The Worley Gig - A Column by Gail Worley

Imagine going on a four day vacation with 1,000 of your closest friends, where you hang out, drink, eat and talk about music all day and have unlimited free access to the coolest rock shows in town every night. That's what it's like every year in mid-March, when writers, publicists, musicians and other music industry folk travel by the thousands down to Austin, Texas, for the South By Southwest Music Conference. SXSW is a both a great break from the grind and the ultimate opportunity to network, but the basic SXSW experience can be condensed into four monosyllabic words; Bands, Boys, Booze and Barbecue! We are here to rock and roll all night, party every day, and do enough business to justify writing it all off on our taxes next year.

With close to 1,000 bands showcasing at forty-five venues over four nights, it's a given that some loving sacrifices must be made. You will inevitably need to chose between, say, Fu Manchu and the Hellacopters playing at the same time on the same night at venues on opposite ends of town. Wednesday evening is basically a write off: an interlude in the madness to check into the hotel, pick up the convention badge which will be our entre to all things rock, and stroll casually down Sixth street, ducking into the occasional showcase of faceless indie rock bands destined for obscurity. We know the real party begins on Thursday. Seeing every band on our wish list will be impossible, but we've already worked out a bordering-on-obsessive, hour-by hour schedule for Thursday, Friday and Saturday in order to achieve maximum hard rock efficiency. We will rock at all times or die trying.

Thursday night, we brave thunder showers and freezing temperatures to experience The Retardos and Backyard Babies at Red Eyed Fly, a venue that's little more than a glorified watering hole with a covered stage on the patio out back. The night may be cold and wet, but The Retardos, Norway's Vikings of Rock, are smoking from their first song. With a sort of Judas-Priest-meets-stoner-rock vibe, The Retardos sing songs about alcohol and bad attitudes. They have an energetic presence, but we insist that part of a rock show is putting on a fucking show! The Retardos have the rock, now they need to find a "look" and capitalize on it, or maybe blow some stuff up.

The crowd thins out temporarily, but soon it's a body-to-body sweat pit as Sweden's Saviors of Rock, The Backyard Babies, descend upon the stage like hungry wolverines. With their truly jaw-dropping blend of garage metal and punk with a little lipstick thrown in, the Babies are our favorite band, so we can't help but notice they perform the song-for-song identical set from a New York City show a few nights earlier. Their show is so choreographed, they even spit at the same time, but a lack of spontaneity hardly means any less of a visceral thrill. By the third song, "Powderhead," a food fight has already broken out. Amid their consistent, colorful turmoil, the band yield to no one. Our favorite Backyard Babies song has lyrics that go like this: "There’s freak confusion in your bed/and you’ve got triple sixes in your head/so Get Dead/on an Anything Can Happen Day!" We enjoy the way that freaky sex, satanism, death and Sesame Street come together in one great song! We also have a mad crush on both lead singer, Nicke Borg and guitarist, Dregen, who is a strong contender to win Sex God of SXSW, if there were such thing.

In the narrow corridor of opportunity between Friday’s convention activities and the night’s drunken rampaging, we find a window to attend the Todd McFarlane Action Figures Presents Spawn party at some Hellhole called The Atomic Cafe: so named, we suspect, because it’s about as comfortable and hip as a bomb shelter. We have been promised tacos and free alcohol, but there are only pretzels and one kind of shitty beer on tap so we look for an escape route after about ten minutes. While we plan our exit, we can’t help but notice a pretty suave-looking guy with green skin and horns (real horns, we swear) growing out of this temples. We are naturally intrigued by Darth Maul-meets-Gumby and it only takes one question to discover this is the Enigma, one of the Freaks from the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow whose source of attraction is the fact that his entire body is tattooed like a puzzle. We decide we cannot continue to live if we don’t say Hello, since we actually have something in common with the Enigma: the artist who tattooed our back has also contributed several pieces to the Enigma’s flesh puzzle. Enigma is very friendly and remembers the tattoo artist we have in common very well. He poses for a photo with us so we can send it home to the parents with the following note: "Hey Mom and Dad, Meet My New Boyfriend!" Our parents love a good joke.

Friday's Sub Pop showcase at Emo's begins early, but the place is packed by 8:00 PM for a high voltage set from Britain's great white hope, The Yo-Yo's: four aggressively glamorous greaser hunks who successfully merge the best aspects of the Clash with the youthful fuck-all attitude of Social Distortion. Who knew three chord punk rock could be this awe-inspiring? The Yo-Yo's are so consistently great they could pass out on stage and still get a ten out of ten. Visually, they maintain serious Poster Idol appeal and their guitarist, who’s name we later discover is Tom, is so fucking hot, we secretly make plans to begin stalking him.

With his gravel-and-ground-glass vocals and spastic dance moves, Black Halos' lead singer, Billy Hopeless, comes on like the love child of Iggy Pop and David Johansson. Chaotic and charismatic, the Black Halos fervently believe in the sanctity of trashy glam punk! Their cover of Kiss's "Deuce" has the place singing along and smashing beer bottles on the ground. Ah, the heavy eye make-up, the biker wardrobes, the piercings and plentiful tattoos -- and that's just the locals in the crowd! After their set, we facilitate a photo opportunity with Tom from the Yo-Yo’s and Billy Hopeless for a kind of "Punk rock-star sandwich fantasy" experience captured forever on film!

Gluecifer, from Norway, refuse to admit they're a rockabilly band in matching red velvet bowling shirts, so they disguise themselves as a metal band by kicking the crap out of the crowd with great songs like "Shitty City" (defined as "A place where people don't shave") and "Tornado Killer."

Accompanied by hilariously abusive between song banter, their set earns high marks. While their lead singer is perhaps a bit too round in the middle to be wearing a clingy fabric like velvet, we let it pass, because they are after all from Norway, our favorite Scandinavian country, and land of our Viking ancestors. Valhalla, I am coming!

Seattle's Murder City Devils gave 90's rock a badly needed slap in the face with a 1998 debut that mixed old school hardcore and garage rock spiked with elements of surf, rockabilly and horror movie farfisa organ. Singer and Chief Instigator, Spencer Moody may look like that geek from Harvey Danger, but his bite is way worse than his bark. The crowd explodes in a nuclear fury after about thirty seconds. We love the Murder City Devils because they took their name from New Orleans, one of our favorite cities!

On Emo’s indoor stage, the psychedelic side to harder rock is well represented by The Vue and The Go, two young rock bands who draw from the past to create a fierce rock attack. The Vue, from San Francisco, crash through some solid mid-tempo, blues-tinged retro rockers, but their look just isn't glam enough and it makes the whole thing seem kind of schizophrenic. Hailing from Detroit Rock City, The Go are a bunch of Rock and Roll animals that show no signs of having been influenced by anything musical that happened after 1969. Their exhilarating, high energy bursts of white noise melodicism layered with sonic blasts of mid-range distorted guitars make for some serious Dragnet-era acid party rock!

Shortly before 1:00 AM we're back at the Red Eyed Fly where L.A.'s Street Walkin' Cheetahs are keepin' it real with their hard-edged but sexy garage punk! Singer/guitarist Frank Meyer and his band of merry pranksters tear into a typical set of mayhem and unbridled ass-kicking rock and the crowd goes completely insane. With amps on eleven, The Cheetahs are joined on stage for an encore by their mentor/idol Wayne Kramer of the legendary MC5 for cover of "Looking At You."

Saturday we are up early and nursing our hard-earned hangover at the Ultimatum Music brunch at Babe’s on Sixth Street. There is truly nothing else on Earth like a fee buffet brunch that includes pancakes, eggs, bacon, fruit and real Texas Beef Brisket, served up with a huge 20 ounce Screwdriver to make you happy that you continue to draw breath. As we stand on line to stuff our face, we are delighted to meet members of our favorite LA-based psychedelic, retro-rock band, The Exies. Exies lead singer, Scott Stevens, is a serious babe and a half and really super nice too. He’s so excited to hear that we’ve recently reviewed the band’s self-titled debut CD (out now!) for a national magazine, he kisses us full on the mouth (no tongue) causing us to glow for at least several minutes.

By 1:30 PM we must dash to the convention center to catch the John Paul Jones interview panel: a one-on-one conversation with the bassist from the greatest heavy rock band ever! Our personal Rock Critic Hero and Mentor, Jim DeRogatis, is conducting the interview, so we know it’s going to rock very hard. For over an hour, Jones holds us spellbound as he spews "I remember when" stories and tells his version of all the best rumors -- including that one about the groupie and the shark -- from his career with Led Zeppelin until we are giddy with excitement and actually become so overwhelmed and moved thinking about how "In the Light" and "The Battle of Evermore" shaped us as a youth that we actually get teary-eyed. Of course, we hang out after the panel to get our picture taken with Jonesy because, hey, this is Led-Fucking-Zeppelin we're talking about, and we're a huge fan!

Mid-day rolls around and we are making the scene at the Revolver magazine party, a media free-for-all where a hearty barbecue feast, open bar, and musical entertainment by seriously cool bands like Nashville Pussy, The Unband and Guided by Voices are enjoyed by all. While we are schmoozing with editors on the street, waiting to go inside, Matt Pierce, the Unbands’ incorrigible but hot lead singer/guitarist, screams our name and runs up to us, wrapping his velvet-clad arms around our tiny frame. We enthusiastically return the body-lock, because when rock stars hug us we like to take advantage of the opportunity to fantasize that we are being hugged by Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran. The experience is taken to the next level when Matt begins to suck on our neck-- like some kind of sexy rock vampire! Once he disengages, we check for bite marks, and are somewhat relieved to find our skin un-pierced by Mr. Pierce.

On stage, The Unband cut all that overindulgent crap rock down to its bare bones, the way rock was meant to be! Song titles like "Drink & Rock," "Rock Hard" and "Cocaine Whore" speak for themselves. Unfortunately, heeding their own credo, "We like to drink and we like to play rock and roll" renders them a bit too drunk to rock as hard as the could, and the guys flail through a fun but very sloppy set. Let that be a lesson: If you must rock, please don't start drinking at 10 AM.

The room is heating up with more and more conventioneers squeezing inside the way-too-crowded room, but it's about to get much hotter, as Nashville Pussy commandeer the stage. Blessed with the wonderful uniqueness of a singer who looks like a refugee from Deliverance and a 6'3" blonde Amazonian bass player, Corey Parks, who spits walls of fire, Nashville Pussy kick it like a southern rock version of Motorhead. When the heat gets too hot, and we are way too drunk to trust ourselves around Steve Appelford, Raygun magzine’s physically stunning Editor in Chief, we stagger a few blocks away to La Zona Rosa, where Launch.com are hosting their own bacchanal. We sit on the patio munching Mexican food and schmoozing. When the sky turns all pink and blue as the sun sets, it's time to run back to the hotel to drop of the afternoon's accumulated swag, change clothes and run back out to Emo's for the Man's Ruin showcase.

The hype machine surrounding poster artist Frank Kozik's free-spirited hard rock artsy fartsy record label has raised the curiosity factor on tonight's show, featuring a roster of twelve Man's Ruin bands who will attempt to unlock the arcana of their specialized, seedy trade. We love stoner rock as much as the next suburban teenager, so we're signed on for a night of Bong-hit induced, monolithic bass-laden sludge rock, and whatever else we might hear. The downside is that we are exhausted, brain-dead and fading fast. There are many bands who work furiously in obscurity, quietly and steadily putting out garbage, and we suspect the Hookers, from Lexington, Kentucky are one of these bands. Talk about your sound and fury signifying nothing. These guys can't find a groove with both hands and a roadmap. Later, Lost Goat, a mixed-gender quartet not to be confused with label mates, Goatsnake, (whose set we miss while we are sitting in the courtyard admiring the freshly tattooed skin of several of our industry peers), weave some jamming grooves through a dense guitar landscape with a little space rock thrown in for good measure. Next up are the much buzzed about and fantastically named Men of Porn. They're not much to look at but we get the feeling that the harder you party, the harder they rock. After three songs, the limited range of sounds and monotonous drones and dirges grow old, so we will judge their set on three songs and give them our recommendation. Fatso Jetson's influences are steeped in old-school Cali punk like Black Flag but they could just as easily cover a Partridge Family tune and raise a ruckus. They earn a big fat thumb up for good behavior and a helpful attitude. Chicago's Gaza Strippers are tight pants mod boys who make cool noises where most bands put guitar solos. Their particularly understated brand of subversive glam punk prompts us to wonder, if Heaven is full of bands like this, how bad could Hell be? Just kidding!

We are obligated to make an appearance at the Spin magazine after-hours bash, but the Chupa Cabra has sucked our goat dry and we're looking forward to sleeping off the Wonderland of a day and returning on Sunday to the comparatively peaceful streets of Manhattan. South by Southwest rocked hard enough to crack a skull and we're returning home with great memories and some seriously righteous holiday snaps. Nevertheless, we understand that witnessing And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead... destroy their equipment moments before a train ran over a truck across the street from the venue was the highlight of the week for anyone lucky enough to bear witness.

Fan Mail From Some Flounder

This month’s featured fan mail comes from Bill Leverty, of the 80’s pop metal band, Fire House.

Hi Gail -

I just wanted to thank you for your kind words about our song, "Love Of A Lifetime." I'm glad it makes you buy more clothes and believe that you will find that soul mate. Yes, it was the #1 wedding song in Bridal Magazine in 1991, but when you said, "The only real hit Fire House ever had," I must let you know the we had a few more.

"When I Look Into Your Eyes" went to #7 in Billboard top 100, "Don't Treat Me Bad" went to #14, and "I Live My Life For You" went to #27. We had 2 other songs that mid-charted: "All She Wrote" and "Reach For The Sky." We also had another song called "Here For You" that did REAL well until Epic pulled the plug on it after 2 weeks out to resuscitate Michael Jackson's History album that was in the toilet with over $10 million in promo behind it, but that's another story.

Anyway, I hope that next time we play in the NYC area you'll come out and see us live. We play "Love Of A Lifetime" and maybe listening to it you'll want to but a t-shirt!! Hehe.

Thanks for listening to our music........... Bill

www.firehousemusic.com

www.LEVERTY.com

Hey Bill, thanks for setting me straight and for the great letter. Everybody please check out Bill’s websites and go buy a copy of Monsters of Rock so you can hear "Love of a Lifetime" anytime you want.

Rock Star Quote of the Month

"Pop Trash is ...your pink hair!"

-- Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran said this to me while discussing what Pop Trash, the title of their upcoming amazing new CD, means to him. Watch for the Mind Blowing Interview with Nick Rhodes coming very soon to Pandemonium!

The Worley Gig: So wild and free, so far from me.

(What song are those lyrics from? Email correct answers to pandomag@rocketmail.com and maybe you’ll win some free CDs.)

As further evidence The Worley Gig has ridiculously wide-spread global appeal, last month’s song lyrics winner comes from Prajakt Mahimkar of India who correctly identified lyrics from Beck’s "We Live Again." Prajakt will receive a double CD of Cracker’s greatest Hits, Garage D’or as soon as I can drag my butt to the Post Awful. Thanks Prajakt!

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