I fired up the
jalopy and loaded it with the Australian contingent here in town to celebrate
Mrs. De Blase’s 5-0 a couple of Fridays ago. They wanted to hear some live
music and down some righteous bar-b-que. After plowing through the majority of
a pig at the Dinosaur, we rolled over to Abilene to see roots rock sensations
Smooth Hound Smith do its roots rock thing.

Direct from East
Nashville, the band — featuring singer Caitlin Doyle-Smith and her guitar-slingin’
ball and chain, Zack Smith — rocked it right all night with plenty of ballsy
blues and sweet harmony. Everyone’s defying genres these days, and SHS is no different,
especially when they broke into what can only be described as disco Americana.

Next, it was off to
Iron Smoke Distillery to dig the whiskey-soaked fun of The Cool Club & The
Lipker Sisters. It was like a USO concert gone off the rails, with a relatively
packed dance floor full of rug-cutting jitterbugs. The Cool Club kept it cool,
while the Sisters kept it hot. I could feel the heat all the way to the street
as I lindy-hopped back to the big blue mariah, and agitated some gravel as we
headed west.

***

Last Thursday was
the night for exceeding expectations. Now I had heard Amy Helm’s new-ish, Joe
Henry-produced album and liked it a whole lot. It was competent, it was
resilient, and the songs quickly took up residence in my head.

Well the music
didn’t do that for me at her Three Heads Brewing show, since she blew the top
of my head off and scattered its meager contents all over the ceiling.
Incidentally, that’s where Three Heads has smartly chosen to fly the mains in
order to achieve optimal sound distribution and spread.

Like I said, the
record was great, but the live show was sizzling with bass, guitar, and drums.
The music was full of happy soul at Three Heads Brewing. Helm sang like she was
singing in a church that was on fire — Our Lady of the Blessed Three Heads.

She dug into the
back catalogue in her brain, which included the Boss, Tom Petty, The Band, and
Sam Cook, along with her own stuff. Her trio was tighter than hipster
corduroys, and she gave each band member ample turns in the spotlight. Great
show. 10 out of 10.

***

If you’re a fan of classic burlesque — which actually offers more than just pasties and G-strings — you still encounter the same question. Is it exploitation, or is it
empowerment?

I decided to (ahem)
get to the bottom of this. So I beat feet to Anthology last Monday night to dig the
SuicideGirls and their Blackheart Burlesque show. What I know of the
SuicideGirls is their tattooed punk aesthetic. I figured It was gonna be more
twerk than classic bump ‘n’ grind — and me, with an open mind.

In a word, the show
was double-wow: a hip-shakin’, torso-tossin’ wow-wow. It was clever and
up-to-date, including a “Star Wars” stormtrooper send-up and a “Stranger
Things” striptease. It was really engaging.

There were a few
quick nods to the burlesque of yesteryear, with some Rusty Warren-esque humor
recounted by Little Bo Peep, and a trio of dancers that shimmied with nothing
between them and the audience’s eager, bloodshot eyes but three green ostrich
feather fans. The well-choreographed routines all had the same, well, routine
ending, with the dancer wearing next to nothing except for pasties fashioned
out of electrical tape.

Now for the question
I posed: Is it exploitation, or is it empowerment? Please tell me what you
think. F has left the building.

Frank De Blase is CITY’s staff music writer. He can be reached at frank@rochester-citynews.com.

This article appears in Oct 16-22, 2019.