Elizabeth McQueen & The Firebrands – Happy Doing What We’re Doing
Pub-rock was pre-punk Englands (well… Londons) response to the pretentious, bloated, geriatric and overly technical superstar rock of the early 1970s. Though the scene was launched by an American band desperate for work after being stranded in London when their recording deal collapsed (Eggs Over Easy), its greatest exponent was Brinsley Schwarz, which gave the world Nick Lowe. Other noteworthy names to emerge from the scene include Joe Strummer, Elvis Costello and Graham Parker, who came along rather late in the pub-rock game but in plenty of time for punk and especially new wave.
The music was simple, melodic and upbeat, with emphasis more on songs and an ensemble sound than on star frontmen and soloists. It was awfully infectious stuff, celebratory but hardly mindless party music, and on a good night a good pub-rock band could put fans back in touch with the spirit of the earliest rock n roll while remaining totally contemporary.
Elizabeth McQueen, the irrepressible Austin-via-Little-Rock-and-D.C. singer, is nothing if not spunky, and she and her rockin little band have pub-rock down cold. Thats no small feat, because there were no female pub-rockers to speak of, so its not necessarily easy coming up with the right songs to revive. But with her big, assertive voice, which she can ramp down when she needs to, she transforms some of the best, combining sass with spunk on Squeezes Annie Get Your Gun, going tongue-in-cheek on Dave Edmunds A1 On The Jukebox, turning exasperated on Dr. Feelgoods Thats It, I Quit, and giving Eggs Over Easys Home To You an almost spiritual bent.
The punchy band does the rest, snazzing up Rockpiles When I Write The Book with horns and a great lickin stick guitar, or translating Brinsley Schwarzs title song from a light ska romp into gutsy rock. Aint so much as a whiff of nostalgia here, either, just the eternal verities of good songs, good feelings and good times.