Detroit Cobras in Phoenix: Like Jazz in Japan

I’ve never understood the obsession with garage rock you’ll find in
some corners of Phoenix. I like garage rock, sure, but I’m from Akron,
Ohio, a Rust Belt town with strong ties to lo-fi punk and garage.
Phoenix? Well, Phoenix was mostly ranchland and desert when “96 Tears”
topped Billboard‘s chart in 1966, marking, I’d argue, the peak
of the first wave of garage rock.

I was surrounded by the stuff during my college years, living near
Cleveland, the first place any band from the budding Detroit garage
scene played outside their home city. Phoenicians seem to be jumping in
nearly a decade after the revival, still obsessing over Nuggets
while the rest of us move on.

The best example of the Phoenix garage rock phenomenon is The Love
Me Nots, who released an album called Detroit last year.
Detroit struck me more as a tribute to the Motor City’s scene
than an artifact from it, despite the fact that the record was produced
by Jim Diamond, the man behind pretty much every touchstone record from
the era, from the first two White Stripes records to Electric Six’s
Fire to The Come Ons’ Hip Check to Gore Gore Girls’
Strange Girls.

Well, there’s no better time for Phoenicians into garage rock music
than Wednesday, when The Detroit Cobras come to town. They are, for me,
the perfect embodiment of contemporary garage rock. They flawlessly
project the look, sound, and feel, every note oozing Detroit’s gritty
charm. In fact, when they’re belting out one of the old R&B covers
that exclusively make up their catalog, there are moments where I
almost end up in the uncanny valley, appalled at just how much they
sound like a scratched 45.

If you’re a fan of The Love Me Nots — a pretty good band in
their own right — you’ll be enchanted from the moment Rachel Nagy
opens her mouth, letting her scruffily seductive vocals pour out. This
band doesn’t wear cutesy, ’60s-inspired outfits with go-go boots to
look like a garage rock act, but you’ll know what they are from the
first note they hit.

In some ways, I feel as if this show is like one of the Count Basie
Orchestra’s tours of Japan, where the band brings the authentic article
to a population of jazz aficionados who got hooked on the music decades
ago but rarely get to hear it in person. Those sad bastards are left
with only weak local efforts to re-create it and a strong belief that
anyone who can hear a master of the genre play every few months and
doesn’t do it is committing a grave sin.

Poor them. Poor us.

In a town where so many people love garage rock yet are so rarely
treated to the real deal, this show is a true thrill.