You notice the women first. Both of them. Both beauties. Both badasses. And both fully prepared to step up and destroy every antiquated misconception you might still harbor about females and rock’n’roll.
Maybe you noticed, too, that they’re not all white. And maybe, in this age of Obama, that means nothing to you. Or maybe, if you’re one of those Afro-punks who’s been rockin’ out in cultural no-man’s-land since your first Bad Brains single, it makes all the difference in the world. Either way, you quickly realize: This is not your typical New York City garage rock band.
Sister Anne takes its name straight from those most infamous of Detroit ‘60s bad-boys, the MC5 . But this ain’t no retro act. Because just as the ‘Five channeled the spirit of Chuck Berry and Coltrane before them, Sister Anne taps into all things punk, rock, and soul—a Tina Turner scream here, a Black Sabbath bassline there, a little bit of James Brown and a whole lotta Iggy and the Stooges—and stuffs the whole mess into its sparkling 21st-century blender. The result is something at once familiar and brand spankin’ new— a frantic, panting, female soul-punk monster that grabs Garage Rock by the scruff of its skinny white neck and shoves it, face first, back into the sweaty rhythm-and-blues murk from whence it sprang.
And if you dig it, don’t worry—You’re not alone. In the single year since they started, Sister Anne has landed gigs with such punk-rock legends as The Dwarves and Cheetah Chrome . Within six months of their first show they cut their own album. Now they’re geared up to escape New York and take this high-powered machine on the road.
Call it Garage Rock. Call it Soul-Punk. Call it the return, finally, of bottom-heavy, butt-shaking rock’n’roll.
Call it Sister Anne.
