Listen To This | Shannon & The Clams - Big Wheel

Joe Day

Music Journalist from Plymouth, UK.

In a creative climate fuelled by tragedy and grief, Shannon & The Clams kick back at the ever turning wheel of time with a true fervour

I mean, how can you not love this track? Its fun, romping, hot-dang stomping energy is enough to get anybody out of their chair. The guitars and fuzzy and the synths are buzzy and everything’s laced with something close-to-psychedelic. It’s three minutes of good natured mayhem that leaves you mentally out of breath and in need of a cigarette.

When you see a band name like Shannon & The Clams, you know you’re in for one of two experiences – either they’re going to be a bunch of Telecaster-wielding lunatics that run every bloody instrument through a flanger and insist that Deep Purple has more to their discography than that one song, or they’re going to have a teeny-weeny bit of weird about them that maintains a strong identity without descending into an ironic comedy act.

Somehow S&TC manage to surpass both. Their southern-inspired hoedown-cusping garage-psych mayhem is perfect amounts of thrash and fun to entertain without overwhelming. There’s something deeper at play, however. In 2022, lead singer and front woman Shannon Shaw’s fiancé Joe Haener suffered a fatal car crash just weeks before the couple’s wedding day. It was an event that affected not only Shaw, but every member of the band.

It is Cody Blanchard who steps to the mic in ‘Big Wheel‘. He speaks directly with the ever turning wheel of time and questions the underlying and unavoidable cataclysms it can bring. It’s a brave move from the band to face potent grief so directly. I don’t know if I could do it – dealing with grief in a public forum is something reserved for the lucky few that find true closure though it – but I certainly respect it.

I’d imagine that giving yourself a hernia at a S&TC show is something of an unavoidable experience. ‘Big Wheel‘ just doesn’t give a fuck from start to finish, and whether you’re liable to slip a disk is irrelevant: you’re compelled from start to finish to move your body at breakneck pace, grinding your teeth as the MOOG screams out like it’s stubbed a toe, running on the spot to the verse’s jaunty rhythm, crying out to the sky at the song’s climactic chorus. It’s just so much bloody fun.

It seems that the entire new album will be facing up to the loss of Haener and providing some sense of catharsis for the band. It’s lining up to generally be very good and altogether pretty fantastic. And you should listen to it. Right now. Here. At CLUNK. In the link below. Today.

The Moon Is In The Wrong Place is out on 10th May via Easy Eye Sound.

Watch/Listen to ‘Big Wheel’ here: