The Sweetback Sisters will be part of pscyhedelic cowboy show in Brooklyn on October 9
Union Pool
484 Union Ave. at Meeker St.
Saturday, October 9, 9:00
www.myspace.com/unionpool
www.thesweetbacksisters.com
Union Pool is the place to be on October 9 to catch an evening of eclectic (and electric?) country music. The bill features several bands, including Austin McCutchen, the Five Deadly Venoms, and local favorites the Sweetback Sisters. The Sweetbacks are a uniquely attired and entertaining six-piece. Frontwomen Zara Bode and Emily Miller make for a sweet-voxed, talented duo whose love of the stylings of Roger Miller and the Davis Sisters translates into a rollicking pastiche of country crooning and western swing that won’t disappoint admirers of Patsy Cline or Hank Sr. While the Sweetbacks embrace the genre’s kitsch in all its honky-tonk glory — take, for example, such songs as “My Uncle Used to Love Me but She Died” and “I Want to Be a Real Cowboy Girl” — it’s the combo’s top-flight, engaging music that puts it a “two-step” ahead, leaving schtick behind. The band is rounded out by a cast of characters straight out of Characterville: a polymath composer/fiddler from the deep woods of West Virginny, a swingin’ slap-bassist, a fresh-faced mandolin-playing drummer who looks like he should be walking door-to-door handing out tracts, and a lead guitarist whose propulsive surf leads ring out strong from his Telecaster. It all adds up to a combination of odd, inspired covers and sharp originals in a country vein, wells of achingly sweet harmony, and a strong, friendly stage presence.