Learning To Speak Spanic

Spanic Boys--"Keep On Walking" (mp3)
Spanic Boys--"I'm All You Need" (mp3)
Spanic Boys--"Dream Your Life Away" (mp3)

Last week's barrage of Riverbend-related activities, coupled with texts from a friend at Bonnaroo, put me in mind of some of those acts I mentioned last week from Riverbends past. In fact, as I've been working on my house all weekend long, cleaning, clearing, cooking in preparation for a friend's visit, I've been listening to the Spanic Boys.

Father's Day is, after all, coming up this weekend, and what better way to get into that frame of mind than exploring rock's only (that I know of) father and son duo.

The story, such as it is, is both legendary and unknown. The known part is that when Sinead O'Connor cancelled on SNL in protest of Andrew Dice Clay (probably the least talented comic before Dane Cook), G.E. Smith called up the Spanic Boys and asked them if they wanted to play. They didn't believe him, of course, didn't believe that he was who he was. After all, they were a fledgling band from Milwaukee who were well-reviewed, but little known. But after he convinced them, they were in NYC on SNL playing KOW ("Keep On Walking"), easily their best-known but little-known song to this day.

The unknown part is probably more interesting. While Todd Marinovich's dad was on a singularly-focused-and-eventually-failed mission to turn him into an NFL quarterback, Tom Spanic successfully interested his son, Ian, in learning to play the Telecaster. It's difficult to even think about who the other father-and-sons of rock are--at least those that play together. But for over 20 years, the father and son Spanic have been playing together with a variety of supporting bass and drum players.

To me, it's a fascinating dream fulfilled. Yeah, there are dads who hand over the family business to their boy or welcome their son into the law firm or simply dole out a bunch of cash to their next generation. But ponder this one: "Hey, son, let's form a band and hit the road and spend our lives performing music together. So both of us are overweight with Link Wray haircuts, so what? Can we play the guitars? Yes. Do our voices sound good together? Yes. Did you have something else you would rather do? I thought not. Let's rock! You can play lead."

The Spanic Boys are one of those bands who don't sound good on a mixtape. I'm not sure what it is--maybe the sound is too trebly, so much so that, like an early Beatle CD, it sounds kind of tinny. Or maybe it's just that when the Spanics come on, you don't really have a reference point and your ears aren't sure what to do. Did someone slip some Buddy Holly into the mix? Is rockabilly still hip? Will someone pour me a Milwaukee's Best?

You have to enter the Spanic world in order to embrace them. After a few songs, there is one thing you know for sure: what is happening in the music world at the moment will have little or no impact on the sound that they have been creating for 20 years.

I've picked three songs to introduce you to the Spanics, just in case you don't know them. "Keep On Walking" is the song they played to a national audience on SNL; it is a perfect pop song, engaging lyrics, catchy chorus, appropriate solo. "I'm All You Need" shows you their clean, mature sound and their love of a digital effect processor, a love played to even greater emphasis on "Dream Your Life Away," the third track and title track of their third CD.

I hadn't checked in with the Spanics for awhile, but, judging from their website, they're alive and well and doing what they do best--putting out catchy, jangly, rockabilly-tinged pop music that just seems a little more authentic, a little more roots, than most of the other stuff you're listening to.

And much of their catalog is available at Itunes.