In a time when much of the best music isn’t being made with the standard rock band line-up — two guitars, bass and drums — Missouri’s Bottle Rockets keep the faith, stomping out riff-laden American music with zero sentimentality, intellectualism or other trappings of “sophisticated” musicians. Instead, they give us simple, potent songs with titles like “When I Was Dumb.”
Lucky for us, The Rockets, who play tonight at The Annex, are one of the best straight-ahead rock bands left in the world. Their songs, while mainly unknown to the supposedly hip American public (even those well-versed in the trendier versions of alt-country) are modern classics, owing as much to Beatles melodies and AC/DC crunch as to Hank Williams’ moan or Gram Parsons’ purple haze.
“I’ll Be Comin’ Around,” which is a better pop song than most anything played on pop radio nowadays, ranks with the best American singles of the past decade, and “Welfare Music,” a powerful political statement from a mostly non-political band, is nestled right alongside the best of Mellencamp’s or Springsteen’s heartland polemics. The band may seem surprising, but any listen to “Queen Of The World,” or even the hard-charging “When I Was Dumb,” will certainly prove that they are more than just a glorified bar band.
Of course, they can also flat out kick ass. “Perfect Far Away,” “Kit Kat Clock” or the great “Love Like A Truck” (which, with its celebrations of sex and cars, may be the ultimate American tune) are nothing but great, sweaty rockers. It’s a testament to that tight Rockets rhythm that they can pull off a song like “Nancy Sinatra,” which actually contains lyrics like “She’s so fine, y’all/ She ain’t mine, y’all/ Her name is Nancy and Frankie is her Pa.” Most of their songs are great, make no mistake, but they’re certainly not dwelling in metaphor or sensitive reflection. They’ll leave that to Sting.
Their latest record, Songs of Sahm, is a tribute to the late Doug Sahm, the great Texas songwriter whose long and varied career spanned everything from garage rock and weird attempts at country psychedelia (such as “Lawd, I’m Just A Country Boy In This Great Big Freaky City”) to the Tex-Mex supergroup The Texas Tornadoes.
The Rockets fit the songs of this criminally under-appreciated songwriter perfectly, and the album is pure fun. “Pure fun” is a term that could encapsulate the band’s entire career, and anyone looking for pleasure of the loud, beer-drenched, somewhat absurd variety should make haste to the Annex and hear what may be one of the last great rock bands kick out the jams.