The Spanic Boys – S/T
Rounder Records – 9022 [1990]
Keep On Walking – Living Hell — Promised Land – Stronger Than Anything – The Way Life Goes — Julieanna – Looks Good To Me – London Town – When I Call – I Will Wai – Undercover – Tears Of Happiness – Tell Me Why – Lariat – Roll On Down The Line
The Spanic Boys, from Milwaukee, were a duo formed by Tom Spanic and his son Ian. The group began recording in the mid-1980s (their first single was released in 1986) and remained active until Tom’s death in 2016. After an album on the small Permanent Records label in 1988, they signed with Rounder and recorded this album, accompanied by Mike Fredrickson on bass and Dave Braun on drums. The Spanic Boys had it all: vocal harmonies that would make the Everly Brothers green with envy, impeccable songwriting and melody skills, and a dual attack of twangin’ and clean-sounding Telecasters that pulled no punches. Why they never became international stars remains an incomprehensible mystery.
The duo positions itself as the heirs of the great melodists of the fifties, such as the aforementioned Everly Brothers or the great Buddy Holly, all with a resolutely contemporary approach. The father and son are more interested in capturing a certain musical spirit than recreating a sound. Keep On Walking, which opens the album, is very representative of their approach. It’s a superb modern country-rock tune reminiscent of Marshall Crenshaw, with echoes of Neil Young in the vocals, all with drums that owe nothing to the past (and, frankly, perhaps a little too omnipresent).
The duo is capable of unstoppable rockabilly jams (Looks Good To Me, Living Hell, a fantastic fast track that once again brings to mind the Everly Brothers, When I Call, or Roll Down The Line). There are also tracks more influenced by the bespectacled genius from Lubbock, such as Stronger Than Anything and the syncopated Tears Of Happiness, a distant cousin of Not Fade Away.
The band is capable of toughening up their sound with The Way The Life Goes and Undercover. But their harmonies are always enchanting, whether purely Everlesque on I Will Wait or the magnificent ballad Promised Land, more country on London Town (a mandolin-driven track that wouldn’t be out of place on a Dave Alvin album), or Julieanna, with its more pronounced Latin accents. All the tracks are original compositions (mainly Ian’s), except for the instrumental Lariat, a track by the early ’60s Milwaukee garage band The Legends.
Fred “Virgil” Turgis
