Hot Times with the Bad Lover
Rebecca Gates “Greetings From The Sugar Lick”
I wanted to share with you a solo performance of my favorite Spinanes song off my favorite Spinanes record, provenance unknown. On 1998’s Arches and Aisles, “Sugar Lick” is just this side of soul, organ-drenched and scorching. This version is stripped down, all ringing chords and husky fuck-offs/come-on. I’ve said before that Ms. Gates is incapable of the trite, and that idiosyncratic air, call it mystery, adds immeasurably to the feel of this song. All these years into my love for this track, I still can’t quite parse the plot at work here–it’s sad sacks, cheating hearts and maybe sex as weapon. There’s something heavy and just plain adult about the way she reads off her list of accusations against a faded barfly, then flips the script, proposition as defiant dare: “We’ll meet at yr house/have it all out/pull yr clothes off/let’s get this over with.”
