Rob Trucks's "Possibly 4th Street" expositions, in which he invites musicians he likes to perform live and impromptu somewhere in New York City, run frequently here at the Voice music blog. This week's Deadstring Brothers installment took place when we were still shooting with a Fisher Price digicam. Consider the dateline for this issue BC (Before Camera).

photo by Doug Coombe

Possibly 4th Street

Volume I, Issue Eight (Part One)
Deadstring Brothers
by Rob Trucks

From Silver Mountain:
Deadstring Brothers, "Silver Mountain" (MP3)
Deadstring Brothers, "Meet Me Down at Heavy Load" (MP3)

From Starving Winter Report:
Deadstring Brothers, "Lonely Days" (MP3)
Deadstring Brothers, "Sacred Heart" (MP3)

If ever one band embodied a singularly iconic, angry ‘70s classic rock album it would be Detroit’s Deadstring Brothers. Kick Out The Jams, you venture? Fun House, you guess? No. The Nuge’s Catscratch Fever or Double Live Gonzo? Not even close. And no Seeger, Suzi Quatro (though that might be interesting), Motown or Mitch Ryder either. Nope, the Deadstring Brothers heartily eschew their Midwestern roots (well, the Midwestern roots of singer, songwriter and head Deadstring Kurt Marschke) by copping a close, respectful feel of the Stones’ Exile on Main St.

I am not the first music writer-type to point this out. I may not even be in the first fifty music writer-types to point this out. In fact, you may safely say that, on this point (that is, the Deadstring Brothers sounding like the Stones’ Exile on Main St.), there is an undeniable consensus. (If only gun control, abortion rights, stem cell research and universal health care were this easy).

Even Marschke and his partner and fellow band member, Masha Marijeh, agree.

“It’s obvious,” says Masha. She laughs warmly as she cuts in front of Marschke (who has a mouth full of Doritos) to answer a question so blatant it might as well be rhetorical.

Late (late) on a Saturday afternoon, the ‘Strings have completed a long drive (from State College, PA), loaded their gear (including an electric organ that appears hernia heavy) into the Mercury Lounge, and laid claim to a parking spot (no small feat that) to rest their exhausted van and trailer.

Waiting for the delivery of two acoustic guitars (so we can, you know, do this thang) is an interval seemingly made for junk food ingestion. At least for road weary musicians. Music writer-types pass the time hoping the sun doesn’t vanish completely before the guitars arrive.

While confined to backup duty on earlier releases, on the ‘Strings third and most recent album Silver Mountain (Bloodshot), Masha not only sings more, she sings more out front. Which makes the whole Exile comparison a little less of an issue since Nellcôte didn’t host what you would call a strong female presence.

So when Masha sings lead, like on disc starter “Ain’t No Hidin’ Love,” the similarity of sound between Exile and their kindred Deadstrings does not immediately reach out, punch you in the face and take your lunch money.

This is not the case with Starving Winter Report, Silver Mountain’s predecessor and the band’s first record for Midwestern indie Bloodshot. At the same place (disc starter “Sacred Heart”) just one album prior, Kurt’s vocals, Kurt’s guitar, indeed, the overarching ambiance of “who gives a fuck? let’s play” (maybe that’s what Detroit offers) has reared back, let loose a host of haymakers, and pummeled its prey into an aggressive acquiescence.

Here Marschke (now Dorito-free) does not exactly concur.

“I think it sounds like a really wimpy version of it,” says the surpassingly self-deprecating Kurt of Winter Report’s commute to Main St. “I thought it was kind of Stones Lite, personally.”

Nevertheless, his vision, as it were, for the Deadstrings’ sound has remained constant.

“It was conscious ever since we started the band,” he says. “It was Dylan, the Stones and Willie Nelson. The outlaw movement and that late sixties country rock movement was basically all I really wanted to represent with this band.”

“I think you can write better songs, and you can get better at songwriting but I don’t really want to do anything musically that much different with this band. I kind of like what we’re doing, the way it sounds.”

But is it a problem, a dangerous dalliance with derivation perhaps, when your band is recognized for its strikingly similar sound to a record that just celebrated the 35th anniversary of its release?

“I don’t mind being compared to that,” Kurt says with a smile. “I have no problem with it at all. I just wish we did a better job at it.”

photo by Rob Trucks

Possibly 4th Street: Deadstring Brothers

Volume I, Issue Eight (Part Two)

by Rob Trucks

Today the part of 'videographer' will be played by Karan Rinaldo