Mud, blood, and soul

The Mars Volta is punk-rock Rush. Swimming at Water Street Music Hall last week in atmospheric
dissonance, the San Antonio prog outfit played a long, six-song set (one tune
clocking in at a mere 45 minutes). They accurately portrayed the comatose limbo
of their latest album. I’m actually surprised that the young crowd got it. In
fact, I’m surprised I got it. Interesting to say the least, but understand, I’m
coming from a 1-4-5 point of view.

          Third
Estate, who has lost some weight, rocked the packed Club at Water Street.
These now leaner, meaner, keener homeboys played frenetically, tight, and
enthusiastically despite the rather placid audience. The boys warmed up for
boring — I mean, Story Of The Year.

          Japanese Afros! Flying Vs! E-mail!
With breakneck, banzai,crunch abandon, Tokyo’s Electric Eel Shock wired their feet to the pedals and played their
heads off last Tuesday at The Bug Jar. Moving with deft speed and metal weight,
the trio has developed a solid fan base of hungry, wild-eyed Rochesterians.
Because they rock harder and deliver a more intense live set than most American
bands, EES is one of the best hard acts out there. Yes, rock ‘n’ roll is our
number one export, but with contemporary mainstream rock circling the drain in
a perpetual state of suck, once again we gotta count on the outsiders to remind
us.

          Arlo opened up the show, reminding me a lot of The Hoodoo Gurus. Now, ordinarily I
try not to lazily use bands to describe other bands, but I don’t think too many
kids remember The Hoodoo Gurus. If I’m wrong, I’ll give you a T-shirt (limit
one winner, please).

          Monday night I hit The Little Theatre
Café for The White Hots sans The
Green Monster. Consequently, a little more six-string duty was heaped on Aleks
Disljenkovic, a hep cat who says he hasn’t fingered a bar chord in 15 years.

          Wednesday, and Green was back at The
Café with his new Steve Green Quartet,
starring Uncle Phil Marshall on the electric guitar. That’s right, Green’s done
gone and plugged himself in. This is an interesting marriage whose immediate
sonic offspring bounced off the café bricks all warm, sweet, and cool, mixing
well with my coffee buzz.

          It was then a quick sashay — or
meander if you wanna avoid the guy who just ran out of gas and his wife is in
labor and he only needs a dollar and he’s not a crack head or anything — down
East Avenue to Milestones for NYC singer-songwriter Marly Hornik. This young lady has a beautiful voice and a simple,
straightforward sound, lookin’ all cute with a powder-blue powder puff on her
head.

          Lizz
Wright sold both Friday night shows right the hell out at The Montage. Man,
this woman sings mesmerizingly deep from a place that belies her young years.

          Steve
Earle is a first-rate writer of songs that embrace patriotic antagonism,
love, loss, abuse, revolution, and the irony that lashes them all together.
Minus his beard and gut, Earle played cuts from virtually every record. Who
would’ve thought he had this many fans in the area? Close to 600 souls piled
into Water Street Music Hall to sing along. Earle is rooted in country, but
live he comes off a little more rock. Having heard the countrified versions on
record, I could still hear the mud and blood and soul. His song of a lesson
learned too late, “The Devil’s Right Hand,” was outstanding. I found myself
still singing it two days later.

          Playing all their hits and a pile of
favorites, The Fertility Rite Brothers came
together right now over me at The Bug Jar last Saturday. Singer Thing strutted
and paced the stage as if daring the audience to do something… anything. An engaging and menacing front
man, Thing has been missed. We need more.

          It was when Thing referred to a song
as being by Alice “fucking” Cooper that
something occurred to me: You know you’ve made it when your name gets
hyphenated by “fucking.” That or when you get your own bobble-head doll like Jeff “fucking” Tyzik. Happy
anniversary, Daddy-o.

          Speaking of the Coop, I blasted
through the I-90 construction (your tolls hardly working) to dig his show at
Turning Stone Casino Sunday night. Though it was a sit-down show with the
majority of the audience casually sipping cocktails, the band was, to quote my
pal Rodney Henry, “fan-tas-tic.”

          Cooper introduced material from his
new The Eyes Of Alice Cooper amidst a
sea of rarities and hits. A smaller stage show meant one less semi in the
Cooper caravan, but Cooper still proved to be a timeless showman with his
classic rock ‘n’ roll. Maybe we still have a long way to go.

This article appears in Nov 5-11, 2003.