NOISEY 011: THOSE DARLINS

Those Darlins come thundering out of Murfreesboro, Tennessee to pick up the country and western idiom like a chainsaw. The band’s developed a unique relationship to the style over a slew of 7-inches and LPs that owe as much to psyched-out Bay Area garage and the Buzzcocks as they do to the “Bakersfield Sound” of Buck Owens that was tearing up house parties in the late fifties. Southern Belles in the Annie Oakley sense, Jessi, Nikki, and Kelley Darlin yelp out their anthems in a bratty rasp over Linwood Regensburg’s rollicking drums. There are lots of cowboy boots onstage and off, and the songs usually revolve around drinking, eating, and screwing around. You get the idea.

Three of them are living in Nashville now, where they’ve fallen in with the new crop of kids chilling in the country music capital of the world. A few years into their career the Darlins fell in with the Infinity Cat crew, home to JEFF the Brotherhood, Pujol, and Natural Child. But as of now they’re still publishing on their own label Oh Wow Dang records; story is that they named it for a ranting hustler who would mutter the phrase while edging into traffic. Kids lose it for these girls in Newport, a charming spot unfairly overshadowed by its neighbor Cincinnati. The city had a serious thing going in the 80s, with Black Flag, the Cramps, and the Ramones rolling through the Jockey Club. Things’ve died down a bit, but Southgate is still one of the best spots for a $5 punk ticket. This is a seriously rad venue, built by British P.O.W.’s back in 1814 and birthplace of the dude who invented the Tommy Gun.