DEAD GHOSTS "I Sleep Alone" 7inch

     A few years ago it seemed that most major metropolitan areas have had their own Junior Black Lips. Whether it was intentional or not to cop that sound; stealing beer, puking in the bushes and doing some shambling latchkey kid take on the Pebbles and Back From The Grave canon and sounding like the way the B'Lips seem to become de rigueur. In Vancouver, BC the job has been that of Dead Ghosts.
     In the more recent past the band has started to cut their own path out of that sound, but these recordings date back 4 and 5 years ago. It sounds as if back in those days a copy of We Did Not Know the Forest Spirit Made the Flowers Grow was ever very far from their stereo (and most likely wasn't).
     Drenched is glassy reverb, guitar jangle swimming in cough syrup and nasally singing that sounds agitated from be just woken up are the main calling cards here.
     "I Sleep Alone" (recorded summer 2009) sounds like it some folks trying to get a gig in some total small town dive country & western bar. On of those dive country bars where Happy Hour starts at the 7am opening time so all the old guys who were out fishing hours earlier and the 3rd shifters just getting out of work can go get sloshed before sleeping a good part of the afternoon away. The selections of import beer consists of Labatt Blue and maybe Guinness but no one ever drinks them because they cost an extra 50 cents. It's the only place in town the band hasn't played so they haven't been unplugged and shown the door yet. It may be the band's attempt to work up something that will make the folks think of Porter Wagoner (or some "Damn punk rock kids" trying to sound like the Stones trying to sound like Porter Wagoner but on rattier equipment and way low rent stimulants) but the slurry slide guitar lines just gets those old cranks scowling. When the messed up organ solo towards the end of the song starts the coots yell at them "You are stoned on something beyond bourbon. You are on them hippie drugs" before showing them shotguns and the door.
      Flip it over and "Spot A Trend" (from 2008) is all frantic fuzz fueled by unhealthy living and, well, whatever songs the Black Lips taught them how to play. Trashed out live to tape recording that sounds like everything is about to fall apart. Drink too much, bang into people and wait to get thrown out of another party.
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