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Tito & Tarantula
Preview by Danny Alexander
Director Robert Rodriguez's favorite band, Tito & Tarantula, has been
featured in both Desperado and From Dusk Til Dawn, and it's
easy to hear why. Tito Larriva and company take the fundamentals of B-movie
soundtracks--almost always variants of surf and drag--and lashes the menace
into each beat and teases the guitar parts until they are blackly shimmering.
In other words, this band, like Rodriguez's movies, takes what could be
yesterday's trash and renders it sublime. Take the title track of the
band's new album,"Hungry Sally," an epic fable about a child who is admired
and worshiped for her extraordinary ability to eat until she becomes a
monster destroying everything in her path. The song's just silly enough to
not come off pretentious, and it's just poetically vivid enough to earn the
mounting guitar, drums and urgent vocals that push it to a climax. There's
a Dylan-like inflection to Larriva's vocals that may suggest a lot about
how he walks this line between humor and horror, and, ultimately, a lot more.
Other album cuts, like the opener "Bleeding Roses" and "When U Cry" are
poignant and tenderly beautiful, while "Love In My Blood" is murderous, and
"My German Fraulein" and "Betcha Can't Play" are unbridled fun. With a
psychedelic open-endedness that often calls to mind the Animals and the
Doors, this album reaches as far as the imagination lets it to tackle
whatever emotions it desires. It is hard to imagine the Grand Emporium
containing all of these worlds at once, which is reason enough to check it
out.
The fine local bands Dragqueen and Lushbox (which is celebrated a much
anticipated CD release party) are opening.
--Danny Alexander
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