Snuffed Out

DJ Iggy Baby, Snuff Jazz and Street Jizz. Sunday, February 18, at the Record Bar.

Review by Jason Harper

Last night, I showed up to the Record Bar around 8, expecting Mark Southerland’s Dimanche Gras show featuring DJ Iggy Baby, Snuff Jazz and Street Jizz to already be underway, because that’s what Mark told me when I talked to him for this preview. (I titled that preview Snuff Jizz instead of Dimanche Gras, btw, because I figured it would probably be my only opportunity to publish the words “snuff “and “jizz” together, barring an unforeseen career change.) However, the show was far from kicking off, and the dinner crowd was still noshing on delicious RB grub.

Shawn Sherrill, RB co-owner and Roman Numeral, was sitting at the bar, MySpacing on his laptop. He’s in his 30s but is justified in using MySpace because he’s a musician, and that’s how musicians and bookers and promoters and 21-year-old girls all network. “So, should I just sit around and drink?” I asked Shawn. He looked at me like I’d just asked if all them bottles of booze behind the bar were real. “Uh, yeah,” he said. Luckily, a couple of friends who I didn’t know were coming showed up, inadvertently saving me from looking like a lonely loser barfly (though a well-dressed one, if I do say so myself). We got food and availed ourselves of the $5 PBR pitchers, enjoying the expert service of Kimberly, our waitress who was a star at the late Late Night Theatre.

Mark Southerland ain’t no regular saxman.

Iggy Baby began dropping beats around 9 to warm up the growing crowd, which was still in the drinking and mingling phase, not quite ready to cut a rug. Clad in a Mickey Mouse shirt, the svelte hipster DJ worked a laptop and mixer, mashing together house beats and dance pop and never staying on anything for longer than a couple of minutes. It was refreshing to hear clubbier music in the Record Bar, where, like the other music venues in town, most DJ nights feature selector-style jocks who play whole songs — not that there’s anything wrong with that, it was just nice to hear some real EDM.

The mood (and by that, I mean, I) was a bit tipsy and the room was full when Snuff Jazz took the stage an hour later, freakishly ravishing in shimmering cloaks and plumed masks. Joining the trio of Mark Southerland on sax, Jeff Harshbarger on upright and electric basses and Josh Adams on drums (formerly of Ghosty, I think, which is pretty surprising), was local eccentric J. Ashley Miller on keys, guitar, random vocals, and various metallic percussion implements on the floor. It actually really worked. The jazz wasn’t so free as to be unlistenable — the band kept a rough rhythmic pulse as it careened into free improv. Those more expert in jazz could probably make a direct comparison with a single player like Joe Lovano or whothefuckever, but, to me, Southerland’s brash, thunderous horn work evoked the tortured, dark sound of the saxophone arrangements on Charles Mingus’ The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. That’s one feverish record, man.

The only lineup change that came with the Street Jizz performance was the arrival of frontman Cody Critcheloe, pimped out in black stretchpants that stopped below the knee, a white jacket, white pillbox cap and striking black fu-manchu mustache. He’s best known as the pervy leader of artpunk band the Ssion, which has opened for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in the past and is no stranger to the ass-shakin’ groove. The combined Street-Snuff band, aided by some prerecorded tracks, put on the best damn live band freak dance party I’ve seen since Glass Candy was last in town. Amazingly, only about a dozen people were dancing, and some fools were even sitting in chairs near the front of the stage. WTF!? That’s like a new low for this town. Well, I got my dance fix, but the show ended after only five or so songs, and I was left fiending for more.

The night wound down with another Snuff set (with a special Jizz encore), followed by Iggy Baby, for those who were in the mood to dance, which I was, and I literally danced until I couldn’t dance any more. Danced out. Completely. I’m not sure I’ve actually accomplished that before. Cross that one off the list.

The Afterparty was set to close the evening down at P. Ott’s on the Plaza, but I probably would’ve spent the night in the bushes outside The Cheesecake Factory had I gone. Did anyone out there go? Was it fun? Did people dance?