Spider Bags

Spider Bags don’t pull punches. If Spider Bags mouthpiece Dan McGee’s got somethin’ to say, he’s just gonna say it. “Wakin’ up drunk makes me happy,” he sang on the band’s first album—so does rock ’n’ roll and pretty girls. So with all the simple pleasures the world’s got to offer, it’s fair to wonder, during a moment of drunken clarity, why McGee seems so down. 

The answer is as clear as the blinding midday sun: Wakin’ up drunk means an afternoon hangover. Pretty girls break hearts. Rock ’n’ roll only goes so far. That’s why McGee ends his band’s stellar 2009 LP, Goodbye Cruel World, Hello Crueler World, with “Here Now,” a lengthy, tender sob of red-eyed resignation. “You’ll never get out of here now,” McGee drawls over an acoustic shuffle and steel guitar smears. As the song’s six-and-a-half minutes unspool, weary conviction trails off into a mutter.

At his most despondent, McGee’s mostly alone. When the gang’s all gathered, though, Spider Bags stretch rock ’n’ roll as far as it’ll go. The Bags’ country swagger and garage rock punch mask the taste of McGee’s down-and-out bitterness until it sounds downright celebratory. McGee might claim his life is “spent between cigarettes and regret,” but it’s hard to sympathize when it sounds this good. Que Viva El Rocanrol, indeed. —Bryan Reed