CoronaVinyl Day 342 (D): Mink Rat or Rabbit by The Detroit Cobras

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "D," and this past weekend, the wife and I (along with another couple) went to Detroit without children, which was pleasurable for many reasons.  Among our stops was Third Man Records, where I could have spent thousands of dollars if I had the means.  While I didn't drop a G, I did pick up a handful of records, including The Detroit Cobras' 1998 debut album, Mink Rat or Rabbit, which Third Man reissued in 2016.

If you're not familiar, The Detroit Cobras were one of the many great Detroit-based garage bands that popped up in the late '90s and early aughts.  I discovered them (as I did with many great garage bands) my last year of law school when I would listen to a couple garage-rock-focused online radio stations (LaunchCast and Yahoo, in particular) while studying or writing papers.

The band was signed to the Sympathy for the Record Industry label, which is perhaps most famous for putting out The White Stripes' first three albums.  They had an oft-changing lineup, lead singer Rachel Nagy and guitarist Mary Ramirez being the main constants.  The band's albums are comprised nearly entirely of covers, mostly obscure songs from the '50s and '60s, to which they add their own retro-garage feel.  Nagy's voice has a classic '60s soul singer quality about it.  If you didn't know their songs were covers or that the band was recording in the late '90s and early '00s, you may very well think that they were actually from the '60s.

Mink Rat and Rabbit features covers of songs from the likes of The Marvelettes, The Shirelles, The Shangri-Las, Charlie Rich, Irma Thomas, and The 5 Royales, among others.  If you like '60s pop, rock, and soul, and you like garage rock, this is your wheelhouse.

After Mink Rat and Rabbit, the band released another three full-length albums and an EP, with their last album coming in 2007.  They are still playing and touring.  I'm going to see them here in Chicago in early January, which I'm pretty excited about, as I've never seen them live before.

Favorite Song on Side 1:  "Bad Girl"
"Bad Girl" is one of the few songs that isn't a '50s or '60s cover.  It's a cover/reworking of a 1996 song "Bad Man" by the Memphis-based '90s garage rock band The Oblivians, and it has a garage-rock-meets-The-Ronettes feel to it.  I love both garage rock and The Ronettes, so there you have it.

Favorite Song on Side 2:  "Break-a-Way"
Also sometimes fashioned as "Breakaway," this my favorite Detroit Cobras song.  It was co-written by Jackie DeShannon, who recorded a demo version of the song that wasn't released until the mid '90s, but it was famously recorded by Irma Thomas in 1964 and Tracy Ullman in 1983 (the latter went to #4 on the UK pop chart). You may recognize The Detroit Cobras' version from an NFL commercial a decade ago or so.  While the prior versions have a girl group, Motowny pop feel to them (with a new wave twist, in Ullman's version), The Detroit Cobras stay true to the structure and tune, turning it into a frantic garage punk anthem.