El Perro Bite Into a Classic Acid Rock Sound
Radio Moscow‘s Parker Griggs is one of a rare crop of guitarists who’s figured out a way to use Jimi Hendrix as a stepping-off point without sounding like a pale imitation. This summer Griggs is touring with a new band, El Perro, whose debut album Hair of El Perro is just out on limited edition multicolored vinyl and streaming at Spotify.
It’s an interesting new direction, a little closer to funk or heavy latin soul than Radio Moscow’s Hendrix-baked heavy psych. The lineup here includes former Radio Moscow drummer Lonnie Blanton, bassist Shawn Davis, guitarist Jaron Yancey and percussionist Tawny Harrington.
With the album’s first track, The Mould, the band work their way up from a skeletal, nimble intro to fuzzy, heavy wah heavy riffs: nothing fancy, just straight-up catchy early-70s acid funk before Griggs goes flying off the hinges.
Track two, No Harm, is closer to the group Griggs made a name for himself with: Band of Gypsys with some killer Niagara Falls barrel-rolls from Blanton and searing, speaker-panning guitar leads. Imagine early Santana with twin leads, minus the organ, and you get Take Me Away: this is one of those great songs that you don’t realize is just a one-chord jam until it’s almost over.
Griggs and Yancey ride the wah pedals, across the speakers and back throughout track three, the instrumental K. Mt. Is that a real keyboard or just a guitar patch bringing back the vintage Santana vibe in the fourth tune, Breaking Free? Hard to tell.
They hit a dirty, refreshingly noisy 70s acid rock strut in Crazy Legs and follow it with Sitar Song. which sounds like one of those ridiculous effect-fixated rare singles you find on the Brown Acid compilations.
Volume knobs, rattletrap drums and then pure supersonic venom all figure in Black Days, the delicious twelve-minute epic that winds up the record: the dip to a squiggly bass-and-drums interlude sets up a memorable duel on the way out. There’s also a bonus track, O’Grace – with riffage like these guys have, who needs chord changes?
After an insanely slow start to the year, we are starting to be deluged with new rock records and this is one of the best and most psychedelic of the bunch. El Perro’s next unrestricted show is June 7 at around 10 at Growlers, 1911 Poplar Ave. in Memphis, Tennessee; cover is $15. Hometown heavy psych band Dirty Streets headline and make a great segue.