Once there was a band so good I literally stole it.
Like, I didn’t abscond with them. This wasn’t a casino heist. They were just so spectacular that I absolutely needed to be in that band. Sadly, there was no reason for it. So, I invented a whole NEW band and put all of THEM in it. Considering there were 6 of them, that was both an ask and a task. I had to add a couple more people just to justify my actions.
But this is not my story. This is theirs.
This band of thieveable quality? The Detectives.
The band was built around a notion that I still find as compelling as any other band in my formative years: that late 50’s/early 60’s rock 'n' roll was sexy and dangerous and loud and exciting as anything that followed.
And, crucially, this was not a nostalgia project. These were people (largely) in their twenties, playing music for people (largely) in their twenties, demonstrating that the hottest and dirtiest thing you could do on a Thursday night was get down to a Chuck Berry tune recorded decades years before anyone in the room was born. This was the pure revelation that seemingly innocuous songs like “Poison Ivy” or “Lil' Red Riding Hood,” songs long robbed of any sense of sex and danger, were as subversive (or at least as relatively suggestive) as Lil Jon’s “Get Low” or Taylor Swift’s “Wood.”
It’s been 17 long years since that moment. Since their original, 3-year residency at The Outland, The Detectives held down similar runs at The Patton Alley Pub (r.i.p.), Lindberg’s and, most recently, The Stardust Ballroom, not to mention a lucrative career of weddings, private parties, and public events. By conservative estimates, it’s somewhere around 500 shows. Frankly, as time passed, the audiences became more, let’s say, aligned with the material (i.e. they got older). Still excellent shows, but the out-of-control energy of dancing to an Isley Brothers tune at 11:30 on a saucy, sweaty Thursday night was a bit absent.
That changes this Saturday. The Detectives are playing the start of a new residency at Ruthie’s Off C-Street. It is at an earlier time (6:30) but, let’s face it, we all got a bit older too. But, otherwise, this is exactly the sort of place they started. Exactly the sort of place they belong. Perhaps it's because that’s the sort of place I best remember them, but I can’t think of anywhere else right now I would like them more.
We’ll see you next week.
