Traditionally, sleaze-infused garage rock is the preserve of the terminally deranged. It’s a peculiarly vital sub-genre largely populated by a constituency of musicians best described as primitive; compelled to flaunt their passionately near-adequate command of their instrument because rock’n’roll’s infected their souls like a virus.
They’re known to have unruly quiffs that flop from one side of their sweat-beaded forehead to the other, they hiccup, twang ’n’ twitch their Elvine St. Vitus dance like so many possessed Jerry Lees in cheap suits, and they’re resolutely, unapologetically, wilfully not very good. But when one of these rock-soused equivalents to Appalachian snake handlers boasts something of a prodigious talent for his instrument, the sort of reliable chops that, say, might secure a position as The Pretenders’ guitarist for the past 18 years, well, magic happens.
