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With
a horn-blowing frontman and one whale of a rhythm section,
Gorch Fock took me back to the days when Amphetamine Reptile
roamed the land and the Cows were one of the record labels’
wildest weirdos. Their seasick visions stem from the imagination
of bassist/painter, Wynn, whose previous band, Gong Li, was
puny compared to the crew he commands now. Setting sail with
seven men, they imposed themselves in front of a cluster of
film projectors throwing images taken from the fields of whaling,
dentistry and taxidermy. The band’s relatively elaborate
live show and unpredictability have gained them a diverse
local following over the past couple years, and the recent
publicity hasn’t hurt either. Late into their set the
house was still packed with Fockheads helping to deliver the
beer and bratwurst, moans on what passed as the chorus of
a drunken sea shanty with explosive drum fills.
The
balls-out sonic pillaging given by Gorch Fock left many nonplussed
by the UK’s Country Teasers. Rejecting every rule of
music making, they’ve been releasing retarded records
since 1986, sometimes with band line-ups that had never met.
Founded by isolated misanthrope (and Scotsman), Ben Wallers,
it’s the unlikeliest of bands. The newest release is
called Full Moon Empty Sportsbag, and it’s the first
album recorded with everyone together in the studio. Surrounded
by his familiars on guitar, bass, drums and occasional mini-moog,
Wallers crouched into the microphone and looked out through
Coke bottle lenses with detached amusement speaking songs
with titles like “Young Mums Up For Sex” and “Man
V Cock.” The Country Teasers live sound was that of
a XXX-rated Fall deconstructing Hank Williams’ songs.
They’re as much valid artistic statement as therapeutic
pastime, and they sent their proponents staggering home alone,
but vindicated.
–Dave
Roybal
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I wanna rock. Can you help me rock? It’s a brand new
year. Let’s clean the slate. I like to encourage that
of my disgruntled bartenders anyway. You’re either with
me or against me on this next comment, and if you’re
against me, sorry, you picked up the wrong rag to read.
Life’s
short. Life’s bittersweet. This year I don’t want
to see any more fucking dead-eyed, sugarcoated, waif-like,
girlie-boy bands. Come on, you know these bands. They’re
moodier than a bitch in heat with dark lyrics that whine incessantly
about some latest heartbreak. Here’s a painful refresher
course: “I’m in a funk, so don’t bother
me, but please come to my shows because you owe it to yourself
to hear me sulk.” What? Are you kidding me? As my father
used to lovingly tell my mother, “Shit or get off the
pot.” Get off the stage, and make room for some unabashedly
genuine rock ‘n’ roll. Get off the stage, and
make room for the Sons of Hercules.
At
the usual 1 a.m. on a Friday night, I pulled out of Casino
(the bar, not the Sons bass player) and hit Emo’s where
a cult-like group of Sons fans with shit-eating grins congregated
in front of the stage. It looked like a biker convention.
Maybe it was.
Scratch that comment I made earlier about life being short.
Enter Frank Pugliese. To look at him you wouldn’t know
that he’s actually 95 years old, or he should be considering
that his rock resume spans decades upon decades. This lovely,
tall, lanky rocker with pursed lips opened for the Sex Pistols
in the late ‘70s for Christ’s sake. I should’ve
known it was on when he held that Iggy stance, knelt down
and licked my fingers in between a verse of “Gimme Some.”
Gimme
some indeed. What I wouldn’t give to sit on his lap
and swap punk rock war stories. Mix in a golden boy of a drummer
(Cook), two veteran guitar players (Hollon and Bone), one
regal bass player (Casino) and something magical happens,
and it ain’t some girlie-boy excuse for rock ‘n’
roll.
–Marianna
M.
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What a bunch of bullshit this turned out to be. Lets see here,
how ‘bout “Girls Gone Wild“ with a yeast
infection? I swear to god when I approached these scantly
clad, tattooed, and pierced dot COM hookers I smelled burnt
pussy. These cunts are worthless and have the personalities
of dick warts. I have seen better burlesque shows at old folks
homes. I think I may have herpes now just from standing next
to them but I’ll have to confirm that when I visit Pro-Med
on Monday. The bar was filled with a plethora of pervs and
gaggles of underage sluts in training, which I refer to as
“SLITS”. The first ass-fucking was the ten dollar
cover charge. In my opinion that ten bucks would have been
better spent on a hand job down at the Landing Strip.
So any-hoo I get there early and immediately seek out the
Suicide Girls, because one thing I’ve learned is that
clearance at the door doesn’t mean shit when it comes
to titties. I approach the ladies and talk to “Siren”?
and tell her that I work for Red River’s infamous Rank
and Revue. She tells me to go to the merch table and get a
photo pass from the whore manager - oh I’m sorry, the
“tour” manager. I start talking to homeboy and
he tells me he has to O.K. it with the girls. I call this
the “bullshit tag”. He comes back 30 minutes later
and says “no problem” but does not physically
have a photo pass, yet assures me he will remember me and
not to worry. Cool.
The show starts and I bust out my cam and before I can take
one fucking picture this assmuncher starts grabbing and screaming
“NO CAMERAS!” The next thing ya know I’m
being whisked away into the backstage area to be put on fucking
trial for having a camera. So here we are in this room and
this big tall leather fuck with spiky hair and a camera starts
talking shit. He looked like a gay statue of liberty. He shouts
at me that he is the only one that can take pictures. I think
I see a lone tear drop from his eye, he is so upset that I
also have a camera. Meanwhile, grabby calls me a liar and
tells me there is no way in hell I could ever get permission
to take pictures. Why did he even bring me in the room? FUCK.
The tour manager is standing on top of the stairs behind him
so I tell him “Stop being a dick and ask.” He
reiterates that I’m wasting his time, but asks. Tour
manager guy says “yea he’s cool, he is with the
Rank and Revue.” So I am thinking in your face motherfucker.
But guess what, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that I got
approval pissed him off twice as much, and he told me “NO
PICTURES”!!!! So I call him a dick, I call leather fuck
a dick and tour manager a pussy, and I leave.
Bottom line is you can go to Emo's on any given night to see
tats and tits for free and probably end up boning some slut
in the can. So, why pay ten bucks for Tits and Ass you can
never touch, much less photograph.
-
Shutter Butt
Ok, here’s something new and different for the Red River
rock-out zone, I thought. Good to see EMO’S making a
big assload of money, especially when they give me the killer
drink deals! But it shines a glaring bile-tinted light on
the “state of the union” when some putty-twats
showing their tits will pack a rock club better than a great
local band will.
The first sign that this show sucked was the19 women in the
pee line - that’s criminal neglect of the dickless.
With nothing else to do in line but survey the ladies-in-waiting,
I reached a quick consensus on what the Suicide Girls are
all about. “Really hot girls who get naked, and they’re
PUNK.” Punk: another word - like “freedom”
- whose meaning has been shoved up its own ass.
Pee peed and drinks drank, I ventured into the burlesque room
to find the place so jammed that there was no way I was getting
near the stage. Rather than some innovative “punk”
strip music, they were playing that old classic cliche, The
Stripper. I did get a gander at a couple chicks making out
with each other on stage… why did I think this was gonna
be alternative erotica? Last I heard, “punk” meant
something beyond tattoos and piercings, and being slightly
more radical than the ol’ Playboy mentality. Seems to
me that punk was once a close relative to the gender equality
movement.
You have not come a long way, baby.
Other than all the dorky guys I’ve never seen at EMO’S
before; there was nothing new to see here. I say, if it doesn’t
rock, it ain’t worth fighting the crowd.
-
Bek Sabbath
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This panda-cute little cell of illegally foreign terrorists
presents more evidence that the once great rock-n-roll-inventing
country known as America is no more. The Japanese rock harder
than we do. They have a better sense of humor. They dress cooler,
and they have cooler haircuts.
Peelander-Z has a Giant Robot grip on the
true meaning of rock. The crowd was freaking out, utterly
slayed by Peelander’s fist-pumping, rock-you-to-death
hysteria. Paparazzi! Wrestler masks and safety helmets! Dude
in a yellow chemical-plant-meltdown jumpsuit, climbing the
beams. The band held up a sign: “bass player wanted!”
– a volunteer came up and replaced the bass player,
who disappeared from the stage. More signs followed, until
all band members were replaced with placebos. Through the
chaos, the original Peelander was found on the floor, rolling
and humping in sheets of beer swill – some kind of bowling-with-human-bodies
game.
Meanwhile the rock never stopped. Eventually
Peelander reformed on stage to pound out the rest of the show.
In the end they were encored by the crowd clapping S-A-TUR-DAY
– hey! Can we get extra cheese on that?
- Bek Sabbath
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