The Oblivians
Play 9 Songs With Mr. Quintron

The Oblivians were born in the wrong era; the big garage rock boom would explode only five or six years later. However, thinking about it, they were four ungainly, vulgar, and decidedly unattractive boys from the American countryside (the best: Memphis!) for MTV. The exact opposite of the studied yet effective dichotomy that characterized the image of the White Stripes or that band of models known as the Strokes. Unlucky, yet soon elevated to "legend" of 90s garage-punk, and imitated by everyone, thanks to the illusory "simplicity" of their music: drums played with violent incompetence, quirky solos, repetitive rhythms, and werewolf howls. But they had something more. Maybe it was magic, and since they were Tennessee boys, black magic.

In '98 they released their final EP, "Play 9 Songs With Mr. Quintron", the most complex and ambitious album the Oblivians ever produced. An album that sees a band rediscover the roots of American music, especially black music, blues, spirituals, and gospel in a non-orthodox, non-trivial, and surely interesting way, particularly for a group coming from a genre where the fossilization on three chords-solo-shout is not just required, but demanded, given the extreme reactionary nature of the audience. Gospel wouldn't exist without organ, and so as the "fourth member" guest we have Mr. Quintron, well-known in the Memphis underground as a whiz and quirky one-man-band on the Hammond. The sounds are cleaned up, the drums are real drums and no longer sound like a box, though they are thumped upon as no one would do now; the guitars have an almost translucent and magical reverb, Greg Oblivian finally shows he has a full, malleable voice capable of singing a song without shouting like mad. And when he sings like that, he can make a girl's knees tremble.

Few of the songs are original Oblivians, and their stamp is noticeable, as in "I don't wanna live alone" which maintains the franticness of the faster and more wild tracks of "Popular Favourites", many reinterpretations of traditional pieces, such as "Ride that train", yet perfectly fit their style. Absolutely fabulous is the amphetamine gospel "what's the matter now" with its dizzying central crescendo "The Holy ghost got me/I got the holy ghost in me" which, yes, us whites can't even aspire to such things, but it's so overflowing with passion. All of them are truly successful tracks with a vaguely gospel flavor, agitated and breathless, like "I feel alright" or the bluesy and flirtatious ones like "Live the life".
Among the album's highest moments is "The final stretch", an (overly) desperate blues that starts subtly and becomes increasingly robust and overflowing, in which Greg Oblivian reveals unsuspected interpretative skills, shifting from whisper to animalistic howl. Other notable tracks include a devilish "If mother know" with a breathtaking rhythm section and the splendid "Mary lou" with piano, magnificently orchestrated, vulgar, and at the same time terribly erotic. Stanley Kowalski, in short. It’s strange to think this was an unrepeatable moment in the three Oblivians' careers, which after disbanding, with their new respective bands, couldn't produce a worthy follow-up to this album: often too subdued the Reigning Sound of Greg Oblivian (except for the electrifying "Too much guitar") too Oblivians the numerous bands of Jack Oblivian (Knighty Knights the latest, which are still eight rungs above the average garage punk groups). So, perhaps, it was a strange black magic these boys had, maybe without knowing it, when in those days they played together.