The Gories

The Gories recorded like dysfunctional couples fight. After punching their lust and rage into vinyl, the band would crumble. Cofrontman Mick Collins claims the Gories broke up after every release. In 1993, the trio fractured more lastingly, going a decade without speaking to each other.

There is some thrilling voyeurism in listening to the Detroit threesome’s smoking garage thump. It sounds as if instruments are being angrily tossed across the room as Collins, Dan Kroha and Peggy O’Neill argue over whether to play the blues, punk rock or a tribal rain dance. Two guitars and two drums form the hip-shaking fury. Just two drums. Not drummers, drums. Two cylinders, a tom and a snare, are bashed primitively, knocking as the unmuffled engine behind Collins’s howl. The sound is so stripped down, it can come across as surprisingly gothic or quaint.

The band formed in 1986 over some beers and a shared love of all things mod. Collins could channel Little Richard, Howlin’ Wolf or H.R., even if nobody could play. Rather humorously in hindsight, the Gories never expected to last, forming at the tail end of a Motor City retro-rock fad. Yet records like House Rockin’ and the Alex Chilton–produced I Know You Fine, But How You Doin’ would become religious texts for Jack White, the Hives, et al.

In the past two decades, Collins and Kroha have honed their rhythm & blues skills in the Dirtbombs and Demolition Doll Rods, respectively. So how, in this reunion, can skilled musicians recapture that naive magic? With the three now living in different cities, the answer was simple: by not rehearsing. Sparks will fly, pelvises will twirl. Just as the rock & roll gods intended.

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