I had an interesting moment while cleaning the house yesterday. As per usual, I was rocking out and dusting off the book shelves between bong hits (ah, working from home - how I love thee). In an effort to widen my circle of daily jams (ie - not listen to Alice Cooper every second of every day) I chose to start my day off with a little bit of Van Morrison's Them. I'm not super familiar with Them, outside of the expected hits, so I was pleasantly surprised to hear their capable cover of Bob Dylan's It's All Over Now Baby Blue come on right around the time I started sweeping the living room. This is such a great song about disintegrating relationships, change, learning from the past - really cool lyrics. But for some reason I was left feeling a little cold, like there was an itch I just couldn't scratch. Suddenly the voice of Roky Erikson popped into my head and I thought "that's it! this song needs Roky". I grabbed the nearest 13th Floor Elevators album and put on their version. Wow, it was cool, but kind of murky and dragging along. There must be some other version by Roky that I'm thinking of. Still unsatisfied I carried on, just about to change things up completely and attempt to listen to Talking Heads when it hit me. Sonic Love Affair! This little known (outside of the San Francisco Bay Area) garage rock band from Sacramento had included a cover of It's All Over Now Baby Blue on their debut album, and it blows my mind every time I hear it. Frankly this whole album blows my mind. SLA takes this previously slow paced track and rocks it out, adding an awesome little guitar riff over the whole thing. I absolutely love the production on this song. It takes me back to the dozens of live shows I've seen, which were a sight to behold. SLA had the market corned on skinny legs, big hair, perpetually dangling cigarettes, and frenzied vocals - but not in a sissy glam rock way, more in a you wouldn't want to come across them in a dark alley kind of way. They somehow managed to capture the energy of their live shows on these recordings, and the production is amazing. There are no phony vocal effects or ultra fuzzed out guitars needed to create this vibe. This sound was created by and for people who have rock'n'roll flowing through their veins. Dylan Rodger's snarling vocals and blistering guitar riffs from Steve Cotterill and Curtis Franklin get the job done quite nicely. So, if you're into garage punk and you're not too jaded to give a contemporary band a listen (which if you're really into garage punk you probably will be), I think you'll find Sonic Love Affair to be a sweet surprise. And if you want to blow minds at your next DJ gig, put on SLA's cover of It's All Over Now Baby Blue and watch the hipsters try and figure out who it is. Enjoy!
PS - Rumor has it these guys have risen from the grave and are considering playing a few shows. Check out Sonic Love Affair on Facebook if you like what you hear!
