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