“We are coming to your town / we’re gonna mess your head around!”
is a lyric more taunting than threatening when sung with the yap-yell of “Hey Hey, We’re the Gories,” the introductory track from the eponymous band’s 1991 record I Know You Be Houserockin’. The garage punk trio — made up of guitarists Mick Collins and Dan Kroha and drummer Peggy O’Neill, and playfully named in homage to the fictional band from the television sitcom Gidget — led the eastern Michigan rock renaissance in the late 1980s with a signature fuzzy blend of blues and “rustbelt rock.” True to the phrase, each Gories lick and rumble clangs and jolts like city machinery; urban legend claims their first recordings were conducted in a tin shack. Revived in 2009 after disbanding nearly two decades earlier, The Gories make a rare appearance in Durham for what is sure to be a cathartic blowout.