Soledad Brothers “Steal Your Soul and Dare Your Spirit to Move” 2002. Estrus Records, limited edition blue vinyl. This past weekend we headed to Indianapolis for Romanus Records Fest at Square Cat Vinyl and one of the musicians in the jam-packed lineup was former Soledad Brothers guitarist/vocalist Johnny Walker in his new(ish) band All-Seeing Eyes. (Joe got a chance to chat with him for a long while, it sounds like besides being a doctor of psychology – or psychiatry, I can never remember the difference – he also has a recording studio, Masonic Sounds, located in the northern Kentucky portion of Cincinnati, that has recorded artists like The Kills, James Leg – who was also at Romanus Records Fest, Diane Coffee and many many more.)

Soledad Brothers’ Steal Your Soul and Dare Your Spirit to Move is dirty, lo-fi garage/punk blues, with an emphasis on the blues. My favorite track is their cover of R.L. Burnside’s “Michigan Line,” an appropriate cover pick with the band’s heavy Detroit connection (their first single came out on Detroit-based Italy Records where they met Jack White, who produced Soledad Brothers’ second single; they also recorded part of Steal Your Soul and Dare Your Spirit Move at Third Man Studios). Allmusic says about the album, “It has been the goal of countless bands to re-awaken the energy of Exile on Main Street-era Rolling Stones into some workable modern sound. Many have tried, but only a few have come close. Detroit’s punk-blues upstarts Soledad Brothers have made a brisk career of just such imitation and prove that imitation is itself the sincerest form of irony. On Steal Your Soul and Dare Your Spirit to Move they make no apologies of their fascination with both British and American blues-rock, and imbue all the lifted riffs and self-serving sexual swagger with enough drunken abandon and reckless energy to almost convince you that they are picking up where the Stones themselves left off. The aptly named “Prodigal Stones Blues” cops the signature Stones riffs and tone of the period, and singer Johnny Walker even intones Mick Jagger’s vocal quirks. On their own “.32 Blues,” where Walker belts oaths and shout-outs overtop fuzzy guitar and greasy saxophone, you are almost convinced that these guys are the real thing. A take on R.L. Burnside’s “Michigan Line” reveals the group’s more reckless side. He sings: “I was raised in a trailer down by the tracks/Where I would lay and listen to the clackety-clack/That’s where I got that hard-drivin’ Soledad beat” on his confessional piece “Miracle Birth.” Whether that is true or just a bunch of sycophantic blues imagery hardly matters. When Walker sings it, he believes it, and that just may be enough.”