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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Death
Jordon Smothermon AMERICAN-STATESMAN
So, Death. If you want, you can spend a good while pondering whether Detroit’s latest lost musical reclamation project (politico-folkie Sixto Rodriguez filling the bill in 2008) would even be able to fill the inside of Emo’s on a weekend if it weren’t for the trio’s delectable back story.
That being the doings of the Motor City based brothers Hackney (Bobby on bass and vocals, Dannis on drums and David on guitar) who in the early ’70s crafted a raw form of music that would’ve become punk if they’d kept at it instead of breaking up following what was supposed to be a short hiatus and move to Vermont(!) in 1976.
We know all this because indie label Drag City dug up Death’s seven songs and reissued them as “…For The Whole World To See,” a record that’s been embraced as a bygone-era curio and paved the way for Saturday’s set at Fun Fun Fun Fest, for a crowd of several thousand that probably dwarfed anything the African American band saw while toughing it out in Detroit clubs in the years following the 1968 race riots.
So the music, then. As billed, tunes like “Rock-N-Roll Victim” and “Keep On Rocking” do have a distinct proto-punk quality to them with a chugga-chugga bass and scuzzy guitar riffs kinda like what Ohio neighbors Rocket From The Tombs would ride to just a bit more success a few years later. Crack the band - with Bobbie Duncan playing guitar in place of David Hackney, who died in 2000 - and its mythos out of its amber preservative and it’s certainly accomplished but nowhere near revelatory.
But the point of a gig like Death’s on Saturday isn’t really about discovering something new, but instead paying respect to nearly lost pioneers and giving them a chance to enjoy a much delayed moment in the sun. And with a black-and-white almost life-sized photo of David Hackney looking on from stage right the other Hackney brothers did their past proud, earning every bit of the cheers that for a long time seemed improbable if not impossible. -Chad Swiatecki
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Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Fun Fun Fun Fest
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By robrent
November 8, 2009 12:24 AM | Link to this
the show was plagued by a 15 minute delay,,,,,if this was an HOMAGE to the past….y couldnt they get them a working guitar and some better sound….
nearly bored to DEATH….
rob
PS—sorry to rain on the lovefest
By stan
November 8, 2009 11:04 AM | Link to this
All I saw were hipsters and scene kids there for the event not the show.
Don’t believe the hype.