Primitive!

MR. AIRPLANE MAN/DIGGER AND THE PUSSYCATS/THE ALMIGHTY TERRIBLES/HOSPITAL RATS
Abbey Lounge/Somerville, MA
September 22, 2007

Although I went a miserable 0-4 on my gentile's Yom Kippur scorecard (i.e. no fasting, prayer, abstaining from physical pleasures or refraining from work for me last Saturday), seeing one last Mr. Airplane Man show before they hung up their local cleats again made it more than worthwhile for me. Closing with an encore of "Telephone" (my request) instead of "Jesus on the Mainline" (what everybody else was asking for) would have made for a much more punk rock exclamation point to this so-called Day of Atonement thing, but I won't dwell on that "oversight" since the rest of their set was so goddamned swanky. Gone, Goner Records and just plain gonest punk/blues duo we're going to see in a long time (too bad Junior Kimbrough and the Oblivians weren't on hand to send them off in style)./I missed the Hospital Rats and wish I had missed more of the Almighty Terribles, whose grating songs about beer drinking and pussy reminded me of the garage rock equivalent of a hair metal band or something. Digger and the Pussycats have a similarly moronic outlook but with more unpredictable songs and Melbourne accents, so they occas. struck me as a younger, dumb and dumber two-piece Cosmic Psychos (visually enhanced with lots of onstage spitting at each other) in their more happening moments at least. I liked them but not enough to buy a CD.