That Was The Show That Was: Varsity Drag with Lump | O'Brien's

We are indignant. Where is the profile for Boston indie rock superlatives Varsity Drag? Sure, we are more than pleased that we are able to stand five feet from Lemonheads co-founder Ben Deily's trio as it performs on one of the smallest stages in its hometown. But as a fan, we are conflicted by the access. Varsity Drag's material is on par with Mr. Deily's best tunes written with the band that made him "famous" (we're thinking "Uhhhh," "Anyway," "Two Weeks In Another Town," the ballad "Postcard"), but his current outfit seems to enjoy greater acclaim in Germany or even Australia than at home. Why Varsity Drag doesn't have the following that would allow it to headline shows at, say, The Paradise is beyond us.

On Friday night the act, anchored by Lisa Deily on bass and explosive drummer Mike "Panama" Quinn, treated a few dozen faithful to spirited takes on half the material from the 2006 set For Crying Out Loud, as well as about as many new tracks (or at least new to us, it looks like all the material is on the out-of-print Ben Deily compilation All These Years Gone By: Selected Songs, 1986-2001) and classic Lemonheads cuts. We always feel especially fortunate to hear the latter material, because -- as we wrote here in February -- by the time we got turned on to Lemonheads Deily had just exited the band, making it impossible for us to have seen him perform the songs created while he was with the act that Evan Dando later rode into the spotlight (Dando's current incarnation of The Lemonheads intends to release an album of covers in September).

As it had when we saw the band at The Cantab earlier this year, Varsity Drag reached back for Lemonheads' "Burying Ground" and "Second Chance," and then it threw in :: clicky clicky :: favorite "Anyway" and "Falling" for good measure. The set commenced with two of the biggest Drag anthems, the scratchy pop delight "Skinny Ties" and the powerfully wistful "Summertime." Not long after the band played its ode to legendary scenester Billy Ruane, who we recently saw storm the upstairs room at The Middle East with a tray of fresh baklava. At O'Brien's we tugged on Deily's shirtsleeve prior to showtime and he reports the band has no live dates booked until November, and he is hopeful to make substantial progress writing songs for the next Varsity Drag album in the meantime.

In the top supporting slot for the night was recently resuscitated Massachusetts power-pop quartet Lump, who turned in a surprisingly sludgy and rocking set. We're not sure if all the sludge was intentional, as the sound guy was inattentive enough at first to leave guitarist Rock's (no surname for Mr. Rock) mic out of the mix for the first few numbers. In reviewing our pictures from the night (flickr set here) we were amused to see that between the rocking out, the shorts and the lighting that Lump reminded us a little of Helmet, visually. In reality Lump is sonically more akin to bands like Small 23. We aren't overly familiar with Lump's repertoire, but we showed up hoping to hear the classics "13" and "Tatters" and we weren't disappointed. And closer "Primrose" was an immaculate noisefest that hope to witness again sometime soon. Lump is writing new material and aims to cut a new record as soon as it has enough new material to fill it. For now, head over to the foursome's MySpace dojo to stream the musical goodness.

Varsity Drag -- "Summertime" -- Live On WAAF, 2008
Varsity Drag -- "Skinny Ties" -- For Crying Out Loud
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[buy For Crying Out Loud from the band right here]

Varsity Drag: Internets | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

Review: The Jesus Lizard -- Live [DVD]

In July 1993 we traveled north and east from the Philly 'burbs to erstwhile Trenton-based punk club City Gardens, where we saw abrasive, in-your-face and loud sets from The Jesus Lizard and New York quartet Helmet. Chicago-based The Jesus Lizard was supporting the release of the live set Show and the forthcoming Down. At that point our only familiarity with the grindy band was the fact that it had released a split single with Nirvana and had a reputation as being a volatile live act. By the end of the show we and our posse were more familiar with dynamic and almost dangerous fronter David Yow than we could have possibly expected. First, Mr. Yow picked our compatriot Lars' nose on stage when Lars tried to turn a stage dive into an opportunity for a handshake with his idol. Secondly, at one point Yow dropped trou, turned to face the drum kit and exposed... well -- it may be worse than you are thinking, but not much worse. We remember wondering if a law had been broken.

Anyway, when we saw that MVD was releasing a live DVD of The Jesus Lizard largely recorded a year later in October 1994 (some bonus material was recorded two years prior at CBGB's) we jumped at the chance to see it, as it is as close as we can get to reliving the chaotic set we had scene those many years ago in Trenton (motto: "Trenton Makes, The World Takes"). The fact that the set on the DVD was filmed (with different camera angles, to boot) in our adopted home of Boston, Mass. at the now defunct Venus de Milo club (which, incidentally, had hosted Radiohead's first U.S. show ever about 16 months prior) is icing on the cake.

The performances on "The Jesus Lizard -- Live" are easily as compelling as the live spectacle we recall. We found ourselves almost flinching as Yow launched himself into a crowd like so much snotty, sinewy ordnance when watching the video (a reaction typically only elicited by watching collegiate wrestling). The performances of "Bloody Mary" and "Nub" are particularly demented. While the trio playing instruments impressively lays down angular, ball-and-socket tight grooves worthy of much attention, it is hard not to focus on the antics of Yow. He spends the set wrestling the front rows of the audience. He crowd surfs, paces, spits and picks his nose, pausing between tunes to pull off of bottles of Budweiser. He demeans fans wearing earplugs, demands certain audience members are ejected, gets someone else's blood on his pants and holds his vocal mic to the bass cabinet. In short, he acts like the madman everyone told you about. Imagine if you took a speared bull from the bullring and dropped it in the first few rows of a hardcore show -- that's the sort of mayhem Yow creates. It makes for great video -- and you can watch a clip from the DVD right here:


The disc also includes a pretty interesting interview with Yow and Boston radio personality Shred. They discuss how The Jesus Lizard rebuffed advances from Atlantic Records by demanding huge amounts of cash for one record deals (the band ultimately signed to Capitol later in the '90s). Yow also goes off on how MTV sucked in 1994 and how the network demanded The Jesus Lizard edit its videos -- we can only imagine what Yow must think now. Attentive readers will recall that the Lars mentioned supra caught up with Yow's latest efforts as the vocalist for Qui in January; here is Lars' review of the show.

"The Jesus Lizard -- Live" was released June 5. You can buy it from Newbury Comics right here.

The Jesus Lizard: InterWeb | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr | Wiki