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| Stickpony Beerland, Thursday, Dec. 11th “Thank you, bartender, for the best years of my life…,” Brit Jones crooned to Billy Hankey and the other drink slingers - past and current - watching Stickpony early Thursday evening. A well-attended show for 9:00, the band provided the soundtrack to the heavy drinking that is encouraged at all their shows. Not as drunk as they often are when they play later (although this hasn’t occurred in a while), the band tore through a set of soon-to-be retired songs, playing each as lovingly and viscously as it were the first time they had been performed for a crowd. And, again, as I watch them give the Meat Puppets a rave send-up, the thought hits me like a cartoon anvil: “ Why the Hell aren’t these guys on Bloodshot Records? They’ve got the hooks, they’ve got the drunken despair and they’ve got the rage that accompanies any misspent youth. Does someone have to physically drag Alejandro Escovedo down to see these boys, so he can tell the label how good they are?” Well, do they? –Trevor
Wallace |
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Tuna Helpers Beerland. Thurs., 12-17 Walking in on the Tuna Helpers was like witnessing Tori Amos and Beth Gibbons high off a ‘spoon full of sugar’ from Mary Poppins. The lead singer’s grimacing eyes were big and bright, resting in a focused stair upon the queer and the curious that made up the sizeable crowd at Beerland. Her high-pitched, operatic wails were hardly audible over the monotonous keyboard melodies. The drummer was a true talent, but her “I’m hard’’ act was a total turn-off. Just when I began to lose interest in the show in search of my Shiner, the hilarious three-piece would flip the script. The keyboard player busted in to some psuedo-sign language, interpretive dance routine while the lead singer hid behind an elaborate puppet stage and allowed her two-headed, marionette alter ego to dance and lip-synch the songs. I feel funny saying I’d fork over the five bucks to watch these cracked-out Barbies, but I can’t lie—it was extremely entertaining. -a
punker chic named Katie |
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