Sioux City Pete and the Beggars
Be forewarned: Sioux City Pete is not for the meak of heart – meaning it’s dark.
Sioux City Pete, better known as Pete Phillips, has been a mainstay in the Sioux City and national punk scenes for years, having lead rockers The Chickenhawks through a chunk of the ’90s and beyond. He also operates the Cattle Club Collective in Sioux City, which features live music, art and theater. The band performs nationwide, and late this summer will play New York City.
Pete is still kicking it out as real as he always has, and this Thursday headlines a live show at the Annex. The band will likely be pounding out songs from its latest CD, “Necro Blues,” among other tracks.
The Beggars are an eclectic bunch (and I mean that in the “they-have-songs-titled-Necrophilia-and-Pedophilia-on-the-same-album sort of eclectic), and their music shows it.
Take a hard dose of raw punk, mix in an equal amount of rusted blues (Phillips toured the nation a few years back giving lectures on Delta blues) and a dash of metal, and you’ve summed it up.
Actually, there’s more depth than metal, but on some tracks (”Voodoo MotherF*****”) the band starts to sound like some early death metal, guitars crunching and Pete wailing away almost incoherently. At other times (”Dockerys pt. 1″) I felt like I was in a Southern barn sitting on a hay loft listening to an aging blues act.
But when you really listen to this album, it is clear that Phillips and his cohorts believe deeply in what they are doing. So while this album comes off as raw, dirty and garage-like, it’s grit is what makes it beautiful.
I write about what I see, and I see some dark s**t, Phillips told me recently. This album is a testament to that, the subjects as dark as the music: drug abusers, pedophiles and Charles Taylor, among others.
And finally, it should be noted that the album artwork is … let’s just say eclectic.
See The Beggars, Dead Mans hand, The Amplifiers, Mat D and the Profane Saints and Forgiving August at The Annex on Thursday at 7 p.m. Cost if $5 at the door, and the show is all ages.
