Beaten Six Ways to Sunday (Local H, Khyber, 9-13-07)

As we staggered, sweat-soaked, from a Local H (myspace) show in L.A. some years ago, a friend said:  "Man, if you did that every night you'd be in amazing shape."  (He'd said exactly the same thing after we crawled out of a Rollins Band show at the old Limelight, ten years before that, and totally didn't remember doing so.  The saying, not the crawling.)  He was, of course, totally right. (Both times.)

The last Local H show in the Tri-State area was in October of 2005.  And I am terribly, terribly out of shape.  While the blame rests squarely on my own tubby ass (with an assist going to the good folks at Turkey Hill), it would really help my physical disposition if these guys would play here more often.  Two or three times a week would be good.

Scott Lucas is ill.  He was alternating shots of Robitussin and Maker's, Thursday night.  His voice was typically inaccurate, he fudged some lyrics, there was the rare bit of guitar slippage.

It was perfect.  You know how, sometimes, you go to a concert early and find your judgment beaten down by a series of mediocre headliners?  You reach a point where you've convinced yourself that, hey, these guys are pretty good... then the headliner comes on and within seconds it's oh, right, that's how it's supposed to be done, that's what Good sounds like?  I feel like I've been sitting through two whole years of opening acts.  Main Event, motherfuckers, Real Deal.

The only possible downside to a Local H show is the set list.  They've got such a large catalog, most all of it good, and it hurts to have it whittled down to the while you've got.  This one worked out pretty sweet.  My favorite song of 2007 - "Michelle," a great punched-up popper (Rick Springfield, represent) with classic Lucas smart-dumb lyrics - was followed by my favorite H song ever, "Fine and Good" (about which I've spoken before).  "Buffalo Trace" - tough to take sometimes, mostly because it's so long the band could play three other songs in the same space (but also because it's a bit redundant) - came with a nifty, new swampy Voodoo Chile into.  "Rock and Roll Professionals"=Hooray.

The band seemed to have designed the set to whip its abandoned children back into fighting condition. Normally the more aggro numbers come in clusters, ganging up at the climax.  This night was front loaded.  Listen to the mp3s below.  It takes a song and a bit to find its footing, but by the time Lucas ad-screams, "Fuck this shit!" halfway through "High Fiving MF," we're hurtling forward.  Discussions with the sound guy will always drag a show down; the barked orders at the beginning of "All Right (Oh Yeah)" bring this amazing urgency.  "Hey Rita" would normally be a break in the action; here its stomp is worked up to a charge (with a quick salute, at the end, to The Beatles' "I've Got a Feeling").

Exactitude?  Energy!  Rock and Roll kicked the room's ass.  White flags fucking everywhere.

There are only two people playing this music.  I feel I have to constantly remind people about that.  Acute anxiety this shit.

It may not sound so brilliant after the fact, but there was nothing, nothing better than hearing "What Would You Have Me Do?" at the end of the night with its New Year's Eve coda intact (goaded back by an unprompted audience sing-out, I'd like to think).  We were all exhausted, by then.  We all sound it.  I barely even went into the (active, but non-violent) pit, and I was totaled.  I've got a few nice new bruises, my everything aches. 

But man, if I did that every night, I'd be in amazing shape.

Just shy of two in the morning, we dragged ourselves out on to Chestnut Street.  Hoarse and happy, drenched in our own and others' sweat.  Some people wanted to know where all the wet people were coming from, we told them.  "At least everyone can still walk," they said. 

*

Probably the only misstep was the continued inclusion of the "Toxic" cover.  Yes, it's a good song.  But we're all a bit Britney'd-out, bitch, and I'd much rather hear the version of "Wolf Like Me" the band's been doing.

Oh, and:  What the hell was that photographer doing standing on the tiny Khyber stage, wandering between the band and the crowd?  Concert photographers do not belong on stage.  Any stage.  They are not important.  No one gives a fuck about you.  Get out of the way.

(Oh, and II:  The assertion in the Voice's to-do section this week that this band makes "better Nirvana LPs than Nirvana" is only totally ridiculous.  Without even considering the quality issues.  Local H certainly started off as a Nirvana-worship act - Hamfisted is obsessed with Bleach - but while Cobain and Lucas share a love of pop and punk and metal, the music comes from a different place.  It's the difference between tortured and frustrated.)

*

It's always so lame to say You Had to Be There.  So next time, go.  The pisser's that the only New York City date currently scheduled - TODAY - is on that Rocks Off Cruise (Boat starts loading at 5PM, leaves at 6PM.  Tickets can be bought here, though I'm sure they'll be available at the pier).  There's no stage on that boat, you can't see the guys.  That's one of the reasons I went down to Philly (the other is that it's been two fucking years).  I can promise you the band will be great, the music will be great, the view on the outside will be great.  For me a Local H show beats all other options... but I can't say it's a must-see if you can't see anything.

Remaining tour dates:

• 9/15 - New York City - Rocks Off Temptress Cruise (tix)
• 9/16 - Lancaster, PA - Chameleon Club (tix)
• 9/18 - Washington, DC - Black Cat Backstage (tix)
• 9/19 - Charlottesville, VA - Satellite Ballroom (tix)
• 9/20 - Atlanta, GA - The Masquerade (tix)
• 9/21 - Nashville, TN - Mercy Lounge (tix)
• 9/22 - Glendale Heights, IL - Shark City

A very brief East Coast thing, right now; the band promises a new record and with that will come more dates.

Of course, you should own their records.

*

A bootleg of the show is already available!  The sound is awesome - thank someone calling himself Cabbage - and higher quality flac files of the show are at archive.org.

Local H, Live at the Khyber, 9-13-07:

1. Static Age (Misfits cover)(mp3)
2. High-Fiving MF (mp3)
3. Rock and Roll Professionals (mp3)
4. All Right Oh Yeah (mp3)
5. Hey Rita (mp3)
6. Fritz's Corner (mp3)
7. Heavy Metal Bakesale (mp3)
8. Them's Fighting Words (mp3)
9. Michelle (mp3)
10. Fine and Good (mp3)
11. Hands on the Bible (mp3)
12. Buffalo Trace (mp3)
13. Toxic (Britney Spears cover)(mp3)
14. California Songs (mp3)
15. Bound for the Floor (mp3)
16. Back in the Day (mp3)
17. What Would You Have Me Do? (mp3)
18. Good Night (Cheap Trick cover)(mp3)

All the usual live performance caveats apply; I still strongly recommend this 2005 show at Southpaw.

*

The opening act was Sleep Machine (myspace) from Anchorage, Alaska.  Eskimo Emo, Inuit yr face!

Two white guys and a laptop, actually.  The music wasn't particularly interesting, but the presentation was nifty:  On stage, Erik Braund and Brandon Hafer played guitars; behind them, video images of Braund and Hafer played drums and bass, respectively.  Everything was synched up beautifully - "We just do what the computer tells us to do" - and the background stuff was processed in different ways (slo-mo, stop motion, stick-figure animation, etc.) to keep things interesting.  The music wasn't ever better than Just Okay (The drumming was awful, but exceptionally well recorded), but the guys were good-humored and thrilled to be further east than the West Coast.  Braund was in the mosh pit for Local H, screaming his head off.

*

It had been so long since I'd had an honest-to-God Philly cheesesteak that I'd managed to convince myself a couple New York replicants were adequate.

Took the opportunity to remind myself that they're not.

tags: local h  sleep machine  concert reviews  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    reddit