Good Gravy

Mmmm, mmmm, good

By Rev. Adam McKinney on September 9, 2009

Some bands feel so … so … right. Do you know? For whatever reason, a band can sometimes have the key to your roller skates, and fight though you may, you just can’t resist the rock. Good Gravy does it for me, and there’s no explaining it. The tuneful bar band sound, the endearingly Michael-Stipe-with-more-of-a-twang vocals, the occasional dips into funk — it all adds up to something just as comforting and twice as nourishing as its namesake. Good Gravy burns through songs that are somehow simultaneously reminiscent of groups like the J. Geils Band, the underground music movement in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, and the punk/new wave renaissance of the late ‘70s. And it all works. It all feels right.

[Hell’s Kitchen, with The Volunteers, The Spins, Thursday, Sept. 10, 9 p.m., $3, 3829 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.759.6003]