Fleshtones, 7/14/06
Tonight I went to the industry party (?) kicking off Southern Comfort’s rock series in Philadelphia this weekend. I’m missing most of the event, which features the Flaming Lips, De La Soul, and a whole bunch of others, as I’m heading (-ed, actually by the time this post goes up) to New York for the weekend with the lovely Christina, who is back in town between graduate studies. She leaves for New Mexico on Wednesday. Tonight the show kicked off at the Trocadero, with a promotional party featuring among others The Fleshtones, a band I’ve written about extensively.
Anyway, Tim got me into this event, and I had a bunch of tickets entitling me to free SOCO drinks, which I had a lot of: I’m pretty shitty right now. It was miserable getting there. I got my third, third!!, flat tire in as many days on my way home from work, proving again the thesis of my rant from a week ago. This meant I had to drive, and after parking 8 blocks away I realized at the door to the Troc that I’d left my license with the bike shop in Fishtown where yesterday I test-drove the road bike I ended up putting a down payment on. Luckily I knew the guy was open late on Fridays, so I drove down (more wasted gas), snagged the license and scooted back.
I don’t want to talk bad, but the next hour and a half was hell. I walked in during the middle of some very chordy indie rock, the kind of stuff I have no reference point for because I don’t listen to it. Radio Head? U2? Fucked if I can tell you: all I know is it sucked, endless distortion and chimey harmonics that just droned on and on. I kept downing Southern Comforts with seltzer and lime, wandered into the lobby, and then back into the auditorium. The Trocadero was originally a burlesque house, and while the ceiling is decrepit and protected by screen, most of the wall ornamentation is preserved. The mezzanine and balcony seats are ringed with gilded ornamental carvings, and a massive golden head looks down from atop the satage at the shenanigans below. The pillars stage keft and right feature carved lion heads.
I imagined crazy skits and dancing girls on this stage, the Ziegfield follies and other low-rent entertainment, when this particular neighborhood had been part of Philadelphia’s seedy red light district, and I tried to tolerate the band. I couldn’t do it: the boring, it burns!
I swung around, lurching for the bar and saw a familiar face. “Peter!” I called, reaching out my hand.
“Hey! What’re you doin’ here?” It was Peter Zaremba. “I need a drink. Hah, whaddya thnk of all this? Why’re you here?”
“I live down here,” I said. “And my housemate knew someone and got me tickets because knew I liked you guys.
“Hell, The Fleshtones are the only reason I’m here.” By this time rap legend Schooly D was on stage, but instead of rapping he was dj-ing. And by dj-ing, I mean “playing entire albums.” Schooly D may be the original gangster rapper, but his dj-ing was pure wedding schmaltz: “Rapture”, for example. We veered over to the bar, ordering up more Southern Comforts. Peter looked around at the small crowd of New Jersey refugees, frat boys, and girls with big hair, bigger tits, and pierced belly-buttons.
“I’ll tell you what: this show is for you, Brendan. You’re the only person who knows who we are I’ll bet, so this one’s for you.” We downed our drinks, and Peter headed back to the green room. I watched him as he strode through a crowd of people 30 years younger than he was, oblivious to the performer gliding through them. He seemed older, more frail, than I’d seen him before, his shoulders hunched over his skeletal frame. Peter’s kid, his only, is really only a year or so older than Sam I thought. He looked like someone’s grandfather, out of his element, not simply forgotten, but never even considered, unappreciated by a generation that defines music as someone talking over a drumbeat.
I was reminded of this feeling tonight, a week after the show and after I wrote the previous few paragraphs, as I sat in a Center City bar. The jukebox was playing some crossover song that’s been making the rounds like a $5.00 whore. It was a band called The Gorillaz.
I ain’t happy, I’m feeling glad
I got sunshine, in a bag
I’m useless,but not for long
The future is coming on
I ain’t happy, I’m feeling glad
I got sunshine, in a bag
I’m useless…n,
It’s not a bad song, it just sucks. It was followed by some generic band moaning tunelessly over too-loud guitars. Retarded people write better songs than this garbage. It makes me angry sometimes, the amount of dog shit that gets rewarded.
As it turned out there were other fans. Two, to be precise. But no matter: when the Fleshtones finally got on stage, they schooled the entire room in what it means to rock. Like the Ramones, the Fleshtones don’t waste time between songs, and in the space of 10 minutes, they must have plowed through at leat a half-dozen tunes. Most of the songs were from the new album, except for “Do You Swing” and a fantastic take on “Vindicators”, featuring Ken and Keith fretting each other’s instruments while dancing in circles. That was about when Tim showed up and said, “This is the Fleshtones? These guys are great! I’d drive a few hours to see this!” By this point, Zaremba had climbed onto the stack of mains, stage right, and made his way onto the mezzanine as the band kept chugging away at whatever they were playing. After he returned to the stage, the entire band (except for Bill on the drums) dropped their instruments, leaped over the barricades onto the floor, and began doing pushups under a wall of feedback and the blugidda-blugidda of Milhizer’s trap kit. Then they grabbed their three fans and made US do pushups as well, as they jumped back onstage and closed the evening with i don’t even know what.
This is why I love the Fleshtones. Never a dull moment, and they consistently school the living shit out of any band they play with.
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