2 – Wrong Turn (Off The Hip)
While a handful of fashion magazine editors have committed to not using skinny models in photo shoots, in the far-removed and dank atmosphere of rock and roll’s garage, the slimmed-down-to-guitar-and-drums duo is almost de rigeur these days. So what makes the Wrong Turn’s way seem so right? It’s all in the grit they’ve left in the groove.
This is a re-tooled version of the band with onetime Double Agents drummer Myles Gallagher now teamed with constant member/guitarist/vocalist Ian Wettenhall. The backbeat’s lost no bite with Gallagher’s recruitment and Wettenhall grinds and whines in all the right places. There’s no better illustration than on “A Little Bit More” where the jagged guitar figure rans wild over a tight shuffle beat to cook up a storm.
At times these songs sound like Waldo and Jerry’s rhythm guitar and drum beds from some long-lost Heartbreakers session, without the spiky lyrical affectations. Like the Heartbreakers, the vibe is greasy. On a song like opener “I’m For You” (where Wettenhall wraps sinewy guitar lines around his own blues harp wheeze) they sound what the Dolls might have ended up like if they’d settled into life in that swampy Florida trailer park.
Wrong Turn also wear a big fat Stones badge ironed onto their jacket sleeves with covers of “Off The Hook” and “Turd On The Run” nice and prominent. On the former, the guitar opens up and roars like an old Norton bike-and-sidecar. If only Woody was listening to this stuff instead of learning Russian, he’d be in a much better place.
Of course all of the above influencers were taking a line from ‘50s influences. So is Wrong Turn, especially on a tune like “Whistle Bait”, borrowed from the Collins Kids (look ‘em up on YouTube if you’ve never heard of ‘em – there’s some great stuff there.) So here’s the rub, fellow travellers: Wrong Turn’s heads might be in the ‘00s but their hearts are scattered like chopped liver across the prior five decades.
God only knows there have been many versions of “Milk Cow Blues” down the years (ever hear of the Nomads?) but this is a keeper that’d pasteurise the stuff before it made it to the bottle. You can sense the band members eyeing each other and striking up a bargain to drive this one home or grind it into the ground. Both of which they do.
Judicious addition of sax on the driving “Jenny Jenny Jenny” and the chunky “Love on Line”, where the Velvets go Chicago blues, further vary the sonic palette. No mean feat because the weaponry employed is limited in number if not feel.
If there’s a criticism (and repeated listening makes it less so) I would have liked a little more studio time spent on making the drums less boxy. This is coming from someone who likes their snare drier than sandpaper and whose listening tastes usually lean to this side of Cro-Magnon, so take that with a dose of sodium chloride. - The Barman
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NOTHING GROWS FROM SCARS - Wrong Turn (Off The Hip)
You really want to hear another trumped-up, strung-out cover of the Heartbreakers' "Baby Talk"? I mean, could anything live up to the self-pitying, burned-out nastiness of the original? Yes, and it does. Read on.Wrong Turn is a duo from Melbourne that's steeped in al the arrogant swagger and saliva-flecked crudities that fuel the best rock and roll. Bassist-turned-guitarist Ian Wettenhall was in the Philisteins, Freedloaders, latter-day Seminal Rats and contemporary outfits Lords of Gravity, Hands of Time and Stoneage Hearts, while drummer Todd McNeair has played with Powdermonkeys, Seminal Rats and Hoss. Nice pedigree.
Nowadays, everyone wants to be a duo - and why not? The overheads are lower, the fee only goes two ways, and you can get as full as a fat lady's boot, forget the lyrics to some Leadbelly song and call the whole mess 'Bent Blues'. On the other hand, blues is a starting point rather than a modus operandi for Wrong Turn who infuse their own and other people's tunes with so much punk attitude that chestnuts as hoary as "Slow Down", "Skinny Minny" and "Nervous Breakdown" end up with sore nuts and a nosebleed.
A fair spread of covers on this but Wrong Turn do write their own stuff which is pretty good. But I'm betting it''ll be a handful of the borrowed songs that draw the most applause live. (It certainly seemed that way the night I caught them but that's sort of understandable, given it was one of their first shows.) Jerry Nolan hisself would like the monstrous fills on "Baby Talk", and while an original song like "Can't You See" clearly owes its parentage to the old bluesmen its public persona is that of a bastard.
You pays yer money and ya gets 13 songs, all of them keepers. It's a simple story on the surface but it's all in the telling. McNeair is a wonderful drummer when he has a meaty tune to sink his teeth into, and Wettenhall has taken to six strings with a vicious relish. It's a pity he had to break up the Lords of Gravity in the process, but that's another story.
The band name is slightly ironic given that an original song like "So Fine" takes a detour into the Modern Lovers' "Roadrunner". It all makes sense in the end and makes for a satisfyingly bumpy journey.
Buy without fear, especially if you have a handle on both band members' previous work.- The Barman
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