First review of Call Me Sylvia from AllMusicGuide:
So often when rock & roll keeps it real it sounds, well,
old-fashioned: playing to rules written for a different time. That's not
the case with
Low Cut Connie and their second album,
Call Me Sylvia. Sure, there are plenty of echoes of a hedonistic past ricocheting around Call Me Sylvia -- it's easy to pick out the Stones and the Replacements, or the wild mercury sound of Dylan at his amphetamine prime -- and Low Cut Connie
pledges allegiance to a boozy boogie that's been out of style since at
least the Carter administration, but the remarkable thing about this
cheerfully dirty quartet is that they're never living in the past, never
expending energy in capturing the perfect forgotten reverb or
rearranging their record collection into a meticulous collage. Low Cut Connie just barrel forth -- they pick up their guitars and play
loudly,
making a noise with whatever amps happen to be lying around. The
difference isn't just attitude, it's instrumentation; unlike so many
rock & roll groups of the last 20 years, Low Cut Connie are anchored by the pounding piano of Adam Weiner,
and those rocking '88s gives the group real swing and sleaze, elements
missing even in such otherwise excellent rock & roll throwbacks as
the White Stripes or the Black Keys. That palpable big beat electrifies Call Me Sylvia, but Low Cut Connie
aren't only about sound -- they're crack songwriters, bashing out big
hooks and riffs in songs that are sharp, clever, and funny without
succumbing to cutesiness. Like the best rock & roll of any era, this
lives passionately and messily for the moment, and as Call Me Sylvia spills forth, it's hard not to get swept into its giddy, filthy joy.
Biography (from LCC website):
From schleps to champs: the story of Low Cut Connie
One sad night in New York City, Adam Weiner was playing “Stormy Weather”
to twelve half-naked drunks at a drag karaoke bar called Pegasus. He
had left New Jersey 10 years earlier with lofty hopes of artistic
success in the Big Sexy Apple…and this salty dump is where he had landed
and gotten stuck like a musical kidney stone. A small Asian man
dressed as Diana Ross was finishing the last verse and segueing into
“Sometimes When We Touch”, while Adam plunked the piano keys with bluesy
relish.
Right at this moment, a thought occurred to Mr. Weiner.”Why don’t I
start the greatest rock n roll band this town has ever seen? Why don’t I
titillate and massage the throbbing cultural masses in unknown ways?
Why don’t I dream a new boogie for all of mankind?” Instantly, the room
started to spin with sensual visions and Elvis ambitions. Barry
Manillow whispered in his ear “DO IT!”. The patrons all shook their
stuff and tipped Mr. Weiner generously. ”The slump was ending”, he
felt.
The next morning, he called up his old buddy Dan “Swampmeat”
Finnemore in Birmingham, England. A couple years before, Adam and Dan
had shared a urine-soaked stage in a gnarly UK warehouse and gotten
stuck in a freight elevator for 4 hours with nothing but guitars and a
duffel bag of booze. They had emerged brothers from across the pond.
When the phone rang, Dan was busy duct-taping his wounds after a night
of heavy punkabilly brawling and low-brow impregnations. He had
screamed his head off and been spat on by rabid drunks and footballers.
Adam asked him if he wanted to turn their slumps around and light a
mighty rock n roll flame. Dan picked up his sticks and said “Fuck it,
let’s get weird. See you in 6 hours, fool.”
Sensing the creation of a profound cocktail of boogie and benevolent
sleaze, Weiner called up Neil “the Feel” Duncan in Gainesville, Florida.
Duncan was a country-fried guitar slinger who had twanged with the
best of them in Nashville and in every Jimmy’s Chicken Shack south of
the Mason-Dixon Line. He had schlepped his blood red Les Paul past
every Waffle House in America and been burned by the countrypolitan
executives who promised him record deals and handed him flaming
bullroar. Neil was licking his wounds in Florida, sucking a beer and
watching the Golden Girls in his garage when he got the call. The
Hebrew and the Brit were coming down….zip up your shorts and get the old
tape-machine fired-up.
There was only one question left to be answered: What would they
eat?? Adam called up Ian Vos, aka Vos the Boss….Ian was a gourmet fry
cook in South Philly…and a ballsy bass player to boot. Adam and Ian had
played a wedding gig together in Pennsylvania, and bonded over “Hava
Nagila” and “We Are Family” a few years before. It was a bond never to
be broken. Ian dropped his marinated chops and hopped it down to
Florida to meet those Connie boys. They were going to get all the juices
flowing, to make all the boys and girls dance again, fondle each other,
and fall in love.
——————————————————————————————
Low Cut Connie is releasing their second album “Call Me Sylvia”, on Sept. 24.
Their first album, “Get Out the Lotion”, was one of the most
unexpected critical successes of 2011 (see below). The boys are
self-releasing “Call Me Sylvia”…they are a self-managed,
self-distributed, self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. They
are hitting the road throughout the fall, including album-release
parties in Philadelphia and New York, and many hot dates throughout
America. Come get sweaty with us, please.
