I
managed to get out of the house on a school night on Tuesday,
2/19/2019. I ventured out to the Mr. Smalls Theater to witness Bob
Mould, one of my punk rock heroes, throw down.
Due to
the weather, instead of standing outside in the cold, I decided to
check out the cafe that has been opened in the basement of the
building. After reading the menu board, I had intentions of ordering
the impossible burger but was told that I was unable to do so because
it was Tuesday. I was then handed a cardboard menu with a few
different taco-like items to choose from. In all my life, I never
thought that the words “Fuck taco Tuesday” would ever form in my
brain. At least the coffee still came in a cup instead of a
tortilla.
As I
sat there waiting for two overpriced tofu tacos to be cooked up, two
other people came in from the cold and ordered drinks. They were a
well dressed couple in their mid-fifties. For whatever reason, the
male decided that he needed to give the two employees a heaping pile
of verbal shit. I guess he thought he was cool because he was
hanging out at a club on a school night waiting to see Bob Mould. I
don't know what his deal was and neither did his wife. She was
visibly embarrassed and kept her eyes focussed squarely on the bar in
front of her and did not look up until they left. I hope she knows
that it's never too late to get a divorce. Sadly, this guy was just
a small taste of the dipshit buffet that I was about to encounter.
The
crowd could best be described as a pudgy, balding, white sausage
fest. For those who are worried that white guys are going extinct,
you should have been at Mr. Smalls that night. It was like this
treasure trove of stupid called a meeting or something.
By the
time the venue filled up, everyone looked like a current day Billy
Joel, Marc Maron or business casual douche. Although, I did see one
of the Tommy Lee look-a-likes from Howler's back in December.
They
all stopped to look at the soundboard like they'd know what to do
with it. I had never seen such a large collection of people that all
thought that they were the smartest and funniest people in the room.
Of
course I got stuck next to the geniuses that were extolling the
virtues of a Deep Purple cover band for well over fifteen minutes. Luckily, the opening act, Murder For Girls, came out and was
immediately let down by the sound guy.
I had
never seen a sound guy work so hard for such miserable results. He
was turning dials and moving faders but having absolutely no affect
on what I was hearing. It was almost as if the band was only allowed
to use the mains for vocals.
Through
the duration of Murder For Girls' set, the Deep Purple cover band
idiots wouldn't stop running their mouths and had their backs turned
to the band. Somehow they still applauded after each song. I almost
wanted to ask them what they were applauding since they hadn't shut
up long enough to actually hear the band play. Maybe they would have
heard something they liked and learned something new that would take
them beyond cover bands. That's when I remembered that these hipster
douchebags already knew everything and didn't need to hear a new
band.
Just as
my patience was wearing thin, Bob Mould hit stage and almost shut
these morons up. I really couldn't tell what was happening on stage
for the first five songs because one of these idiots kept leaning
over right in front of me to try to read the sound engineer's set
list. His head was close enough to my face that I could have gone
full Mike Tyson and bit his ear. He finally walked around the
barrier and pushed some other people out of the way in order to get a
closer look at it. I guess he was one of the growing ranks of people
that thinks patience is not a virtue.
From
the looks of it, Bob Mould was full of energy and in fine voice but
his guitar sound was very thin. There was low end for days but the
reason to go see Bob Mould is to hear him play guitar and there was
not a bit of it in the mix.
It was
funny to see the difference between his reaction and that of the
crowd when it came to the new songs versus the old songs. He'd lean
into the new material while the crowd kind of sat back, not really
knowing what to do. On the old songs, the crowd would go nuts but
then Bob Mould would use those songs to almost take a breather and
get ready for the next new song. Realizing that he did have a crowd
to serve while wanting to let loose on the new songs.
Again,
if it wasn't for other humans, I probably would have had a great time
out of the house. But that seems to be the great compromise these
days.
* * *
This
past Sunday night (2/24/2019), I found myself at the Rex Theater to
experience the mayhem that is the band Le Butcherettes.
Sadly,
I was among one of the few people in the area that had the same idea. The crowd was small enough that it probably could have fit in my
basement. I'm sure if it were a Deep Purple cover band playing, the
city would have come out in droves. By the end of the night, the
venue was barely at half capacity and those of us that did make the
journey were given the great opportunity to witness one of the best
bands that ever played music.
Local
band Dinosoul fought through a lack of sound in their monitors to
turn in a great set. Once I saw that the house engineer was the same
disinterested sound guy from a now defunct club, I suddenly
understood why they had such an uphill battle. That guy was always
too busy on his phone to figure out that the players in a band might
need to hear each other through the monitors in order to play
together.
Dinosoul's
sound is more fleshed out than the first time I heard them and now
they seem to know what direction they want to head in with their
post-punk darkness. I will gladly add them to the list of bands that I will
try to check out more frequently.
Stars
At Night were up next and holy shit were they a bunch of fun. As
soon as the singer said that they were from Los Angeles their
approach made so much more sense to me. The band had confidence,
swagger and charisma for weeks so they were able to win the crowd
over instantly. And they definitely had a touch of the old school,
pre-hardcore, LA punk influence in their sound.
After a
quick change over, singer Teri “Gender Bender” Suarez and Le
Butcherettes hit the stage like Godzilla on Tokyo. She could give
Iggy Pop a run for his money for the title of most explosive singer
in rock music. Gender Bender's approach to performance is like that
of a gleeful serial killer that would eat your face in a back alley
while grinning from ear to ear the entire time.
Their
new album, bi/MENTAL, has been a daily listen since I got my
grubby little hands on it and hearing the new songs live was a shock
to the system. “father/ELOHIM” was the stand out track on both
the album and their live set. That song is the perfect example of Le
Butcherettes checking all of the boxes of what they do best.
During
“mother/HOLDS” there was a sudden screaming in the crowd. It was
the members of Stars At Night screaming along to the parts of the
song that were handled on the album by punk rock legend Alice Bag.
The
current drummer in Le Butcherettes, Alejandra Robles-Luna, plays with
such fury that she matches Teri Gender Bender hurricane to hurricane
in order to hold it all together. The way in which Robles-Luna
attacked the song “Dress Off,” from Sin Sin Sin, was
mesmerizing. The bass player and guitar/synth player were doing
their best to keep out of the way until the song was over.
I was
kicking myself for not taking my camera when I saw that there were a
few other folks there taking pictures. Instead I was stuck with
taking shitty cellphone pictures the whole night. It's a hard call
to make when it's a ticketed show with a “promoter.” I didn't
feel like having some sort of altercation with the staff and end up
having to walk the camera back to my car. At least I was able to
focus on the bands and not have to worry about getting enough shots
in. Maybe next time.
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