Squat Thrust / Hug
Rockstars - 2/14/04

You should always wear protective gear when attending a Texas Rollergirls function, but you need to be especially cautious when attending a party specifically for the Rollergirls. The new bar, Jackalope, on Sixth Street was the host of this year’s WHAMMY awards banquet, and the ladies were dressed to the nines. This was a night to celebrate last season’s accomplishments and ramp up to the new season starting February 22 at Playland.
Dave the Body kicked off the evening with a tribute to lost penalty mistress, Amberdiva, and then handed off the emcee duties to Miss Whiskey L’amour and Hot Wheels who presented league and team awards complete with video footage. Weeman of Jackass fame was on the arm of Hustler Rose Royce and they alone could have ripped the roof off the place, but that was before the crowbar fight. Apparently, Hell Mary Misty Meaner (Best Ass) and Hustler Dinah-mite (MVP, Best Jammer & Best Take Out) got into it over a Jen Entonic. Luckily, Melicious (Miss Texas Rollergirl, Best Rack) was able to wedge in between the ladies and break it up before the crowbar damaged any of the priceless velvet paintings of busty ladies scattered throughout the bar.
It was indeed a night to remember with enough boob flashing and booty shaking to make a significant contribution to “Rollergirls Gone Wild!” While the night was about Rollergirls and how much booze they can really hold down, time was taken to pin (the pin said “The Texas Rollergirls Love Me”) all the many volunteers, trainers and supporters who help make all this hoopla possible. Become a valued Texas Rollergirls supporter and you too could attend this private, uncensored event. You can see the madness for yourself at txrollergirls.com. –Beth Sams, a.k.a. Scarlot Harlot

Happy V.D. – and a good place to find some oozing, undiagnosed cases is an all-ages show. By 6pm the line of kids wrapped around the arcade, like a black army of ants stunned near-dead in their tracks by a blast of pesticide. Styled-out kiddies with eyeliner by the assload waited patiently as terminal cancer victims. Such dedication to putrescence and heresy warms my entrails.
After shmoozing Exhumed backstage, I had to cross the road to eat a dead chicken, so I missed the first band, Vile. But I’m sure they were.
Holy stool-loosener! Exhumed ripped my face off. Then they riveted my pulpy cranium with contaminated surgical tools. This band is the prototype of gore-grind, with awesome death-metal vocals – ultra evil sub-woof cookie, coming from the bass player and guitarist. Lead singer/guitarist Matt Harvey does the Tasmanian-devilish screech thing. The guitar leads were sick, sickety sick – heaving like projectile vomit, jittering like malaria, squealing like vermin foul with the Black Death.
To demonstrate the greatness of this band, I would throw myself upon the rocks of the tide pool to be eaten by crabs.
Hypocrisy came off more black-metal, mushier and slower paced with a good heavy beat, cool double guitar leads, and symphonic-doom filler that must have been pre-recorded because there were no keyboards in sight. The ghoulish singer had a nice raspy screech. They sounded OK but I was choking so I went outside for some air.
There wasn’t any out there. So I’m standing around shivering, huffing tour-bus fumes with teenage gutter punks. OK, I could stand outside in a freezing cloud of diesel, or go back in and stew in a thick, clingy vapor of carcinogenic chemicals. Or skip Cannibal Corpse and go home to six beers for the price of one. Hmmm.
It’s inspiring to see so many young’uns escape the clutches of Me-U-Sick-TV and Tits-n-Ass Records Inc., and find their way to extreme anti-pop music. You kids should be proud; in this area, you are not suckers. I just got one thing to say to all you butt-smoking jail bait. You do not look cool with a cigarette hanging out your face. You look like an underage dork sucking on a pacifier. When that skanky stream of smoke spews out your pouty little mouth, you look like one of those poor puppy dogs in a “safety-testing” lab with their noses duct-taped to a smoke pump. It’s morbidly depressing to see the new generation suck up to the stupidest consumer habit ever offered by the corporate death star. Hello 911? The Marlboro Man is poisoning our metal kids and stealing their beer money! -Bek Sabbath

Rumor said the big attraction tonight was this all-girl Black Sabbath tribute band, Mistress of Reality. Burdened with the tag ‘Black Sabbath Beky’ I had to be hopped up on the idea. But I was also afraid. Tribute bands usually nauseate me to some degree. And all-girl bands, well, I’ve been there (to Hell and back). So I was feeling a double-whammy of “this was done, and it should never be done again.”
Opening band Shiv slipped under my slaydar, but I saw them rip at Stubbs so I can tell ya their new-fangled style is way ahead of the time zone for a show paying tribute to the primordial era of heavy metal.
Drifter, the Iron Maiden tribute, was a total Spinal Tap experience. The four post-30 guys had the look down perfect: long elfish hair (one with bangs, even), big dorky sneakers and jeans. The singer stepped up and I wondered, are we gonna get Bruce Dickinson or Paul Dianno? We got a little of both, and the guy did a great job, almost dead-on Dickinson when he went characteristically flat on the high notes.
Underage or over the hill, they crawled out of the woodwork for this one. We even had ‘80s bondage pants in the house. But the most glorious sighting was our local die-hard rock fan, Dave Prewitt, host of the Rawtime show, leading the sing-along in front of the stage. Overall it looked like true metal fans of all ages, flocking for even an imitation of their beloved founders of power metal. Drifter shredded through the classic Maiden songs with satisfying precision, and their professional but fun attitude made it all digestible.
So the Black Sabbath band was up next. Anticipation was high.
The Mistresses filed onto the stage. My stomach caved. Their perfectly saturated makeup did not hide the look of weary, jaded attitudes. Something was holding them up. Technical difficulties? Finally the Ozzy of the group got up there. Her neon-red-dyed hair was about as un-70s-gloom-metal as anything. Well, no matter, looks aren’t everything. It’s about the music.
So it began - we had sound! The doom beat of “Black Sabbath” came down. “What is this that stands before me?” - a wide-hipped woman with her back to the crowd and her arms raised in mystical worship… of the back door? I grew anxiously aware of the BLASPHEMY we were about to witness – a mortals’ mockery of a singular greatness in heavy metal history.
The wenches had a reasonably solid grip on their sound, but my fairy boots failed to quake. Then the She-Ozz turned around to face us. “Oh no!!!” She stalked the stage, glaring at the crowd in a most unnerving, evil-clown manner. Wince. I flexed my tolerance, determined to give these broads a fair chance. I would hear out the redeeming elements of this production…
The head Mistress reached out to us, and bellowed: “Come on, San Antonio! – I mean Austin! Austin!” That was it. The beast within (my true opinion) was unleashed.
This woman’s non-Ozzyness and self-deprecatory presence was unbearably annoying. Her voice was not the husky, half-baked boyish Ozzy-morphism I’d hoped for, but a plain old decent female singing voice, void of the character for which the world so loved Ozzy. Without that, this whole spectacle was worse than pointless.
So please excuse me, as of 3/4 through the first song. I have nothing for you but some tasteless Ricky Lake comparisons. -Bek Sabbath

[as always, if you have a different take on this show, you’re welcome to send it in to www.rankandrevue.com]

Piel performed at the Backroom on a recent Sunday, and it was a show worth catching. The stage presence is there; the talent is there; and the song writing is there. It was a refreshing change from the typical four-chord local band, and the band had the audience’s attention throughout the set. The singer was flailing spastically to the rhythm. I thought I was going to have to run on stage and put a broom handle in his mouth to keep him form swallowing his tongue. Piel’s minor setback was the guitarist’s obsession with his delay pedal. It made his playing sometimes indistinguishable, and you definitely couldn’t hear what he was saying when he talked into the mic.
Okay, aside from using delay too much, Piel was entertaining and interesting. Their sound was spacey and intricate. Piel had groovin’ bass lines, a loud wall of sound guitar, and solid drumming that was original and explosive. I would recommend going to see Piel next time they play. They bring something worth seeing. –Richard Knox

Perseverance seems to be Tia Carrera’s saving grace. Evidently practice does make perfect, because Tia’s thunderous, psychedelic rock has matured over the last couple of years into a cleaner, less improvisational animal. Those fuzzy, loud, almost intrusive riffs from a few years back are now taut and tight. The trio allows one another the perfect amount of musical freedoms resulting in a rhythm I can only compare to great sex. This is probably why my favorite Tia song is “Making Love.” Honestly, they started out in 2001 as nothing more than a noisy jam band, using happy hours at Room 710 as free practice sessions. Well, they have long since come into their own. The band’s direction is solidly grounded in Erik Conn’s powerhouse drumming. Jason Morales (guitar) and Andrew Duplantis (bass) are perfectly balanced as Morales indicates with the slightest head nod when and where to make chord changes. In that respect, it is still somewhat improvisational, but for the most part I know the songs after just a few seconds of Conn’s mighty drumming or Morales’s stealthy riffs.
Pong’s own patented brand of psychedelia headlined the show and had everyone shaking their asses until they could shake them no more. Pong was its usual flamboyant, colorful, loud and flashy self. They satiated and thoroughly stimulated every identifiable sensation known to women and men alike. Larry Strub and Lyman Hardy’s funky bass and drum rhythms mingled with Gary Chester and Jason Craig’s frenzied guitar riffs producing nothing short of an ass-slapping, boogie commotion. Throw Shane Shelton’s keyboard mayhem into the mix, and it’s like feeding Viagra to a sixty-year-old man—the band is fired up and could go all night. Add their signature party lights and smoke machines to the show, and it is the sweet, strawberry icing on a dense, chocolate cake. -Marianna M.