Forget everything you’ve read about the Grifters, as most of it is the inaccurate and lazy comparative nonsense that can help or hurt a great band’s legacy. Sure, there are elements of fellow travelers, but no one of the era pulled off highly original re-appropriations of not-uncommon influences (Mission Of Burma, Pussy Galore, Sonic Youth, early electric Sebadoh and various Memphis underground legends) and combined this with the truly unprecedented proprietary sonic footprint that the Grifters also brought to the table. 1993’s One Sock Missing was the Grifters first full-length for Sherman Wilmott’s local independent label/record store Shangri-La Records, who would go on to nurture and release the lion’s share of high-quality releases during the band’s heyday prior to its mid-decade signing with Sub Pop. Few indie-rock groups of this time pulled off such an emotionally cathartic and powerful mix of desperate darkness, dynamic heaviness, convincingly abstract drug-influenced weirdness, unbelievably infectious and gorgeous hooks, real wall-shredding sheets of noise and discordance, and low-key every-guy approachability. The second and third Grifters LPs properly frame the band at its zenith, as drummer Stan Gallimore, bassist Tripp Lamkins, guitarist/singer David Shouse and guitarist/singer Scott Taylor really found a songwriting stride, shaved off a little of the scarier harsh-noise dead-end vibes of 1992’s (also great but probably lost forever) debut So Happy Together, and created a noise-pop hybrid that was all their own. At home next to the weirder progenitors of the era’s noise-rock elite as they were with the usual suspects (GBV, Pavement, etc.). ![]() Dear Internet Archive Supporter. We have only 150 staff but run one of the world’s top websites. Identifier cd_one-sock-missing_grifters. Identifier-ark ark. One Sock Missing flows seamlessly into 1994’s breakout Crappin’ You Negative, and both were made against the background of inter-member weirdness that would’ve crumbled most bands. It would be the latter that made them a tasty proposition for reconstituted mid-’90s Sub Pop, but sadly the two albums the Grifters made for the label over the remainder of the decade don’t quite measure up to the lightning in a bottle captured here. —Andrew Earles.
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March 2018
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