This is a review of a show I saw at The Smell back in April. I was in the crack mother city - LA, for the first time in 4 years and decided that it was about time I went to check out the venue. I had heard excellent things about it - all ages, serving only vegan food, with a community vibe about it that appeals to the old Fugazi fan in me. I was a little kid in India when those guys toured and helped open up the all ages scene that Dischord kick-started in the early 80's. When I got older I used to read with a wide eyed wonder about their idealism and work ethic. The Smell continues things in the same spirit - the slogan and band name 'No Age' painted on the closed, steel front on Main Street comes from a SST comp from 87. They obviously take their cues from the hardcore community spirit and heritage. As evidenced from the organizers' slightly stiff reaction to the Fag Bashers antics, one could also say that they share some of that scene's uptight self righteousness.
The show was advertised as The International Noise Conference - a reference perhaps to the famous 1991 International Pop Underground Convention organized by K records. The acts that went on before the Bashers, played short 5 - 10 minute sets with minimal set up and fuss. They mostly consisted of a single person with a deck, effects pedals and mic. The night was tight and the impact focused. Walls of squall, recoiling power noise and thrusting feedback reached deep into my ears and opened my tympanum to all audible frequencies - The effect of the sound on my ears was akin to a psychedelic, revealing the full possibility for hearing, like psylocibin divulges the subconsciousness to the brain. The short set times meant that no one got bored or tired of the aural assault we were subjected to. I felt a sense of calm come over me that I have seldom felt at a concert.
Typically concerts tend to set me on edge - the palpable smells of alcohol, weed and the hint of sex, all conspire to make me slightly uncomfortable, and I have to lubricate myself with a few beers to overcome my natural reserve. In keeping with the spirit of the venue I arrived with nothing more than Ramen and caffeine in my stomach (Little Tokyo is a few blocks away and just down Main street is a friendly coffee shop called Groundwork). The aural assault had the paradoxical effect of calming me even further. In short I was ripe meat for the Fag Bashers set.I was seated on the couch in the main room next to the bookshelf. I am hoping that they get around to posting the video of the night, so that everyone who reads this can get a clearer picture of the mayhem, the two members of the band staged, and see how incongruously they fit with the rest of the event. The video posted on their myspace site-
of an earlier show gives one a good idea of their get up and M.O. - two thoroughly skinny guys in football jerseys, with an amp, mic, boom box, busted looking drumkit and a stack of empty kegs. At first, I was not aware that they were part of the show because they were the first band to play in that well lit corner of The Smell.
A Nickelback song started to play on the boom box. The reaction of the smattering of scenesters and noise freaks, me included, as the song started to play was priceless. Everyone froze. Not a head bobbed. One enlightened hipster started to ironically shake his head to the song for a few seconds. Nothing could have caused more discomfort among the assembled noisea-rat-i, than the simple act of playing this thoroughly populist number, in the middle of such an elitist show. Now, I have seen groups of kids at the bar down the street from where I live in Allentown sing along to that same song tons of times, their faces filled with joy, like the dancing and singing congregation at a black church. Their faces seemed to convey the feeling that they were being understood by those rock stars, their workaday lives expressed in the singer's nasal whine, that to my ears dripped with overproduced compassion. I would bury my head in my beer and try not to meet any faces.
I would have given a lot of money to see one of those guys squirm through some of the sets I saw that evening and then, see a grin light up his face when this song played. To see the reaction of the people around him when he sang along enthusiastically, would have been precious. You want to talk about a red state blue state divide - there it is, in an oversimplified and somewhat disingenuous way.
Here I must digress and provide a link to a great article in the venerable Onion titled "Local Hipster Over-Explaining Why He Was At The Mall".
Everyone of us has at some time in their life been guilty of a taste violation(if you believe in such things). All the cool music I listen to today, is in some sense a cover up job, to hide my history of pop indiscretions. Try as I might, I will never be able to erase the fact that I was into rap metal when it went around, or that I listened to some really weak 70s MOR and prog from my dad's collection. I think it's stupid to pretend to be superior, because today you listen to better music than the next guy. You just got lucky that someone or something tipped you off at the right time. And yes there is better music and worse music. I will defend that position, it isn't all subjective. Who gets to decide is up in the air however and it is a continuous process, like erosion or the formation of mountains.
I am very conflicted about cultural elitism of any kind, and I am guilty of it in a lot of ways. It is easy to dismiss people for their lowbrow tastes, but also incredibly lazy to do so. My best buddy in PA listens to what I consider to be horrible music, but I don't give a shit. When sites like Facebook ask you to list the music you like, all it does is make you more easily definable, and hence digestible, by people, culture and their salesmen. I am not going to let something as inconsequential as taste, in something as trivial as pop culture, choose my friends for me. Friends over Trends.
While I liked the music at The Smell, and felt comfortable with the people there, I still didn't feel a part of them either. I didn't like that all those drunk kids at the bar I frequented felt some kind of bond over a cheesy pop song, that they identified with some syrupy, rhyming drivel. Occasionally I would make the mistake of disputing their tastes, and was sometimes dismissed or ignored because of that. On the other hand, I was delighted to see the hipsters and scene crawlers at The Smell be confronted with sounds they could not tolerate. Noise, Industrial, Grindcore, insert extreme music of your choice here _______ - is supposed to be all about confrontation and subversion. What could be more discomfiting to the status quo of this crowd than Nickelback?
The squirming was great while it lasted. Comprehension eventually dawned on the audience, as the Bashers started to put on shoulder pads and one their ranks dropped to the ground to do push ups and grunt. More people gathered around their little circle as I foolishly remained seated right next to them. The two mischief makers started to thump chests, make grunting sounds and yell at each other about the massive party they were going to have tonight. A few minutes earlier I had noticed one of the guys, lets call him Mr.Yellow for the color of his jersey, peel the labels off a 6'er of O'Doul's. The reason for this dawned on me now, when they popped one of the bottles and started to chug it. This could not have gone down well with The Smell Elders, The Smellders if you will; I saw a few frowns and folded arms go up in the audience, like a steel barrier would in a larger show. What would the cops do to their "premit to operate" if they saw the bottles of fake beer, with no labels on them to prove the innocence of their contents. The two Bashers - Mr. Yellow and Mr.Blue, became more and more rowdy, tossing the empty kegs around, jumping on each other and spraying fake beer on the audience.
Mr. Yellow was pretty good about the beer spraying, limiting it mostly inside the floor space around him, except for me. Seeing that I was a chump, sitting right next to them, looked relatively harmless and was thoroughly enjoying the spectacle, he took the liberty of hosing my hair and glasses down. I did not mind it one bit. I only wished they had got more people, that they had a fireman's hose of beer, to wash the stiff bodied lack of enjoyment off some of the noise police. I understand their concern for safety and respect for the limitations of the spectacle, but I was ready for more, yet slightly scared of escalation. I had been perusing the "Industrial Culture Handbook" on that couch before they started and some of the shit those original freaks pulled was unbelievable. Compared to say a Throbbing Gristle show, this show was tame, notwithstanding what happened towards the end. The interesting stuff at the Fag Bashers show was all cerebral, though they were also a heck of a lot of fun.
Nickelback turned into Bawitabaa, turned into Korn. Their screams and jocky exhortations bled into the songs and helped recontextualise the familiar, radio-rock pap into more alien soundscapes. Formally speaking they weren't that great. "Kevin Shields", who came later in the bill, was better. Not that 'Kevin Shields' people - it was a chick who has the admirable cheek to take on the name of the MBV mastermind, and the balls to play really fucking loud, louder than any of the men who played, and just loud enough to make you shit your ears a little. It was the unbalanced atmosphere the Bashers created that carried them head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd. The same way the victorious football players they parody get carried away, at the end of a game. Eventually some of the fake beer bottles broke. Mr.Yellow, the skinnier of the two and a star showboat, made sure of this. He also made it a point to roll around a little in it and to draw blood from his arm. Later he pointed his bleeding arm into the camcorder recording the evening.
Make no mistake about it, it did not happen in the heat of the moment. It was more surgery than accident. There was the element of self consciousness to the whole performance that did not in the least take away from their commitment to jolt the audience. If you think Jim Morrison or any other infamous exhibitionist did his thing without calculation, you are definitely fooling yourself. Maybe a completely shit faced Iggy came close; I believe my man Lester Bangs when he said something to that effect, about the electrifying, spontaneous nature of Iggy's self mutilating act. However I dont think that there is anything more acutely conscious, and done for effect, than cutting or self injury. Even the old maxim states, that the best rock bands are ones that look like they are about to fall apart, but just manage to hold together.
The whole time they played I was sitting on the edge of my seat. I understood the meaning of that hoary cliche that day. I had something between a delighted grin and a clenched jaw, the whole time. To possess a sense of humor, to use it intelligently and unabashedly, is a rare thing in music. After the show, I went up to Mr. Yellow who was waiting for the bathroom to become free so he could clean up his arm, and told him that they were great and that it was the best show I had ever seen. Then I patted him on the shoulder as he just grinned and nodded his head enthusiastically. Mr. Blue helped the tired looking Smellders clean up the floor. As I stepped around the room, emotionally exhausted but razor keen in the head, I felt shards of glass crack under my shoes.
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