Cheapo 11th Anniversary Day Party
Cheapo Discs, Thursday, March 19
If the relationship between indie music and record stores needed a textbook example, Thursday’s day party at Cheapo Discs delivered with multiple exclamation points. Nashville, Tenn.-based opener Willie Heath Neal shook the sleep out with a firebrand hybrid of rockabilly and classic country. Neal’s ornery baritone was well-complimented by guitarist Clay Broome, who turned a cover of the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated” into a fast-moving train song. Fellow Nashvillians the Clutters followed with raffish bar band broadsides like “9999 (Ways to Hate Us),” which had all the nutritional value of a six-pack and a bag of sliders. Barcelona, Spain, garage soul combo Tokyo Sex Destruction implored the intimate crowd to gather up front and made converts of most everyone. Vocalist R.J. Sinclair was a ball of atomic energy, combining the voice of the MC5’s Rob Tyner with the dance moves of James Brown and Joe Tex’s famed microphone trick to boot. Madrid’s Los Coronas careened through a set of souped-up surf rock instrumentals, which gave way to the Cynics‘ impeachable catalog of baby-done-me-wrong garage punk. Mono Men guitarist Dave Crider and siren singer Diana Young-Blanchard led the DT’s on a dynamic if not revelatory hard blues rock odyssey. The Ettes started slow, but ebullient vocalist/guitarist Coco Hames got downright undeniable by the time “I Get Mine” rolled around, which ended the day shift on a high note.
This article appears in March 20 • 2009.
