San Diego's Midnight Rivals Get Down to the Nitty Gritty

Album: Nitty Gritty (2010)
Artist: Midnight Rivals
Label: Merch Lackey
Songs: (1) Do That Tease (2) Kings Are Queens (3) Help Me Please (4) Western Sahara Desert Shakedown (5) So Far Away (6) House of Suns (7) Lines (8) Bollywood Star (9) These Arms (10) Genghis Blues (11) Takes a Little Time

Author

By Mike Gaffrey

Publish Date

Dec. 7, 2010

With their debut studio effort, San Diego all-star band Midnight Rivals has produced a beer-soaked, full-tilt rock ’n’ roll record. Guitarists-songwriters Morgan Smith and Mike Santos have crafted tunes that reflect influences that range from Brit essentials Stones, Faces, and Who to American desert-rocker Gram Parsons.

Opener "Do That Tease" is an ass-shaker that will speak to anyone who's ever been in a friends-with-benefits relationship with a psycho who also happens to be a great lay. "Kings Are Queens" opens with Who-like sonics and then pummels with drum work courtesy of Mark Maigaard and solid bass lines from Petey X. "Help Me Please" keeps things moving on a hip-shaking course, while "Western Sahara Desert Shakedown" recounts one man's unfortunate treatment at the hands of Arab nomads, driven by tasty guitar riffs and punctuated with a solid brass backup.

"Lines" is reminiscent of Gram Parsons-inspired Stones cuts like "Dead Flowers"; in fact, this song would have fit onto either Exile or Sticky Fingers. "Bollywood Star" starts off with a lazy guitar riff and some pretty evocative lyrics, then busts into a rumbling, rocking, voodoo drive with vocalist Charlie Ware demanding to know "Where the hell is Bombay? Who's that man with no teeth? Where's that pipe and hashish? Why's that cow on a leash?"