Advance Music: Black Lips: "Not a Problem" [MP3]
Bands whose vintage valentines are this exact will always invite skepticism-- we want garage bands to sound like they're out of a garage, but not too close to the influences they approximate, lest they be considered calculating. And while some may squint their eyes at Black Lips as the last vestiges of garage-rock fetishism that cling to "unpredictable" live shows for some kind of notability, "Not a Problem" works because, this time around, Black Lips sound like they care.
I guess we should shout "Velvet Underground!" any time the production's rough and the singer can't sing, but this is a song that wants to be loved and not admired, a true-believer two-chord jangle. Meanwhile, frontman Joe Bradley desperately yelps out the best hook he could come up with-- one that begs to be shouted along with, in a hedonistic chorus to inevitably drown out the Lips' impatient Animals-aping rhythm section. Are we still being hoodwinked? We don't care, just give us more songs like this one.
MP3: > Black Lips: "Not a Problem"
[from Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo; due 2/20/07 on Vice Records]