My son turned to me in the car the other day, and observed, ‘This is the band you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it, Dad?
My son turned to me in the car the other day, and observed, ‘This is the band you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it, Dad?’ Playing on the car’s CD player, at a volume that would have led my wife to accuse me of deliberately trying to deafen our own child had she been present, was Focus Level by a New York group called Endless Boogie. My God, they hit the spot.
There’s a lovely story about the disc jockey John Peel having to pull over into a lay-by and have a good cry when he first heard ‘Teenage Kicks’ by The Undertones, because its evocation of teenage lust and the sheer euphoric joy of great pop music were so pure and exciting. I feel rather the same about Endless Boogie, whose music might best be described as, well, endless boogie.
Clearly deeply indebted to that great and persistently underrated American band Canned Heat, one of the great loves of my youth, Endless Boogie take the jaunty boogie beat somewhere deeper and darker. Tracks choogle on for 15 minutes or so with duelling lead guitars and occasional growling, rasping contributions from front man Paul ‘Top Dollar’ Major, whose other speciality is obscenely lascivious slurping noises. The band’s sound is dirty, murky, deep, intense, relentless, with the music sometimes locking into repetitive loops, like the Krautrockers Kraftwerk, and at others heading off into deep psychedelic space reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ and ‘Astronomy Domine’.
Focus Level lasts for 79 minutes and for once I wouldn’t wish the album a second shorter. It sneaks up on you, knocks you over the head, coils itself around your guts and heart, and becomes completely overwhelming.
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