Fricke’s Picks Radio: Springtime Sonics

Spring has arrived, at last, in New York – time to rock. This long blitz is inspired by an extended crush of listening, writing and shows here over winter’s last few weeks, with a desperately-needed break at SXSW in Austin, Texas which included live shots of the Richmond, Virginia band Avers and Philadelphia’s Low Cut Connie and an on-stage-interview party with Australian mystics the Church. Back in New York, Queens-born rock & roll believer Jesse Malin ­held electric church at the Bowery Ballroom on April 11th, and garage-rock legends the Sonics packed their hour-and-change at Irving Plaza on April 8th with all of their mid-Sixties Tacoma-teen-dance smashes and most of their new, resurrection platter, This Is the Sonics (Revox) . They managed to play the Washington state anthem “Louie Louie” in a couple of keys at the same time, but it was apt chaos – mayhem is what they do. The version here, from 1966’s Boom, is how they meant to destroy it.