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by Max Conroy:
The Go’s latest album Howl On the Haunted Beat You Ride is a fantastic record that doesn’t seem to get much credit, and I live in the land where it was made. Shamefully, until I moved to back to Michigan this past August I’d never heard of them and the way that I heard of them was from a magazine published in the UK, Mojo. Mojo gave the record a four star review and the write up was good; garage, overlooked band, Detroit, etc. There was also a picture of the record’s cover accompanying the review that pretty much guaranteed that I’d look for it. It’s perfectly psychedelic: two huge hipster faces with lifeless hipster expressions, flanking the jacket; the entire band arranged vertically in the center of it, all wearing black or stripes; their far out logo in the upper left; a brown and orange, early mid 60s to early 70s, color motif; all of this on a hazy blanket of stars. I know being interested in a record because of its packaging might be a bit careless, but this record is so cool looking and feeling that I’d be happy to own it even if the music sucked, which it most certainly doesn’t. It’s on Cass records (Cass is a street/area in Detroit for all you non-local readers), which I’ve never heard of, but they totally knocked the ball out of the park on this one. It’s a gatefold with super heavy boards, it feels like it’s a record made in the 50s, and has great graphics pasted inside along with the lyrics.
The Go formed in Detroit in 1998. Jack White was an early member of the band and is featured on their debut Whatcha Doin’, playing lead guitar and singing back up. I had read somewhere that they kicked Jack White out of the band, which would be one to tell the grandchildren: Yeah, I was in a band back in the day…and we kicked Jack White out of the group…We could have been rich! I’m pretty sure that he just left the band because he didn’t want to be a sideman. I have no idea if there is any bad blood as a result of the split, but the Go wasn’t on the White compiled fantastic comp. Sympathetic Sounds of Detroit. There is footage the Go out there playing live during the JW era on an obscure movie called the Detroit Rock Movie, which also has footage of JW jamming Stop Breakin’ Down in his tiny Detroit apartment. If any of you out there have a copy of this movie, I’d be happy to receive one; please respond to this post. Anyway, Whatcha Doin’ was released on Sub Pop and is a great debut record on the noisy side of the garage. They made a follow up for Sub Pop called Free Electricity that was never released because it was allegedly too heavy, which has to be bull shit…too heavy for Sub Pop? I found a copy of it on Soulseek and it’s definitely worth finding. I think there were other reasons Sub Pop shelved it though; one song starts with the lyric, “Big cock angel”. They were ultimately dropped from Sub Pop and put out a more focused rehashing of 60s garage and 70s glam on Lizard King, called The Go. The group then waited four years to put out another record, the brilliant Howl on the Haunted On the Haunted Beat You Ride, which AMG has listed as coming out in April of 2007, but I’m pretty sure it was more like late summer and they still haven’t reviewed it.
Howl On the Haunted Beat You Ride represents the Go fully coming into their own. The music is derivative of 60s psych and 70s glam to be sure, but they certainly make it theirs. The production on this record is simply amazing and it was produced by Bobby Harlow, their front man, in Detroit. The album utilizes clean tones, trippy imagery, and classic CSN-like harmonies with great effect (and I really dislike CSN). The bizarro-poetic title comes from the song Yer Stoned Italian Cowboy, a romp about an irresitible character that “shoots directly from the Id”. Fucking brilliant! In my opinion, there’s only one bum track on this record and that’s the lead off song called You Go Bangin’ On, which was released as a single, so I might be missing something. But don’t listen to the first thirty seconds of this record and file it away. I bought this record seven months ago and the Go haven’t played around here since to my knowledge, until this past Saturday where they played at Gold: a fund raiser for the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.
