The Big Green House

Friday, June 06, 2003

 

Goo Goo Muck

OK, here we go with the first-ever Big Green House Concert Review:

Last night, Science Girl and I saw The Cramps, Quintron and Miss Pussycat, and The Millionaires at The Showbox, in Beautiful Downtown Seattle.

It�s always a pleasant surprise to see a band you�ve never heard of and be blown away. That�s why I usually try my best to catch the opening bands. I want to find that diamond in the rough. I don�t hit paydirt every time, of course; there are some really shitty bands out there whose only purpose is to open shows and make the headliner look good by comparison. So as The Millionaires took the stage, I found myself fervently thinking �Please don�t suck please don�t suck please don�t suck� over and over.

It didn�t work.

Look, if you�re a singer and you hit the stage wearing a top hat, dog collar, torn fishnet bodysuit and black G-string, your band had better be able to deliver the goods. Otherwise you�re gonna wind up looking worse than the biggest doofus imaginable, a runner-up in the �Ooh, I�m a decadent rock star, yes I am� sweepstakes, and clever music fans such as myself will have a great deal of fun at your expense, in a very public manner, at every opportunity. Such is the case with The Millionaires, purveyors of worn out Rock clich�s and second rate, third hand metallisms to a world that couldn�t give a fat rat�s ass. Ordinarily I take no joy in slagging off bands (well, not much, anyway), but I�m gonna make an exception in their case. I cannot stress this enough: they were the lamest, most boring openers I�ve ever seen in almost 25 years of attending shows, and I saw Cutting Crew open for The Bangles AND The Alarm open for Bob Dylan. SG and I both agreed that they would probably be much happier forming an LA Guns tribute band, or something else equally avoidable for the discerning concert-goer.

As for Quintron and Miss Pussycat� they�re essentially a parody lounge act, more or less. I dunno. I�m all for irony and such, but as far as I can see it�s not a big jump from �camp� to �kitsch�. Not really my cup of fur, to tell the truth, but as SG pointed out, at least they�re having fun while they�re performing. Points awarded to Miss Pussycat for her hat (what appeared to be a Koosh ball strapped to her head that wobbled this way and that) and the color-coordinated maraca cozies. Other than that, I didn�t get much out of their show, and the ten-minute puppet show at the end of their set was just a waste of everybody�s time.

Wow. This is really turning out nasty. Can�t I say anything positive? Well, yes. I�m getting to the good stuff, so just be patient.

First off, I�d like to say that The Showbox was much better ventilated than I remembered. Also, I�d very much like to thank the bartender who gave me a double bourbon and soda for the price of a single. God bless you, sir or madam. (It was SG�s round.)
But let�s just skip all that foofaraw and get down to what this is supposed to be about, namely, The Cramps. This is a band that knows how to get it done right.

SG and I were talking about the differences between The Cramps and The Millionaires this morning. There were many. Aside from the obvious ones like talent, creating their own act, and impeccable taste in covers (�Psychotic Reaction�, �Surfing Bird� and The Fabulous Wailers� �Hang Up� all in the same show), the biggest difference we could come up with was a sense of humor. Yeah, Lux Interior, at age 57, was bopping around the stage like a loon in vinyl pants, shirt and jacket (which would explain the torrent of what I can only hope was sweat that poured out of the leg of his pants while he was sitting on top of a stack of speakers during the encore � easily a pint or two), but he�s having fun at his own expense. He knows he looks goofy, and doesn�t care. Hell, he plays it up. The Cramps are cartoons, but in the same good way as The Ramones were.

And yes, the band does indeed deliver the goods. I don�t know who the rhythm section was � it seems to be sort of a temporary position, from what I can tell � but they were right where they needed to be all night. And Poison Ivy did her �I can melt lead at 50 feet with my deadpan stare� bit while ripping out one tuff lick after another from her hollowbody guitar. At one point during the encore, Lux removed both of her spike-heeled boots while she was soloing; she picked one up and used the heel as a slide. I�m reasonably sure that it was a scripted moment, but A) it played well, and B) it�s just the sort of silly goof that the self-important Millionaires would never have thought of, much less attempted.

So, fun was had in the end, and whiskey was had up until then. I love a happy ending, don�t you?
bmarkey 6/06/2003 09:33:00 PM