zZz - McMenamins Mission Theatre - March 12, 2017



[Amsterdam] I was there for the next band but this band was just so damned loveable. So loveable I felt guilty – never trust something so easy - or go on and admit you’ve got no taste. Despite all that, they outshone the headliners. Kind of synth punk. Kind of industrial dance. Instead of drum n bass, it was drum n organ (and drum n keyboard). Very The Faint or Adult. – maybe a little Gun Club - a sound I’m generally a total sucker for. The side guy in the baseball cap went from psych-y organ to dirty synth but it was the drummer/vocalist who mesmerized. First, his voice – I went from thinking he sounded like Ian Curtis … to thinking Billy Idol … and then Bono … Lemmy … Danzig. I stand by every single one of them.  One of the first songs was all raunchy and sexy (and dumb) (“When I come home… watch your back girl… we’re hitting the sack girl”) … but the guy’s all sweaty and shaggy and pouchy-eyed …. and it Totally works – everyone, including the bearded guy to my left, wanted to be his girl. A Chili Cold Blood or Legendary Shack Shakers vibe (without pube-hair throwing). By the end of the set, he was giving the microphone head – for reasons unclear to me. He did manage to make it growl-scream but I’m not convinced he didn’t just need to lick something. Fittingly, the seemingly-healthy guy next to me opened with: “I’ve switched to boxed wine and I’m worried my convenience store lady will miss me showing up for sixths of vodka” – at least some of us are still resisting a post-truth world. And better than my Saturday at the coffee shop surrounded by contract doulas, yoga teachers in training, and a girl weeping because the poor can’t understand how good organic food is for them. My dating market is desperate women and undateable men. Earlier, I was sitting next to a couple of guys and one was saying, “Yeah she was mad at me on Sunday, and the day after that… [chuckle] and the day after that.”

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