The Detroit Cobras “Life, Love and Leaving” 2001. Sympathy For the Record Industry. 1960′s Motown, soul and pop rock covers filtered through the lens of millennial garage rock revival and singer Rachael Nagy’s Janis Jopliny vocals, though with a fewer cigarettes and shots of whiskey (see especially the deeply bluesy “Find Me a Home”), fill the Detroit Cobras second full-length release. Not quite lo-fi in production, there are just enough rough edges to feel a bit dirty. The heavily Motown sound on tracks like “Oh My Lover” are torn down from their wall of sound and given a more raw, stripped sound that compliments Nagy’s voice perfectly. My favorite tracks are the ass shakers “Hey Sailor,” “Stupidity,” “Boss Lady,” “Right Around the Corner” and the Ottis Redding classic “Shout Bama Lama.”

We saw The Detroit Cobras play at Burnhearts’ Pabst Blue Ribbon Street Party in the summer of 2008. Since it was almost 10 years ago, I have no idea what songs they played but I do remember swigging a PBR and dancing in the street, kind of amazed that a band the caliber of the Cobras was playing a free street fest in our Milwaukee neighborhood of Bay View.