Sacramento garage rockers Th' Losin Streaks team with rockabilly hero at Make-Out Room
One of Northern California's preeminent purveyors of unhinged garage rock, Sacramento band Th' Losin Streaks plays a special set at the Make-Out Room Friday night backing rockabilly great Deke Dickerson.
Founded in the state's capitol in the early 2000s, Th' Losin Streaks' story began when Sacramento garage mainstays Tim Foster (guitar/vocals) and Stan Tindel (bass) of like-minded veteran band The Trouble Makers teamed up with drummer Matt Shrugg (ex-Groovie Ghoulies and Zodiac Killers) and guitar virtuoso Mike Farrell, who had made his name in area bands Daisy Spot, Sex 66 and Persephone's Bees (who he played bass for). The group quickly established a reputation with their frenetic stage show at venues around Sacramento.
The quartet brought a snarling swagger to their raucous 2004 debut album for Slovenly Recordings, Sounds of Violence. Even when addressing well-worn subject matter like two-fisted romance ("Beg, Steal or Borrow" and "Your Love, Now"), the group managed to keep things fresh with razor-sharp hooks, Foster's gruff, authoritative vocals and the collective's fiery delivery.
With Farrell dealing out one searing, sustain-driven lead after another with the same wild abandon that Jeff Beck brought to the classic rave-ups of the Yardbirds, the album solidified Th' Losin Streaks as NorCal garage-rock contenders of the highest order. The group followed up with a 7-inch single for Dollar Records Records the next year, but outside of live performances that included an extensive tour of Europe in 2005, it would be years before the band would finally issue it's sophomore effort.
While Th' Losin Streaks continued to draw sizable crowds and put on blistering live performances, Farrell's recurring struggles with heroin addiction that had started back in the '90s would derail the band, leading the group to dissolve in 2010. Farrell battled his demons for years, moving in and out of rehab before finally getting clean for good in 2016.
The quartet reconvened and began playing shows again, making scorching appearances at the Burger Boogaloo in 2017 and Debauch-A-Reno the following year in addition to returning to clubs in Sacramento and the Bay Area. The band also finished work on the band's long neglected second effort This Band Will Self-Destruct in T-Minus, which finally saw release on Slovenly in 2018.
Recorded with noted garage-rock studio guru Chris Woodhouse (Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall), the group's first release in 14 years is packed with ferocious anthems like "Trouble You Find," the propulsive title track as well as Who/Yardbirds-inspired fuzz of "Time Has Come" and "Order of the Day." While Th' Losin Streaks had to cope with the departure of longtime drummer Shrugg earlier this year, after some searching (Woodhouse sat in on one show and was considered as a permanent replacement), the band eventually brought powerhouse drummer Brian Machado (Go National, The Decibels, The Trouble Makers) into the fold.
The group has since played Bay Area shows supporting British garage legend Billy Childish when he made a rare local appearance for a Burger Boogaloo afterparty in 2019 as well as headlining the closing night of 2022's epic Bargain Rock Festival at Oakland's now shuttered Classic Cars West.
The band released its first new tune in ages with the instrumental surf-rock salvo "Mangalore" that came out last summer on a 7-inch single for Jinx Records featured in a fantastic retro video made by bassist Tindal. They also played one of the affiliated nighttime shows for last year's Mosswood Meltdown in Oakland. Earlier this year, the band unleashed its Slovenly Records follow-up effort entitled Last House.
Another bracing blast of garage-rock fury, the album was recorded with noted producer/engineer Tim Green (Melvins, Sebadoh, The Donnas, Comets on Fire and many others) at his Louder Studios in Grass Valley, the new album ups the ante on the group's trademark blistering sound. For this special show at the Make-Out Room Friday, the band will play its own set followed by a headlining performance where they will back rockabilly guitar great Deke Dickerson through a selection of garage rock and soul classics.
While the veteran vocalist and guitarist Dickerson is best known for playing and recording rockabilly and country music for over three decades in such noted groups as the Dave and Deke Combo and Deke Dickerson and the Ecco-Fonics, his first band of note was Untamed Youth, a garage/surf outfit he founded in 1987 at the age of 17 while still living in Missouri. The band developed a small but loyal cult after moving to the West Coast, but split up before it could take advantage of the Pulp Fiction-inspired surf revival in the '90s.
Dickerson's latest project is the raucous rockabilly and country focused group the Whippersnappers, but he still occasionally dabbles in garage rock, recording an album with Minnesota legends the Trashmen ("Surfin' Bird") in 2014 of re-recorded hits and new originals entitled Bringing Back the Trash. Earlier this year, Dickerson fronted th' Losin Streaks for a fiery garage-rock set at the Torch Club in Sacramento, a set they will reprise Friday for this early show in San Francisco's Mission District. DJ Sasquatch Borracho plays garage and R&B records before and between bands.
Th' Losin Streaks with Deke Dickerson
Friday, Oct. 18, 6:30 p.m. $20-$25
The Make-Out Room
