Gothic Theatre

Machine Gun Blues

“We don’t do cool,” reads the Machine Gun Blues website. “We work our asses off to bleed on stage.” Of course, the outfit is wrong on both counts: Its ragged, pounding fusion of the Stooges and ‘60s British R&B is infinitely, if not self-consciously, hip. And no matter how much raw energy the members burn while performing, it all seems to come as naturally as breathing. But they aren’t as haphazard as their booze-basted live shows might imply. The band’s debut album—due in the spring of 2006—has been in the works for almost a year, held up by perpetual revisions and perfectionism as the group evolves even further into a seething, punk-injected bastardization of the Spencer Davis Group. Don’t be fooled by the quintet’s devotion to rock-and-roll chaos, though: Underneath all the sweat and shattered glass lies a pounding, precision-engineered Machine.