Aloha, Suit Up (Hot Snakes, Bowery Ballroom)

I don’t know why more bands don’t do what the Hot Snakes do.  It’s not like it’s rocket science.

Did.  What they did.  The San Diego band – the third pairing of ex-Pitchforkers (the band, not the magazine), ex-Drive Like Jehu’ers guitarist/vocalist Rick Froberg and guitarist John Reis – played their last U.S. show, last night; after three more gigs in Europe, they’ll be no more.  Until, I suppose, Froberg and Reis come up with another new band that does the same thing all over again.

No, it’s not rocket science, but it’s something I certainly can’t explain.  Live – and they’re so much better live than on their three albums – the band’s just pure, controlled energy.  There aren’t necessarily chord progressions, and the notes don’t matter; though the pulse is the thing, the music’s not ruled by the rhythm section.  It’s almost disappointing when the band gets distracted by something as frivolous as melody.  It’s not pure punk, it’s not thuddish hardcore; it’s frenzied, but never collapses into manic thrash.

Maybe it’s quantum physics or somesuchshit.  But it sure seems easy, the way they do it.

Froberg looks a lot like a maintenance man I used to work with, with beady close-set eyes and a dust-mop of brown hair topping a wiry frame – and that’s good, this stuff shouldn’t come pretty.  When they came out, last night, on their last night, he warned that he felt “ice cold,” and asked if everyone was ready to hear the exact same stuff the band played the last time they came through.

Everyone roared their approval back, and out came “I Hate the Kids.”

It feels dumb, trying to describe the show with any word other than “energy.”  So:  Energy. 

Les Savvy Fav singer Tim Harrington was in the crowd and said it was a great show, and who am I to disagree?

As they pounded their way through the encore – seven?  eight? songs – Reis (who also fronted Rocket From the Crypt – looks a little more the stereotypical SoCal punk; tack on thirty pounds and some facial hair, and hollow out his soul, and he could be that guy from  Smashmouth) kept undoing his guitar strap, kept making motions to leave the stage.  Froberg would just laugh at him and call for another song, finally putting everything they had left into a tense, improbable ten-minute jam.  The last song the Hot Snakes ever played on American soil, barring exceptions or extensions, was Drive Like Jehu’s “Luau.”

They took it, they left it.  Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, light up the stars.  The Snakes are now another of the good, dead ones. 

tags: indie music  music  concert reviews  hot snakes  

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