1/2MOONEY SUZUKI
+ MAZARIN
+ LAZY COWGIRLS
+ DATSUNS
@ Club Clearview, Dallas
March 16 2002
A coupla random observations to start: 1) As no less an authority than Ross
the Boss of the Dictators pointed out a coupla weeks ago when the Dics did Dallas,
"Girls LIKE rock'n'roll now!" It's not like it was a coupla years
ago anymore, when a show like this woulda drawn a house full of middle-aged
guys in black T-shirts trying to look 15 years younger than they really are
(sorry, Geoff), in addition to the slumming yups. Au contraire, nowadays, sisters
are doin' it for THEMSELVES; to wit, showing up in goodly numbers (with or without
guys) to dig the Rawk. I saw several of 'em pushing other audience members around
and adding to the beer bottle-smashing quotient (a Texas thang, I'm told), not
to mention the one who came up to me and started grinding her ass into my pelvis
as I was communing with the sensitive, poetic spirit of the Lazy Cowgirls' front
guy Pat Todd. All in all, a good trend, I think. 2) Absent distinctive songs,
all the energy and excitement under the Sun can wind up being boring. Not that
that applies to anyone on this bill in particular.
What To Do Instead of Going to SXSW, Round Two: take in some of the "Southwest
Sampler" at Club Clearview in Dallas' Deep Ellum. I hadn't seen the Mooney
Suzuki in a couple of rhythm sections, and the pairing of the storming Jersey
kings of high-energy garage/Mod jams with the Lazy Cowgirls, distinguished ELDER
STATESMEN of rootsy punk rock'n'roll noise was just too much for me to pass
up. Before I go any further, a minor gripe: Why in the fuck were the Cowgirls
playing before Mazarin from Philadelphia, a competent enough prog-cum-Velvet
Underground derivation in somewhat the same manner as, uh, Macha (an SXSW mistake
of mine from a coupla years back), who were, in the words of the drummer from
the opening Datsuns from Hamilton, New Zealand, "good at what they do,
but it just doesn't FIT." For that matter, what were the Datsuns, on their
first trip Stateside from Antipodea, doing at the bottom of the bill? One would
think that an unknown band from the other side of the planet would rank higher
than an unknown band from a coupla thousand miles away. I know, I know..."no
justice in rock'n'roll." But still...
For their part, the Kiwi kids (their name is pronounced "DAT-suns,"
not "DAHT-suns" as Americans insist on mispronouncing it), who might
have weighed 400 pounds between four of 'em, purveyed an energetic brand of
MC5-influenced, dual guitar-driven excitement familiar to fans of innumerable
bands of Aussie cousins and like-minded Scandis like the Hellacopters. The classic
sound of Gibson guitars and Fender amps (or Music Man, which Leo designed, after
all) sliced through the air (I saw the lead guitarist of a higher-billed band
making "rock'n'roll earplugs" out of a ripped up matchbook) and their
bassplayer/frontman worked the fairly sizable crowd of apathetic shufflers with
admirably aplomb. An auspicious start to the evening.
Talking to Pat Todd at the merch counter before the Lazy Cowgirls hit (their
website is down for maintenance
but should be back soon), it was surprising to hear him express doubt that anyone
in Dallas would care much about his band. An elfin presence on this, the day
before St. Paddy's Day (whom a friend described to me as "looking like
George Ivan Morrison but about 50 pounds lighter"), Pat helpfully held
the flashlight for punters who wanted to sign up for the Cowgirls' e-mail list
before taking the stage to briefly soundcheck. I'll admit to having missed out
on a lot of the Cowgirls' masterwork (although I have great fondness for their
"Tapping the Source" album), but I've been catching up of late...their
recent Earle Mankey-produced "Here and Now (Live!)" has been a staple
in my car for the past coupla weeks. While their Clearview set didn't include
any fully acoustic numbers the way that album did, Pat did don an acoustic guitar
for a coupla numbers from the Cowgirls' 2000 "Somewhere Down the Line"
album, from which they drew heavily on this night. Hopefully Pat was pleased
with the positive audience response, which included some of the female shenanigans
I alluded to earlier.
Lately I've been thinking about how it is that the MAJORITY of people dig "Exile
On Main St." (a cultural signifier if ever there was one; is there a rock
album that cuts across more demographic and subcultural lines in terms of influence
and respect?) more than they do the MC5. I'm thinking it has a lot to do with
the fact that most folks experience the Rawk (okay, call it MUSIC, then) through
the medium of records (CDs, tapes, MP3s, whatever...call it RECORDED MEDIA)
than they do through live performance.. Is it any wonder, then, that they want
a music that isn't reliant on the memory of a live performance to evoke emotions
or experience? (Christ, I'm starting to sound like Paul Williams here.) The
Stones' fictive American South seems to be particularly evocative. Recently
I've heard echoes of it in records I dig as diverse as Wilco's "Being There,"
the Yayhoos' "Fear Not the Obvious" (although the sloppy-drunk Faces
seem to be as big of a signifier for Messrs. Baird, Ambel and Co. as Mick and
the boys), and the Hydromatics' "Powerglide." The Cowgirls, meanwhile,
are TAPPING into the same original American root SOURCE music, Caucasian strain
(that'd be COUNTRY to y'all) that the Stones were via their associations with
Gram Parsons and Ry Cooder. ("Here and Now" includes covers of songs
by Bill Monroe and Billy Joe Shaver, and do ya remember their version of Jim
Reeves' "Heartache?") Fertile ground, that, and the beauty of the
Cowgirls' approach to it is that they claim it in exactly the same way as they
claim their punk forebears like the Ramones and the Saints.
Unfortunately, the Cowgirls' set is marred by your typical Clearview opening
band shitty sound mix, with Todd's vocals buried underneath the roar of Michael
Leigh's guitar. This is remedied only somewhat during the course of the performance.
A pity, that, as the Cowgirls are one band where songcraft makes all the difference.
Pat's an engaging performer, projecting lotsa personality even when he's nearly
inaudible. He leans into the audience like a man facing a typhoon (occasionally
heading back to the drum riser to pour honey down his throat from one of those
little plastic bear things, something I'd never seen before), and his energy
infects the band; bassist Leonard Keringer's marvelously awkward Townshend-jumps
are a joy to behold. Pat dominates the stage even when guit-slinger Leigh takes
a vocal on the Flamin' Groovies' "Second Cousin" (and it's either
indicative of my encroaching senility or what a classic the Groovies have become
that when I first heard this cover on "Here and Now," I had to struggle
to remember what ancient '50s rock'n'roll movie Jerry Lee Lewis had sung this
song in, when of course it only dates back as far as the Groovies' classic '70
"Flamingo" album). And the drummer (sorry, I didn't catch his name)
fits in fine in spite of this only being his seventh gig with the Cowgirls (he's
just helping out for the tour, he explains).
The Cowgirls' set was, if anything, too short (I copped a setlist afterwards
and saw that Pat had to excise two songs to stay on schedule). Here's hoping
next time they hit Big D the promoter has the decency to put 'em at the top
of the bill, where they belong. (And give 'em more than a cursory sound check.)
In fairness to Mazarin, I'll admit that I didn't catch their entire set. On
the contrary, I was preoccupied with trying to consume as much beer as possible
before the price for a bottle of Shiner went up from $2.25 to $4.00 at 11 o'clock,
and after that, with finding a place to get rid of some of the surplus. Club
Clearview is part of a complex that also includes the Art Bar and a coupla dance
clubs (disco and, uh, HOUSE, I think, but I wouldn't swear to it; not up on
my dance music genres, I'm afraid), which makes every visit to the latrine a
SOCIOLOGICAL EXPERIENCE. Like the aforementioned Macha and Bedhead, another
allegedly VU-influenced band I once saw perform in the mid-nineties, Mazarin
plays a valid form of rock music; it just happens to be one I don't like (too
arty, too sterile). They have their own kind of excitement; it just isn't one
that I respond to at all.
Finally, the Mooney Suzuki. I've been raving about these guys since catching
their act at SXSW two years ago, and since then they've only increased their
assurance and professionalism, in spite of a few personnel changes in the rhythm
section. True to form, they've already experienced vehicular difficulties in
Texas (two years ago they had to cancel a Dallas appearance when their van broke
down enroute from Austin; last year their tour ended in nearby Denton due to
another breakdown; this year they hit a deer in Austin and ruined their radiator).
In spite of Mazarin having lost probably a quarter of the audience, frontman
Sammy James, Jr. and guitarist Graham Tyler quickly galvanize the crowd into
what passes in Dallas for an ecstatic frenzy. It's not too hard to figure out
why, either: four young, good-looking guys going apeshit onstage. The gals are
clustered up at the front, and one of 'em blows up a condom to attach to Sam's
mic stand before he takes the stage. Subtle? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Sam's hip to
it, too. "The men don't know, but the little girls understand," Howlin'
Wolf said. Sam's take on it: "In a young man's mind, it's a simple world/There's
a little room for music and the rest is girls."
These guys stay in frenetic, almost cartoon-like motion throughout the set.
I worry about Tyler in 20 years, like a punch-drunk fighter, his brain come
unstuck from shaking his head so hard, so constantly. When he's not doing MC5-style
backbends onstage, he's climbing on top of tables or riding audience members'
shoulders. Sam's mastered the Townshend windmill in addition to his other James
Brown-derived stage business, and his climactic guitar duel with Tyler at the
end of the set is every bit as riveting as the one between Wayne Kramer and
Fred Smith at the end of "Rocket Reducer No. 62." The Mooneys' new
Jim Diamond-produced shiny silver disc "Electric Sweat" (on Gammon,
due in stores April 9th) is the best studio representation yet of their live
fury, with strong songs to boot, but live, the tunes are just vehicles for the
Mooneys to pitch their mojo.
Besides the album's title track and the aforementioned "In a Young Man's
Mind," "Oh Sweet Susanna" is the champ among the current tunes,
but for my money, the ace songs in the set are all from 2000's "People
Get Ready": "A Song About Today," "Make My Way," "Yeah
You Can." When their old set-opener "And Begin" materializes
like an old friend in the middle of the set, it serves both to re-energize the
proceedings and evoke memories: remember the good old days at Emo's back in
2K?
- Ken Shimamoto
1/2
