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Neon Tommy - Annenberg digital news

Real Cool Time: L.A. Rock Pioneers Blow Up An Intimate Set Of Stooges Tunes

Graham Clark |
December 19, 2013 | 12:27 a.m. PST

Editor-At-Large

Mike Watt played with the other members of Hellride in the 1990s, as core members of the group Porno For Pyros. Their current project is dedicated to performing songs by Iggy Pop and The Stooges in a style inspired by John Coltrane at venues throughout the L.A. area.. (Graham Clark/Neon Tommy)
Mike Watt played with the other members of Hellride in the 1990s, as core members of the group Porno For Pyros. Their current project is dedicated to performing songs by Iggy Pop and The Stooges in a style inspired by John Coltrane at venues throughout the L.A. area.. (Graham Clark/Neon Tommy)
Lots of wonderful moments to be found at The Mint on Dec. 18. The lead vocalist/guitarist of Backdrifter announced to friends and family present that his pregnant wife was in fact carrying twins. That was cool. They also play that kind of pickup-truck-solid rock found in every decent local bar on Earth, yet under-accliamed by all but the drunkest, loudest dude in the room. That was cool too. Steel Toed Slippers also played great, they'le super tight but not boringly so. Fun.

Now, here's one of the things that made Hellride's show so good: there were moments when the dudes onstage really performed as themselves. Not like a trio of schlocky characters doing old rock standards as some nostalgic gimme or ironic reacharound. Not going through the motions. But doing these songs themselves. Exploring and flaunting their personal musical character, and just rocking straight butts all the while.

Peter DiStefano wields his guitar in some really quirky, surprisingly lighthearted ways, given that he's playing songs forged in the black-tar heart of Detroit. On drums, Stephen Perkins reminded his audience that, yeah, Jane's Addiction really does kick ass as hard as you remembered. They breathed life into these songs, and were lit up in return.

Beatles cover bands, the kind that wear wigs and the suits and all, aren't necessarily a bad idea by definition. What's unsettling is that creeping suspicion that what's on display when a group of four assumably decent gents don faux mop-tops is a basic human tendency to emulate ad naseum, to err on the side of seeking an established, familiar, yet worthless facade when so much remains to be done towards the end of creating legitimate value in our lives.

That's what was great about this show, and it's also one of those things that's basically stellar about Mike Watt as a historic figure. Like a certain recently deceased, revered winner of the Peace Prize, the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Soviet Order of Lenin, Watt started as just some dude, like any other dude, who then went on to haul ass and make the world a better place. Another thing that made this show lovely is how long Watt has been playing these songs—he said the first days he ever spent playing music were in a friend's garage in San Pedro, where they jammed cycled through the chorus of "I Wanna Be Your Dog," over and over, spawning a gargantuan, 30 minute version of Iggy Pop's ode to submission, before physically collapsing from exhaustion. He played bass (he'd call it a "thud staff") on these songs when he was just a little kid, and he just kept playing them, growing stronger as a creative musical entity ("More econo," he'd call it). And then: boom, he's touring the world with Iggy and The Stooges, embodying the passionate thrust that makes a song like "TV Eye" so good, but for real this time.

Mike Watt turns 56 on Dec 19, 2013. It's a good a time as any to celebrate the Pedro hero's philosophy and cultural contributions. If you need a soundtrack to help you with that, you could do a lot worse than these live recordings of Hellride performing a huge chunk of The Stooges' catalogue at The Mint, Dec 18, 2013.

Reach Staff Cartoonist Graham Clark here. Follow him on Twitter here.



 

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