Rock AND roll. From the basement, recorded on an 8-track, with guitar solos. Believe it.
"What the Stones were, what the Dandy Warhols should've been."Magnet Magazine
"Playing tough, swaggering '70s-styled rock & roll influenced by the Faces and the Rolling Stones, Vancouver's Lions in the Street are a band who've learned the hard way the value of doing things your own way. Lions in the Street formed in 2000 as the Years, with Chris Kinnon on lead vocals and guitar, Sean Casey on guitar, Enzo Figliuzzi on bass and vocals, and Jeff Kinnon (Chris' brother) on drums, keyboards, and vocals. As the Years gained a local following, their sound became stronger, louder, and more in tune with the sounds of rock & roll's more dangerous past. In 2004, the Years were spotted by a major-label A&R man who signed the band to a record deal and hooked them up with a manager based out of New York City. However, what seemed like a dream come true became something of nightmare -- while the group was courted by several big-name producers, they didn't seem to be the right fit for the music, and the label decided not to release the album the Years had been recording on their dime. After hiring a lawyer to get them out of their contract, the Years returned to Vancouver in early 2006 poorer but wiser and holed up in their basement practice space, where they worked up a batch of new songs and began committing them to tape using a battered eight-track recording deck. The band decided to mark the new era by changing their name to Lions in the Street, and their basement sessions resulted in a five-song EP, Cat Got Your Tongue, which the band opted to give away as a free download on their web site. The gambit created a powerful buzz for Lions in the Street, who responded by hitting the road hard in both Canada and the United States, earning a potent fan following and winning rave reviews for their showcase set at the 2007 South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin, TX."Mark Deming - All Music Guide
"Vancouver is known for its sticky icky, and this pack of retro rockers both look and sound as if they were raised eating the stuff for breakfast. But let’s not confuse these longhairs as total stoners, because their EP titled Cat Got Your Tongue is anything but a drug-fuelled mess — they can most certainly down a bottle of JD when they need to as well. This free five-track download (including artwork to boot) reveals a band remarkably in touch with their parents’ record collection; from the cheese cutters and tight-ass denim on the CD cover to the rotation of slow groove ballads and blistering humdingers they pump out genuinely, they exude the glory of ’70s rock’n’roll. According to their blog they even have a great history: done wrong by a major label down in L.A. and pursued by production heavyweights like Bob Ezrin and Todd Rundgren — two dudes that could turn LITS into proverbial rock stars. A smattering of Exile On Main Street rings throughout frolicking boogies like “Mine Ain’t Yours,†and their ability to pen a decent ballad (check “Lady Blue†and “Feels Like A Long Timeâ€) should be enough to make the much inferior Jet pack it in. "
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Lions in The Street - Mine Ain't YoursAdd to My Profile | More Videos
January Music Reviews: Lions in The Street Cat Got Your Tongue EPGrade: A-/B+
"For some reason or another it took me a long time to finally get Lions in the Street’s EP into the stereo. The problem was, though, is once it got in there I couldn’t take it out, because it felt like you just came across an amazing lost 70s rock album – one that produces chills. Getting screwed by a major label may have been the exact prodding for these Canadians to write and self-recorded the brilliant five songs on Cat Got Your Tongue. In a double-extra fuck you to the music world, you can get this EP off LITS site for free. And when you hear the Stones-meets-Allmans “Mine Ain’t Yours†your pants just fly off your body, you know that you’ve heard the truth. “Already Gone†kicks off the scratchy recorded EP with fast riffs and bluesy attitude – where the partially sub quality recording matches the flavor of LITS nearly perfectly. The slow paced “Lady Blue†and “Feels Like a Long Time†bends the band’s softer side, while “You’re Gonna Lose†closes down the EP with dirty, distorted rock riffs. Cat Got Your Tongue brings you back to some magical days of yore where life consisted of sunshine, laughs, and relaxing on the beach."
Exoduster.com Lions In The Street: Lady BlueAdd to My Profile | More Videos
"This Vancouver four's bio includes several reviews comparing them to the Rolling Stones, and yes sirree, there's plenty of Exile on Main Street, Goat's Head Soup, and It's Only Rock and Roll sons-of-Chuck-Berry riffage going on. There're even similar harmonies and aching "Moonlight Mile" or "Angie" -like balladry in "Feels Like a Long Time" and "Lady Blue". But the thing is, this basement eight-track recording is the punky edge the Stones stopped rollin' after Some Girls. And there's a solid R&B base that takes in a little Dave Edmunds, Eddie & The Hotrods, Ducks Deluxe, and Berry himself, especially on the saucy opener, "Already Gone." (And there's a little Faces in the blues of "You're Gonna Lose.") If you can't be new, be great at the time-tested old."
Jack Rabid, The Big Takeover Lions In The Street: Already GoneAdd to My Profile | More Videos
"The hipper-than-thou worms at Magnet certainly nailed Lions in the Street when they described the band as What the Stones were, what the Dandy Warhols shouldve been. The five-song Cat Got Your Tongue sounds like lost tracks from the sessions for Some Girls, a record that quite arguably stands as the Glimmer Twins finest moment. All street-fighting guitars and sucking-in-the-70s vocals, the only knock on the EP is that Lions in the Street sound more like vintage Jagger and Richards than they do a band playing original material. In other words, they do the Rolling Stones better in 2006 than the Rolling Stones themselves. Still, the final track on Cat Got Your Tongue a thundering acid-blooze explosion titled You're Gonna Lose suggests that Lions in the Street are already on their way to finding a sound thats truly their own. When they do, these guys may well be unstoppable."
Mike Usinger, The Georgia Straight I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4