TheU.K.garage-rock songstress introduced herself to the world in the early ’90s as amember of the Thee Headcoatees, an all-girl garage quartet assembled by BillyChildish, the man dubbed by TheNew York Times as the “Picasso of GarageRock.” She’s watched garage-rock evolve from college-radio obscurity into a Top40 sensation that has stuck around and permeated into every inch of popularmusic.
That’sthe reason Holly Golightly has no qualms about just doing her thing, justsounding like herself: She’s got an old-school pass to one of the last greatmusical renaissances.
She’scurrently on tour as Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs, a duo with longtimetour mate Lawyer Dave, who plays, well, just about everything he can behindGolightly’s guitar and vocals, oftentimes holding a guitar or bass whileplaying drums with his feet. The tour comes in the wake of the group’s thirdrelease together, Medicine County,the 14th release of Golightly’s career.
“Ihaven’t really expanded or developed, and I found my little niche,” she says.When asked how she keeps her material fresh, she says, “Well, it isn’t, andthat’s the whole point.”
It’sa throwback attitude congruent with the music from which she taps most of herinfluencean aesthetic gleaned from The Kinks and Wreckless Eric, a visceralstrand of rock that sounds like it sounds, pure and raw, an old guitar throughan old tube amplifier, sung mostly in tune. It was a borrowed sound back then,mainly from American blues and R&B artists like Willie Dixon and IkeTurner, to whom Golightly pays tribute in her cover material.
Afterthe turn of the millennium, when The White Stripes rode the garage sound tomainstream popularity and even unlikelier places, Golightly scored one of hermost recognizable contributions by singing the duet “It’s True That We Love OneAnother” with Jack White on The White Stripes’ Elephant record. But Golightly makes it clear that she doesn’t takeany cues from White.
“It’shad no impact at all,” she says of the collaboration. “I’m still doing what Iwas doing 20 years ago. I was doing it before he was.”
Perhapsthis cold attitude toward White stems from leftover animosity from a pressskirmish between White and Childish in 2006, when White accused Childish ofplagiarism after Childish alluded that White was too busy trying to be a popstar to be a true garage act. Regardless, Golightly likes to downplay beinginfluenced by the people she’s worked with in the past, because at the end ofthe day she wants to be a musician that does what she does.
“It’slike people try [so hard] to be current, to be relevant and vital or attachedto some kind of scene,” she says. “By the time you realize what it is, it’salready passed and it’s a moot point. You can only do what you do.”
It’sa credo she’s built a career on. After 20 years, more than a dozen albums andthousands of shows, mostly at the Cactus Clubs and Mad Planets of the Americantouring circuit, she’s still playing the brand of lo-fi vintage garage rock shewas raised on. It’s a rut, but it’s herrut.
“Wheneverthey ask you to fill out a form and put what your job is, I never putmusician,” she says. “Because I’m not. I can sing and put words together. Iapproach it with a tongue very firmly in my cheek and don’t take it tooseriously. It is only music.”
Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffsheadline a 9 p.m. show at Mad Planet on Monday, June 21, with the Jonathan BurksBand and Trent Fox and the Tenants.
