The Fleshtones Ain't Leavin' 'Till You're Believin'

Bottom Lounge, Chicago, June 2010

I've been asked plenty of times if I plan on writing a follow-up to Sweat: The Story of the Fleshtones, America's Garage Band.  The band jokes about the next edition, too.  (And the edition after that — they don't call themselves Living Legends for nothin'.)  It took me half a decade to write the book, and it's only been three years since it came out, but the band's been involved since then in enough sloppy, fun, high-intensity International Action to at least make "Volume 2" something to semi-seriously consider.  I've no doubt that they will be around long enough to warrant a sequel.

In the meantime, they're laying low, mastering a new album that they've recorded on NYC's Lower East Side with the legendary Lenny Kaye.  It's out in March, and the guys are supporting it with their busiest gigging year in a long, long time — (What is this, 1986??) — including a swing through SXSW.  There will be plenty of Flickr and YouTube evidence, and I'll be hanging out at as many of the shows as I can.

If you want to get a taste for this great American band, check out Sweat, and/or Geoffray Barbier's great documentary Pardon Us For Living But The Graveyard Is Full, posted in-full here.  As the Fleshtones once sang, they can't change their luck, but they can change your mind.


Photo by Amy Newman.  Ken Fox was feeling under the weather, hence my minute as a poor-man's/poor-band's Jimmie Nicol.