A Young 85
Building on the success of last year’s Pitch Music Showcase, which attracted 4,000 club-hoppers while introducing the 5-club, 25-band format, this year’s Showcase went on to solidify the identities of the participating venues.
The Hurricane again became the evening’s nerve center. Last year, the Casket Lottery and Season to Risk shook its foundation; this time, a pair of DJs created the tremors. Mill Creek repeated as the designated groove farm, though it supported Brent Berry‘s rock-steady beats with potent doses of power-pop and tear-in-beer country. Blayney’s welcomed the evening’s low-volume acts, such as acoustic singer-songwriter David Hakan and alto saxophonist Bobby Watson‘s instrumental ensemble, though when guitarist D.C. Bellamy started working his mojo, it also housed one of the night’s loudest, most interactive crowds. McCoy’s again packed a four-bedroom band (Ruskabank this time) into a studio apartment’s worth of stage space, and it again hosted the Showcase’s finest hour. And the Beaumont Club bolstered its wild-card status, offering stage blood (Descension poured it on a half naked “nun”), real blood, a fake crotch (an autographed dildo Big Jeter tossed into the crowd), a Rotten Crotch, a stumbler (tumble-prone Last of the V8s frontman Ryan Mattes, seemingly suffering from a bout with vertigo) and a Buster (blues harp phenom Brody).
Showcase night provided fans with one last chance to vote for the Pitch Music Awards (which will be held Friday, April 12, at the Uptown Theater), but an event that generates so many standout sets should spawn a few awards of its own. So here are a few citations recognizing the artists who added something special to Showcase night. Unfortunately, this distinction doesn’t come with a trophy, though Big Jeter, who held aloft a suspiciously inauthentic-looking Best Live Act award he claimed was on loan from Tech N9ne, might have some black-market connections.
Most Memorable Performance: Wearing a broad smile that shone more brightly than her gold lamé apparel, vocalist Myra Taylor mesmerized the audience before she sang a word. Once she began speaking, however, the intensity of the spell increased exponentially. Still sassy at 85 years old, Taylor crooned an irresistible ditty about needing a man, any man — according to her lyrics, even an ape-shaped behemoth with halitosis and a drinking problem would qualify. Near the end of the tune, Taylor muted her band to break down the song’s situation to her appreciative audience. “For a long time, I had rules,” she explained, noting how she’d moved from requiring a chap with a cane to settling for a male partner in a wheelchair (“we could ride side by side”) to finally accepting anyone who’s breathing and bringing home an income.
Taylor’s backing quartet provided complementary grooves and some sprightly trumpet accents, but she didn’t hesitate to silence them for her asides to the crowd or to chide them for any miscues. When her trumpet player repeatedly jumped in on the wrong beat as Taylor attempted to lead a sing-along, she calmly ushered him back into rhythm. But when the pianist flubbed the next cue, Taylor snapped, “Now you’ve got the white boy doing it.” Like a beloved grandmother, Taylor played several roles — gentle disciplinarian, engaging storyteller, surprisingly earthy humorist. Her personality also came through in her still-sharp vocals, as Taylor infused every line with rich, expressive phrasing.
Best Crowd Response: Worked into a frenzy by MC Shawn Edwards, who blended party-starting DJ catchphrases with a drill sergeant’s delivery, the Hurricane audience throbbed with energy. After one of Edwards’ hyperactive pep talks, the capacity crowd probably would have danced dutifully to a polka ballad, but the evening’s entertainment lineup offered them considerably more to work with. DJ Nitro‘s disco beats set almost everyone at the club into motion, from people waiting in line for drinks to seated barflies covertly shaking their booties on their stools to, frighteningly, men using the venue’s urinal trough. Moaning Lisa didn’t disturb the groove with its hook-driven guitar pop, as the quick-adapting audience bobbed to the band’s harmonious choruses, stopping only to salute its guitarists during their signature arena-rock poses. By the time Steve Thorell followed with a solid hour of chest-rattling techno thumps, maneuverability was minimal — even patrons who felt inspired to make like John Travolta had only enough personal space to nod in time with the music, indie-rock-style. Such cramped quarters made moshing impossible as well, so pumped-up punks appreciated Tanka Ray‘s streetwise sounds with extra-vigorous head-nodding. Among the bobbing noggins were the members of No Doubt‘s rhythm section, in town for a gig the next night at the Uptown Theater, who reportedly gave TR two thumbs up. (Perhaps bassist Tony Kanal and drummer Adrian Young also surreptitiously checked out Tawni Freeland‘s set at McCoy’s, scouting the emotive, fashion-forward West Coast-bound vocalist’s potential as a Gwen Stefani foil.)
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Best Farewell Set: “We’re Big Jeter, and we’ve got 45 minutes to live,” announced head Jeter Gary Huggins at the start of his group’s last this-time-we-mean-it show. Like Dabney Coleman, who behaved recklessly after being informed that he had a fatal disease in the madcap 1990 flick Short Time, this eight-piece outfit lived dangerously for its final hour. Saxophonist and prop comic Cuz’n Bo shaved his head with a straight razor without the benefit of a mirror while singing, predictably resulting in a bloody mess atop his bald dome. Making Bo’s stunt even more dangerous was the added distraction of several hot dogs and pastries mingling inside his pajama pants, which Huggins removed and tossed into the crowd, much to the dismay of the security guard who later picked up the stray food and the female fan who caught a limp frankfurter with her face. Not to be outdone, Huggins sipped out of a Clorox bleach container, which, though it doubtlessly had been sanitized, made for cringe-inducing viewing. And singer and multi-instrumentalist Gladiola Ditchwater turned dominatrix during the group’s “S&M Squaredance,” which delighted a couple who was evidently prepared for such shenanigans — one held the other on a metal leash attached to a collar.
Not to be lost in all the onstage antics was the group’s music, which, as always, was excellent. A hayride in a nitrous-fueled funny car, Big Jeter’s set offered foot-stomping hillbilly gospel, pornographic comi-tragic balladry and a few anthemic classic-rock touches. It might be difficult to look past the fact that he spent the last two songs of his band’s career dressed like a Rainbow-Brite daffodil, but Huggins’ twangy tunes have real bite. Let’s hope the band somehow springs back to life, like the undead protagonists of one of the hyperviolent horror films that played on two tiny televisions during its set.
Also saying goodbye for good on Thursday night was the Go Generation, whose catchy knack for flashback punk inspired farewell-bidding fans at the Mill Creek Brewery to clamor for a rare Showcase encore. The trio agreed, extending its legacy for a few more minutes and a couple of additional melodies before hanging up its hooks for good.
Best Cover: There’s an unwritten rule that states it’s lame to open or close a set with a cover. These are opportunities to impress audiences with your own songwriting skills, the reasoning goes, not to leave them humming another band’s work. But with Sister Mary Rotten Crotch (or “Sister Mary Skanky Crotch,” as one confused clubgoer was heard remarking en route to the group’s set at the Beaumont Club), such guidelines don’t apply. When Liz Nord grabs a song and throttles it with her muscled arms, it’s Sister Mary’s slave. Lords of Acids‘ “Pussy” was once a winkingly naughty techno tune; in Nord and company’s hands, it’s a dance party crashed by hooligans. Nord demands Show me your pussy with such ferocity that it’s a wonder half the crowd wasn’t dropping trou on command.
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Honorable mention goes to bluesman D.C. Bellamy, whose wicked version of “Chain of Fools” delivered the night’s hottest guitar licks. Though thwarted by his audience in his attempt to play “an eighteenth-century folk tune,” Bellamy did revive elements of the bawdy twentieth-century Irish number “Seven Drunken Nights,” during which a promiscuous wife attempts to explain away glaring evidence of her philandering.
Best Riddims: Brent Berry and His Roots Crew‘s world-beat-informed reggae grooves carried through the night air like weed smoke, enabling Showcase patrons commuting along main drag Pennsylvania Street to experience some high-quality secondhand reggae. Inside the Mill Creek Brewery, free-form hippie choreography was in full effect, and the group made such children of the dirt feel welcome — bassist Tom Johnson even played barefoot. Hours later at McCoy’s, Ruskabank picked up where Berry left off, and the club got skanky — though not in the manner of Sister Mary’s Crotch.
