band ever-- the one with the shout-out-loud anthem called "Waking Up Drunk" and the frontman, Dan McGee, who sang about his demons with a conviction that made them the crowd's demons, too-- were playing, and she simply had to be there. And as colleague Marc Masters recently quipped online about the band's compulsive tunes, "And now to listen to Spider Bags & Apache Dropout constantly, even when I'm not listening to them." As their name implies, when Spider Bags hook into you, it's hard to shake the hold.
The first two Spider Bags full-lengths depended on diversity. 2007's A Celebration of Hunger creeped through country turns that had more to do with Townes Van Zandt than whatever Little Steven plays on his show ("Lonely Man" is the band's secret stunner) and occasionally climbed into the alt-country molds of Drive-By Truckers. The blistering rock'n'roll tracks were only part of the picture. They were more prominent on 2009's Goodbye Cruel World, Hello Crueler World, but there was still much more to be heard than fuzzy, frenzied barnstormers-- banjo songs, Crazy Horse-sized epics, sad-eyed duets and baby-please pleas.
Shake My Head, the band's third album and their first for North Carolina imprint Odessa Records, is their most stylistically cohesive to date. Rolling through 10 tracks in less than 35 minutes, it delivers would-be rock hit after hit, shifting away from that template only for the record's closing third. That's not to say that Shake My Head is stylistically stripped at all; rather, those variations are woven into the charging songs rather than separated from them. "Shawn Cripps Boogie", for instance, is a xylophone-dotted instrumental played by a half-dozen guitarists, but its almost post-rock surge and otherwise playful countenance make it feel less like a departure or deviation than a great if wordless Spider Bags tune. With McGee's mix of don't-leave-me protestations and fuck-you-then imprecations, "I'll Go Crazy" is nothing if not a country song reworked for a rock band drunk on the idea of soul harmonies. "Friday Night" is surf music for the town's slouch, too wasted to go to the beach with his friends and too sad to go home with his memories. Spider Bags have finally fit all their interests and eccentricities into one tight, identifiable set. Shake My Head might not be their most surprising or inventive album to date, but it's certainly their most irrepressible, a record that seems suited and able to land its charms with a lot more people.
That's fitting, since Shake My Head is the product of a band at a curious crossroads in its own history: After two frustrating experiences with full-length release schedules and press cycles, McGee vowed to focus more on singles than albums. Spider Bags stuck to that, too, releasing a slew of unimpeachable 7"s but ultimately slowing the pace as an on-the-road, in-the-studio work force. Co-founder and bassist Gregg Levy headed back to New Jersey, committing to rejoin the band for tours while they recruited another bassist, Steve Oliva, to assume the role locally. When they headed west to Memphis to finally record Shake My Head, Levy flew down to split bass duties with Oliva. Perhaps in recognition of that strange lineup situation, Spider Bags used the Memphis sessions of Shake My Head-- and the long, guest-heavy overdub process that followed-- as an excuse to invite a horde of friends over to the studio and capture a party as they made a record. The jangling if jilted "Simona La Ramona" pairs fuzz bass from Memphis legend Jack Oblivian with the distant Theremin peal of Chapel Hill songwriter Billy Sugarfix, while opening blast "Keys to the City" hinges not only on multiple charging guitars but also backing vocals from, as the liner notes put it, "The City of Memphis." As you might expect, the space around these songs is often filled with laughter and false starts and chatter not necessarily intended for the microphone-- friends, hanging out, sharing the spirit of these songs and probably spirits, too. It's a sad-eyed celebration record.
That atmosphere fits McGee's songs. He is a writer, after all, who is best when extending empathy for the dispossessed, when he-- a married father at the helm of a great rock band-- writes about and for those who don't have it so good. Sure, there's nonsense written into these lyrics, too, but McGee's perfectly able to express misery in an economical phrase or two. "I'm a dog, baby, without an owner," he sings on "Simona La Ramona", bouncing into the rhyme with hope for the future. "I can't keep a phone/ And I can barely pay rent/ And the car I own/ I only really own the dents," he offers during the brilliant "Shape I Was In", a breezy, organ-backed tune that seems to treat despair like a necessity of life, not a reason for exasperation. Above sizzling guitar lines, boogie-woogie keys, and flickering tambourine, "Standing on a Curb" opens with what might seem to be a dismissive image of McGee "waiting on some girl." But as the song unfolds, we learn that the person he's waiting on doesn't matter as much as the general feeling of being specifically sad about loving someone who could care less what curb you're standing on, or if you're able to stand at all. The anxiety overruns any ambition he's ever had. "I don't have anything else to do," McGee admits. "I'm looking at a picture of you."
And then, of course, he beats the shit out of the photo. Hell, what else could he have done? And what else could you do, besides commiserate with and sing along to a record that turns problems into a party you'll wish you had attended.
