I wake up at 9 am without a hangover and finally warm after freezing mostly to death in the night, wearing a hoody under 3 quilts to the strains of Van Halen's Jump and Elton John chasing after the nihilistic rock n roll spirit with a piano... and catching the son of a bitch. Arriving home last night I cranked on the stereo and the sound was fucked. There was a ton of bass but nothing in the mid and treble range. So it had to be turned up, obviously, to aid investigation. Later in darkened silence a roaring ring in my ears explained the lack of higher frequencies. The Jet Boys and God God Dammit Dammit were loud as hell. Tuxedo Cat, a great venue, an aging almost Roman decrepit beauty with bare floors, high ceilings and all kinds of romantic pillars commanding the hallways. The outside bar is a perfectly decked out old caravan and there is a row of portaloos in the gravel car park out the back. It feels like a squat party in an occupied government building.
Some kind of shambolic punk band (Pink Flamingos) are bashing out some tunes but you can't hear the vocals too well. The centre stage guitarist is looking ridiculous in a pair of Ramones boardies and slipknot-esque S & M Pinocchio mask and the singer guitarist stage right is playing a black flying V and wearing a leather get up like the blokes in the queer bar in Police Academy 1. Later he ventures into the crowd bellowing into a megaphone but the demented din of the band still drowns him out. God God were loud and white-noisey and rocking, sounding looser and better than at the Producers bar a couple of weeks ago. All 12 of them were right into it then but it sounded more like funk stitched onto reggae, stitched onto rock. Tonight it all swirls and grooves together like a twisted distorted punk party riot. The venue suits them very well. The mood is great and the crowd indulges in minimal but dedicated dancing and smiles. I then discover Johnnie Walker and Coke is being served at the bar for a not unpretty price, and I was already losing coordination. I missed Strawberry Fistcake on account of being outside smoking a cigarette for want of a cigar, my preparations for the evening were clearly incomplete. We spend most of the Jet Boys set stage left next to the soundbeast on a comfy velvet pew watching the chaos unfold. After some problems getting the bass amp to be heard (which were swiftly and resourcefully corrected) they rip full bore into their set and some classic stage diving kicks off. The trio from Tokyo are blasting out 3 chord punk in the original style but in the melee of the moment it starts to stray into the hypnotic extreme noise rock world of Mainliner (great Japanese band), a maniacal side shoot of the Acid Mothers Temple Soul Collective, or have I got them on the brain after seeking solace in their noise this afternoon from the terror of financial tables. Good times.
A fragmented memory of a male blow up doll with a mustache being flung around the stage and crowd comes back to me. Then the singer is in a red g-string, then naked and doing handstands, flopping minimally yet majestically about, and the bass player is up on the high scaffold where a God Dammit brassman was rocking out earlier on. They go offstage much to everyone's disappointment. But come back and play a garbled but great Sid Vicious style version of My Way which finally pulls my lazy ass off the pew and into the fray.
