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.

Heck No to Techno

One of the things I miss most from my days as an obsessive, card-carrying member of Fanzine Nation is the occasional completely left-field personalities you'd run into in an otherwise predictable fanzine. One such fellow was this crazy Canadian called Nardwuar the Human Serviette, a guy whose half-annoying/half-totally awesome interviews used to show up in Flipside from time to time. Whilst cleaning my room the other day, I actually came across two Nardwuar interviews in a single 1999 issue of Flipside--yes, the famous #116 featuring Nardwuar's chats with punk rock legends Henry Rollins (Black Flag) and Mike Reno (Loverboy). Check out these first few questions to see why Nardwuar might be the greatest interviewer since Marty DiBergi!

Nardwuar vs. Mike Reno of Loverboy!

Nardwuar: Who are you?
Mike: Who am I? I'm Mike Reno, the lead singer of Loverboy.
Nardwuar: Now, Mike, have you seen the book Mondo Canuck by Geoff Pevere and Greig Dymond, where they talk about Loverboy? And it says, and I quote, "Acts like Loverboy, a 'hoser cock rock outfit' that actually released an album with the phallocentric title 'Keep It Up' carefully followed the American, arena-rock rulebook of the day." "A hoser cock rock outfit," these guys are calling you, Mike Reno!
Mike: I love it!
Nardwuar: I think that's a compliment! Don't you?
Mike: I think it is, too. We are definitely Canadian. Mind you, we're in the States most of the year touring, but "cock rock"! That's pretty good. I like that!
Nardwuar: Would you ever sell-out, Mike Reno of Loverboy, and go punk?
Mike: Punk? We started out as punk! "The Kid Is Hot Tonight" and "Little Girl" and all the songs off the first album-we kind of had definitely a flavor of punk in the beginning.
Nardwuar: Because there was a rumor at least that maybe your new album was going to be called "Heck No to Techno."
Mike: I don't think we even had that on the board. I don't know where the rumors come from but I love hearing them! You should hear the stuff I hear during a week of concert touring and interviews. "Heck No to Techno"!? That sounds great! I'm going to write that down!

For more on Mr. The Human Serviette, check out his website at www.nardwuar.com where you can find all sorts of audio/video clips and insightful reviews of a Nardwuar DVD ("One of the joys of a Nardwuar interview is the slow, creeping alienation of its interviewee," writes one Zach Hoskins) that I hope to track down someday. Until then, like the man says, "Keep on rockin' in the free world!"

17 and 1/2 Is Still Jail Bait

VARIOUS-Born Bad Volume Three(CD)

Some people will try and tell you that this series, devoted to the vintage versions of tunes that the Cramps have either covered or used as rock 'n' roll chop shops for bits and pieces of their own originals, is the greatest thing since the peanut butter and banana sandwich with mayo. Although Volume 3 doesn't quite live up to the hype, it does include the occasional moment of genuine goneness (Kip Tyler's anthropological "Jungle Hop," the Frantics' deranged "Werewolf") and three too many songs dedicated to the "Surfin' Bird" craze. Andre Williams steals the show with his sleazy r&b showstoppers "Bacon Fat" and "Jail Bait," two '56-'57 classics that are way more out there than you--or even I--deserve some 50 years after the fact. Game over. (Born Bad Records, no address)

Kaopectate Blues

CHEATER SLICKS/THE BIG DISAPPOINTMENTS/GUINEA WORMS
P.A.'s Lounge/Somerville, MA
September 8, 2007

I almost missed this one after a recent three-day grudge match with the stomach flu just missed keeping me sidelined from the show, and boy would I have been pissed off at that turn of events...knockout blow of a headlining set was the real cure for all that ailed me, the Cheater Slicks live continuing to sound something like a free jazz band in intensity but with dual feedbacking guitars instead of the brass (and no dark ties or sunglasses in sight either). Drummer Dana Hatch still looks like the guy most likely to have an onstage meltdown with all that glowering and muttering to himself, but really, there's nothing calm about any of these guys if/when you close your eyes...to my enthusiastic but increasingly jaded ears, prehistoric distortion has rarely sounded better than it did this night--and jass jokes aside, these songs swing like a motherfucker in between all that grunged-out sonic roar. In other words, some serious payback for me after a day spent swilling Kaopectate, bottled water and only one beer just to bring you this shitty review!

Rockabilly's for Squares, Just Ask Anybody

THE KINGS OF NUTHIN'/THE RAGING TEENS
Lilli's/Somerville, MA
August 31, 2001

After catching a fairly entertaining-for-a-sitdown thing Thalia Zedek solo show in Harvard Square, two friends and I booked it over to Lilli's to see if we could hang out in a less pretentious zip code for a while. Overrated whitebread rockabilly poseurs the Raging Teens were just wrapping up when we got there, a nice surprise for me since I'd been told en route that they might be headlining that night. Grrr. While I'll be the first to admit that RT lead guitarist/retro hottie Miss Amy has a cool look and a bit of a charisma vortex thing going, watching and listening to the rest of the band is so goddamn boring I can't imagine how anybody else stays awake at their gigs. Wax museum "traditional rockabilly" for people what can't handle the monstrous distortion and almost complete lack of reverence of the early Cramps./After a brief break paying off their parole officers no doubt, the Kings of Nuthin' went onstage and proceeded to rip shit up with more of that low-rent, duct tape-over-the-hole-in-the shoes-wearing trash r&r that everybody and his bastard brother seems to want to call rockabilly but really's more like one part Little Richard & the Upsetters/Esquerita-style "vintage voola" to one part post-1970s back alley garage punk whammy jammy. I don't know what the deal is with a good half their fans--local rockologists will note that the KON seem to draw the cutest girls and dumbest, most lunkheaded guys in more or less equal proportions--but the latter part of their set in partic. was unruly enough to make putting up with all the fist-waving jocks and Torr's onstage vomming worthwhile. A good time even if the rest of the bill was a little, how shall we say, Pat Boone-esque in nature.

Teengenerate Interview (1995)

Teengenerate's 11/30/95 Spaceland show in L.A. might have been the single best live show I've ever seen, a high water mark in punk for a guy who'd pretty much thought punk was dead. The Tokyo foursome first came to my attention after Flipside described 'em as "the Japanese Heartbreakers" or something like that, but live at least they came across like an even more out of control blend of late-'70s L.A. and Boston punk and high-energy r&r from various eras. After taking in one jaw-dropping blast after another, I managed to pose an extremely drunken set of questions (take that, language barrier!) to singer/guitarist Fink and his brother/lead guitarist Fifi in what would turn out to be one of the last interviews they did before calling it quits. Hope you enjoy the souvenir.

RTB: That was a great show, it was one of the best shows I've ever seen. But I've heard you guys are breaking up. Why is that?

Fink: Maybe, uh, "breaking up" is a word for big band. We are not such a big deal.

RTB: So will you continue?

Fink: I'm playing in a band with my friends and my brother, Fifi....

RTB: Oh, Fifi is your brother?

Fink: Yeah. Right. Older brother.

RTB: I didn't know that.

Fink: So I can't use "breaking up." I can't use the word. Because we are best friends each other. So Fifi wants to do something new next year. So we are just taking a break. Yeah. Maybe I'm starting new band with my friend, but it doesn't matter. If you want Teengenerate, we're going to come back.

RTB: Oh, great, great. I only heard the two CDs by you on Crypt and on Estrus. They're real raw, and the guitar sounds the way I like it. It's real loud, and it's real crunchy. On Get Action!, it was recorded on a four-track. How did you get such a great guitar sound?

Fink: How did we get it? We recorded in our practice studio, to play. It's a very small place like on the stage of here. Then the studio got various shitty amps there, almost broken. And we play loud. Then I put maybe five or six microphones somewhere, and that's it. So I don't know how to record exactly.

RTB: Uh, Japan has a reputation musically for being a noise country or, with Shonen Knife, maybe sort of a little pop country. Do you have a lot of fans in Japan?

Fink: No. Maybe in late '70s we had a lot of fanzines, like here? Or like England. Now maybe just a few.

RTB: Like, if you were to play in your home city, how many fans might you draw? How many would come to your shows?

Fink: Nobody cares about us. Nobody knows us.

RTB: Like maybe a couple of hundred people?

Fink: Sometimes just 20. Sometimes we get 100, but sometimes 20 or sometimes only 5 people.

RTB: Are you getting bigger audiences here?

Fink: Uh, yeah, I think so.

RTB: You think so? The crowd tonight seemed to really love you guys.

Fink: I hope so.

RTB: Is that standard or...?

Fink: Uh, I don't know. I guess we are too lucky. Every city, every town we play in the States, we play with cool bands. Like the Humpers tonight. Last night we played in San Diego with Loons, which is Mike Stax's new band. Yeah. Which was so cool. And we get a lot of help from cool people here, so maybe we are too lucky. Yeah.

RTB: OK. Do you consider yourselves a punk rock band or just a rock 'n' roll band?

Fink: I guess we are just a rock 'n' roll band, yeah. But, you know, I'm very into rock 'n' roll--'50s, '60s--and I guess if--'70s rock 'n' roll--I mean, into punk rock. Maybe punk rock influenced us because it's just rock 'n' roll. Yeah.

RTB: It seems like liking western music in Japan might make you more of an outcast than liking maybe traditional music? Is that true or is it OK to like western music in Japan?

Fink: If you went over there, you go over to Japan, you would feel strange because--I'm sorry, we had Japanese domestic popular music, but it's very Japanese--half Japanese, but half western. So it's kind of mixed. Kids and people over there listen to that kind of music, but we're Teengenerate, into western music only.

RTB: Do you get resentment for singing in English instead of Japanese?

Fink: Yeah, I'm trying to sing in English. But nobody understand me here.

RTB: But in Japan do they resent you or is it OK to sing in English?

Fink: Yes, some people ask me, "Why?" So I'm Japanese, but "Why are you singing English?" I always said, "Fuck you." I just don't care. I've been into rock 'n' roll music from America and from England. So they are not singing in Japanese. Rock 'n' roll was born in America. So if I want to play rock 'n' roll, I should sing in English. That's the best way.

RTB: The liner notes to Smash Hits make it sound like you guys started as maybe a bunch of record collectors. Is that true?

Fink: Maybe. Not me, Fifi. Fifi does. I'm a big fan of rock 'n' roll and punk rock so if sometimes I find some old cool single maybe somewhere in L.A., I will buy it if cheap. But Fifi doesn't care about money.

RTB: So he will buy everything?

Fink: Yeah.

RTB: You've played some shows with the New Bomb Turks, and you thanked them on your last CD. Do you feel like you're brothers in a sense?

Fink: Yes. Maybe we feel sympathy with New Bomb Turks and the Humpers and Devil Dogs--they are broken up, though--and the Ripoffs. So I think their music very good, yeah, and they are all nice people, too. So, yeah, I am happy to have made friends with those guys.

RTB: I like the Cosmic Psychos a lot....

Fink: Aw, yeah. We just played with them in Phoenix.

RTB: I heard you played with them and the New Bomb Turks both?

Fink: Yeah and the Lazy Cowgirls in Phoenix.

RTB: What was that like? What a fan would love to see, four great bands.

Fink: It was one of the highlights on this tour. Yeah. It's kind of dream. It's incredible because they are from Australia, we are from Japan, and two great groups from the States played great on the same night on the same stage. That's great, yeah.

To be continued!