Some things are just impossible.
For instance: As the press release below posits, I defy anyone to listen to Memphis power trio Dirty Streets without hearing echoes of Steve Marriott and Humble Pie, Rod Stewart and The Faces, or even Chris Robinson and Black Crowes. Likewise, there’s also zero chance you can listen their aptly titled new live album Rough and Tumble (actually the applause-free audio feed from a recent hometown TV performance) without getting down and rocking out to their raucous balance of British blues-rock and southern soul — complete with all the shimmering slide lines, wah-wah pedal licks and raspy wailing required by the rock ’n’ roll rule book. Toss in a pair of Joe South covers — including a gruff remake of Walk A Mile In My Shoes — and you’ve got a disc that’s easy on the ears. And an album that’s guaranteed to make you seek out their back catalogue of studio releases.
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Scan the press on soul-groove outfit Dirty Streets and you’ll see numerous references to rock, soul, and dirty-blooze touchstones like The Faces, Humble Pie, Otis Redding, CCR and more. Spin Dirty Streets’ records and you’ll hear all of those echoes, plus others — some jazz timing, some acoustic balladry. But by and large, what you’ll hear is a raw, rowdy blend of Motown, Stax and rock — the pure American blood-beat moving through the heart of Memphis groove. Austin-born Justin Toland (guitar/vocals) found his own musical food early through his father, a classic-rock aficionado who turned Justin on to the Stones, Creedence, soul music and the Stax sound. At 17 Toland moved to Memphis and met Thomas Storz (bass), a native of the city, through mutual friends; the pair found common musical ground and began playing groove-grounded rock with a series of temporary drummers. Andrew Denham (drums), a Shreveport-born drummer and British hard-rock fan, joined up with Storz and Toland in 2007. The trio began demoing using a basic setup: a single cassette recorder, no tracks, no real separation, just mics on the bass/drums and guitar and vocals live in the room. Without the option to isolate, tweak or sweeten after the fact, Dirty Streets became accustomed to running through a take 40 or 50 times as they worked to get it right, all the way through. By the time they began gigging live, that level of discipline had honed Dirty Streets into an instinctual, responsive outfit. Bootleg recordings of their shows in and around Memphis helped to generate buzz, and established Dirty Streets’ rep as a band whose timing was as sharp as their sound was ragged. Albums followed — Portrait of a Man (2009), Movements (2011), Blades of Grass (2013), White Horse (2015), Distractions (2018), and their live effort Rough and Tumble, an LP drawn from an in-house performance for the DittyTV Americana music television network. All of these albums are steeped in the raw rock-soul groove that serves as the band’s taproot, the musical core from which all of its explorations still proceed. And within that core, too, is the element that gives their music, the music they love and play, its unique character. Rough and Tumble includes eight positively explosive takes from three of the Memphis trio’s previous studio albums, and also features two meaty, revved-up covers by the great Joe South.”
https://youtu.be/pO7_npFCRXQ
https://youtu.be/Qu2HogG1hAo
https://youtu.be/l5_9t74j1T8
