Sticky Throttles CD Release Show
Café Acoustic
January 7, 2012
Oh Lord, how I’ve missed rock n roll.
One song into The Sticky Throttles set celebrating the release of their disc “Love Lost”, a split disc with fellow St. Joseph rockers If You See Kay; I realized just how much I’ve missed it.
The Sticky Throttles (Jesse James, Steve Mann, Eliot Swope and Ben Malewski) came to the Café to have a blissful night of excess and that it was; with the aid of extreme volume, aggressive yet melodic songs such as the crowd pleaser “Sailor’s Grave” and enough Jameson’s Whiskey to float a small Navy, The Throttles grabbed the night by the throat, threw it against the wall and made it their own.
Sporting an exceptional sound that is equal parts punk (the Social Distortion variety), guitar flash reminiscent of 1970’s giants like Mick Ronson of The Spiders from Mars and Marc Bolan of T. Rex and Eddie Cochran rockabilly with a sprinkling of the booze soaked singalongs that The Pogues made famous before falling off the proverbial barstool.
The Sticky Throttles set, as does their great new disc, showed me something that seems rare of late in St. Joe. It is something much needed and something very encouraging. I saw a band that came to play rock n roll, not the butt rock that dominates 98.9 The Rock or the semi-lightweight indie breed of rock. No this night was about Rock n Roll. Pure and simple. The crowd was having a good time, the band was obviously having a great time, the audience smiled and sang along (some like Jason Osborn of If You See Kay and local musician Ben Constable were welcomed to the stage by James and the gang), while others patrons talked, hugged and had their heartfelt reunions at the bar over beers and martinis.
There was togetherness, there was joy, it was a wild time. For awhile the music made me feel seventeen again and that’s one hell of a feat. The Sticky Throttles are a very entertaining live band absolutely worth checking out but for making me feel young again, well, they get extra points in my book for pulling that one off.
-Danny R Phillips
