Today's garage rockers seem to spend more time adjacent to corporate slogans than next to their mothers' four-banger economy-class sedans, but the members of Thee Shams (the second e is silent) haven't forgotten their roots. Who really needs free Gap jeans for life anyway? And what better way to buck the system than to include gratuitous nudity on the cover of your sophomore release, Please Yourself, ensuring banishment from the racks of any nipple-sensitive retailer. Led by brothers Zachary and Andrew Gabbard, this Cincinnati quintet twists psychedelic '60s rock bravado with the dirtiest of swamp-infested blues to form its own brand of authentic Sham-rock. More comparable to the Stones than to the Strokes, Thee Shams has spent the past five years testing the waters for the likes of Spoon and Fat Possum labelmates the Black Keys, and this Saturday the group will flood the Replay with torrents of straight-out-of-the-garage guitar and honky-tonk harmonica.
