Pickled! at the Disco
The Harvey Girls are burnin’ for you.
A lot’s been going on in the cyberspace portion of the local music scene. I know that’s exciting to people like YOU.
First of all, our friendly neighborhood eccentric singer-songwriter Forrest Whitlow has drawn the attention of the one and only Neil Young, whose Web site features a page of contemporary protest songs. You’ll find Forrest and his band, the Pickles, standing tall at #49 with “Cocktails and Machine Guns.” Way to go, Forrest.
Secondly, our Lawrencian friends the Harvey Girls, who, sadly, are moving to Portland soon, have posted a brand-new album on their Web site. And best of all, it’s all covers! The song choices alone (Blue Oyster Cult, Billy Idol, the Bad Brains) make this a contender against Namelessnumberheadman’s EP “Pauses, Ums and Eyebrow Raises” — available free here — for Best Cover Album By A Local ElectroPop Band. (OK, so there are only two — so what!?)
…and, that’s all I got as regards local cyberspace. So I only had two again — lay off, man!
Now, for all you Panic! at the Disco fans who were unable to attend last week’s show at the Uptown, my great pal Annie Zaleski of the Riverfront Times in St. Louis sent me a review of the show that went down there, through which you can live vicariously. And if you don’t like Panic!, you should read it anyway because she uses the word “pussy.”
i saw panic! at the disco tonight. the venue where they played has a balcony that’s for over-21’s, and it was comfortably empty, thanks to a floor crowded with sweaty teenagers rabid from the heat and the promise of 75 minutes of baroque pop-emo-punk. kids started lining up at about 8 a.m., no lie, to get in.
the stage had a giant, light-up panic! at the disco sign, a moon, a windmill and, inexplicably, a tree without leaves. there were two auxiliary musicians helping out the band, along with three burlesque/vaudevillian performers for ‘comic’ relief.
with such trappings, it wasn’t surprising that the band did a faithful cover of smashing pumpkins’ ‘tonight, tonight,’ as the stage set was rather ‘mellon collie and the infinite sadness’ influenced. (so was the ruffly shirt worn by lead singer brandon? brendon? urie.) alas, i felt older than dirt when most of the teeming masses in the pit had no idea what that song was; nor did they seem to recognize/care about a cover of radiohead’s ‘karma police.’
but they did scream as loudly as a new kids on the block show when the band came out. and continued to scream and sing along to the piano stuff and to the guitar-based stuff. the burlesque show sort of took away from the songs and seemed pointless; there was a “set break” wherein polaroid pictures of band members and, more amusingly, drumsticks were tossed into the crowd. sure, let’s throw sharp objects into a crowd of teenagers.
actually, the funniest part was when the woman dancer in sparkly gold panties and a black bra did a lapdance [Link NSFW, but still a damn good song, imho. Also, the comments below the video are funny —Ed.] for the singer. on the singer? whatever. it was odd to see a stripclub break out onstage. that whole scene was also strange, though, as the “dancer” was shocked and appalled that mr. urie didn’t seem to care for her advances, and the guitarist ignored her, too. what a metaphor: PANIC ARE SERIOUS ABOUT THEIR MUSIC. NOT SEX. (either that, or they’re not into the pussy. who knows?). there was lots of metaphoric dancing, lots of symbolism that i felt too far removed from high school english class to understand.
i left after about 45 minutes, as you couldn’t even hear the vocals from where i was standing. and it was pretty much sensory overload. they had cute t-shirts, though.
