Difficult Music

Mongoose played the Pic last night, so I went down to check them out. I missed the first band, Hope Against, which wasn’t a big deal. I’d seen them a couple weeks ago at Snackerz. Lonesome Pine were second on the bill. Their schtick is playing punk rock Stompin’ Tom covers—a solid fuck-band concept, but in execution every song had the same quickstep Ramones powerchord blur. As I predicted, their version of The Hockey Song sounded exactly like the Hanson Brothers’ version. The multilayered meta-music culture cannibalism vibe of the show got even stronger when I noticed that the singer had a Hansons t-shirt on. Was Lonesome Pine a tribute to the Hanson Brothers doing a tribute to the Ramones doing a tribute to Stompin’ Tom? I wasn’t drinking, but I needed to give my head a shake. I salute them for naming their band after Lenny Breau’s dad, though.

Mongoose made a good showing musically—Shockk and Brock and the bass guy were great. Shockk and Brock in particular pushed each other to new levels of intensity as the set progressed. Their singer spent more time flailing around on the empty dance floor than up on stage with the band. I’ve disliked this approach ever since a particularly bad Decline of the English Murder show where JR went walkabout and scarred me for life. I think if you’re in a band, you should be in the band. It’s not experimental theatre, there’s no fourth wall to break through. Stay on stage and support your chums. Anyhow, expect big things from the Mongoose, with their album getting some proper distribution and a possible tour in the future (brace yourself, Edmonton). They got a typically addle-brained review of their CD in this week’s Georgia Straight, too, which is a sure sign that everything’s falling into place.

By the way, did anyone read Steve Newton’s attempt to review Popoff’s Top 500 book in last week’s Straight? No, strike that. The word “attempt” implies that he tried to write a book review. However, he did attempt, successfully, a number of other feats:
-Ignoring the substantive content of Popoff’s book.
-Preferring narcissistic drivel over discussing someone else’s hard work.
-Depicting Black Sabbath riffs onomatopoetically.
-Wasting valuable column inches with same.
-Embarrassing himself and the Straight.
-Abusing his privilege.
-Making me angry for a couple solid hours.