TWIN GUNS at La Iguana Club (Vigo, 2019 Spain Tour)
Live show excerpts (The Creeper, The Dark is Rising, Johnny's Dead, 1970 (medley), 100 Teenage Years). Read the show review by Guilherme Lucas below
SHOW REVIEW
Fiesta comienzo de temporada: TWIN GUNS (ex-The Cramps), La Iguana Club, Vigo, 10.10.2019
"Last Thursday, Twin Guns, an American band from Brooklyn, New York, were the group chosen to open the new concert season at La Iguana Club, a rock club in Vigo, Spain. Their beginning dates back to 2010. At first they were a duo (maybe that is the reason for the group's name), formed by guitarist and vocalist Andrea Sicco and drummer "Jungle" Jim Chandler, the latter famous for having also had been a drummer of the legendary The Cramps in 2003-2004, since becoming an asset for promoting Twin Guns to audiences with a taste for the same kind of sound. In 2014, with the arrival of bassist Kristin Fayne-Mulroy they become a trio, an equation that continues to this day.
Carefully listening to their discography currently up to four albums, one quickly realizes that they’re a quality band of subtleties that often surprises, perhaps because of their remarkable ability and creativity to fuse diverse music genres, and turn them into something of their own. There is a story of combustible American garage rock in them, that is constantly crisscrossed in its compositions by various genres: from rock'n'roll to surf music, country, blues, punk, psychobilly, trash, psychedelic, etc., performed in a noir and cinematic way. They have a gothic and dark aesthetic ambience, which is quite obvious in nearly all their themes, within a sunglasses after dark tone, which the three elements embody blamelessly during the whole performance. Among other details of dark inclination within the themes of rock'n'roll suicide their performance and sound send us completely into B-series films, spaghetti-westerns, crime in the city and dark alleys. The good "ghosts" of The Gun Club, The Cramps, Iggy And The Stooges, Link Wray, Johnny Cash, and even Suicide haunt a large part of their repertoire, but it is wrong to think they are just another band of great wannabes: on their own way they are building their own path and there is merit in that, as it is in their variety of styles, and in the way they play them that their worthiness resides. I really enjoyed TWIN GUNS’ concert that oscillated between a good and very good performance, also a result of the different intensities of each of the performed themes.
Andrea Sicco (also a member of the noise-rock band, Art Gray Noizz Quintet), is a very competent and focused guitarist-vocalist, managing to cover several styles, both when it comes to singing and guitar work, being exquisite in both aspects. Quite particularly, too, because a guitarist who happens upon the fortune of choosing to use a white Fender Jaguar as his favorite guitar, coupled with a Fender Twin Reverb, and have Reuss RSH-03 as one of his effects pedals, is, without a doubt, a tasteful, cultured musician, and artists of such class are very much needed, at least as far as I am concerned. Those who don't understand what I'm talking about, do your research, he only clue I provide is: Melbourne. Between mourning and pure chaotic savagery TWIN GUNS, played two encores requested by the audience, which of course was euphoric with a great performance. The three of them volunteered until one of the guitar strings broke during a devastating solo in Jack The Ripper, a Link Wray cover. It was the right cue to end the show.
Interestingly, I realized that little by little, and having seen The Cramps live in 2006 at Festival Vodafone Paredes de Coura, I will have been able to see other former The Cramps in different contexts; a year ago it was Fur Dixon at Barracuda - Clube de Roque, this time Jim Chandler… so, bring on the next living “crampesque” legend because i tis always guaranteed to be a good thing.
In short, I spend a very pleasant Thursday night with these New Yorkers in the land of nuestros hermanos. Next time you come to Europe next time I hope you’ll play in Portugal."
Words: Guilherme Lucas (freely translated by Raquel Pinheiro); Video/photos Guilherme Lucas