GWAR
w/Lamb of God, Job for a Cowboy</p>
Thursday, October 29 at 8pm, Cunard Centre, 961 Marginal Road, $45
adv/$50 door, ticketpro.ca, sonicconcerts.com, 888-311-9090
“Some people see the glass as half-empty, some people see the
glass as half-full, I see the glass as broken and being rammed up
someone’s butt.” Such is the philosophy of GWAR’s affable frontman
Oderus Urungus (sometimes known as Dave Brockie, although Urungus
insists Brockie is his slave and nothing more). Urungus rolls along in
perfect character on the phone from St. Louis, peppering his
near-constant tirade against the hateful human race with references to
the extensive GWAR mythology. The funny thing is, for a band that would
like nothing more than to see us all perish in a pile of our own waste,
GWAR has certainly worked pretty hard at entertaining us puny humans
for the last 25 years.
GWAR brings their shock metal to Halifax on a wave of fake blood and
bodily fluids (says Urungus: “I don’t know if we’ve been there before.
Isn’t Halifax like a big bird or something? If so I’d like to have sex
with it”), as part of a two-year-long, 25th-anniversary tour to promote
their latest album, Lust in Space, which has reunited them with
longtime label Metal Blade Records.
Urungus looks back on the past 25 years fondly: “Losing two Grammys
would be a lowlight and highlight at the same time. Being on Metal
Blade Records for years, then leaving Metal Blade Records for years,
and then coming back to Metal Blade Records for years, that would be
another highlight.”
And let’s not forget GWAR’s greatest accomplishment of all: “My own
existence. Every day when I get out of my beer can-filled, hypodermic
needle-littered coffin, and I greet the day, I am I, Oderus Urungus. I
am the coolest thing since Tupperware.” Truthfully, Urungus does bust
his scaly hump, with plans to record another album before the end of
the group’s two-year-long anniversary celebration. “That’s another lie
that I have been caught talking about a lot, the only problem with this
is that I haven’t told anybody in the band yet.”
Frequent (and hilarious) appearances on Fox News’ Red Eye have Urungus speaking out on various important topics, such as
celebrities, Botox and Russian space exploration. Urungus is concerned
over how he is being received on the program.
“I did rip that dude’s heart out, that wasn’t good,” he says. “He
was just a stagehand, but he gave me a decaf latte, he had to die.”
As evidenced by sketchy interactions like these, the relationship
between GWAR and the human race can, at best, be described by the band
as parasitic. However, GWAR attributes its longevity to “the disease of
the human race, the twisted desires of the creatures we created,” says
Urungus. “It is a reflection of how twisted you are that you love GWAR
so much.
“We have a spaceship now anyway, we can leave the earth anytime we
want, we stay here on purpose, quite frankly, to rock. And the crack.
The crack is a big thing.” –Stephanie Johns
JAZZY JEFF
Haliween costume party w/Skratch Bastid and more, Saturday, October
31 at 8pm, Cunard Centre, 961 Marginal Road, $25, ticketpro.ca, 888-311-9090
Jazzy Jeff asks all of his fans not to dress as Friday the
13th‘s Jason for his Haliween costume party at the Cunard Centre.
His creepiest Halloween experience includes the hockey-masked maniac
appearing at one of his shows. For the entire evening, Jason refused to
answer questions and held his very real machete absolutely still. At
first it was funny. Then it occurred to Jeff that it was Halloween and
maybe the monster decided to come out to play.
So machetes aside, what should we expect from a Jazzy Jeff set?
“When we play we just want people to have a good time, that is my
main goal and purpose. I play a lot of different stuff. In one way,
shape or form, I am not going to stick to one format,” he says by
phone. “I give energy, people give energy back, hopefully we will turn
it into a frenzy.”
Best known for being thrown out of buildings by Uncle Phil on
Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Jeffrey Townes made his name early in
the hip-hop scene as Will Smith’s DJ. The pair won the first rap Grammy
ever presented in 1989. Since then, Townes has sold millions of albums,
almost acted in the House Party movies (originally written for
Townes and Smith) and inspired DJs the world over.
Townes says things have changed in the DJ world. When he was coming
up, playing a record no one had ever heard was the way to make your
name. Now audiences want to hear the same thing in the club that they
hear on the radio. A new DJ who plays different records is an outcast;
Townes manages to be considered eclectic.
This hip-hop purist is worried by the slow decrease in vinyl being
released. But he has embraced change as well, such as Serato mixers and
the new videogame DJ Hero.
“If you are a bad DJ with records, you will be a bad DJ with
Serato,” says Townes. “The only thing it makes easier is for you to
carry your records.”
He is very excited about the release of DJ Hero, which Townes
believes will encourage thousands of young fans to try their hand at
real DJing. He provides music and is a character in the game.
“It teaches you patterns of records and mixes, you have to learn the
patterns and things you have to do on the mixes,” says Townes. “If you
become good at it, I think you should go and get a mixer and try to do
it for real. This is the biggest time for DJs ever. I think a lot of
kids are going to get inspired.” —Michael
Kimber
BLONDIE
Friday, October 30 and Saturday, October 31 at 8pm, Casino Nova
Scotia, Schooner Room, 1983 Upper Water Street, $70.25, ticketatlantic.com, 451-1221
There comes a time in a preteen girl’s life when you have a
Blondie moment. You’re probably 11 or 12, at a sleepover at your cooler
friend’s house. Your Disney-approved teen idol has become as
interesting as clear nail polish. And then you see her: maybe on an
album cover or dancing in a video. Tough, sexy, feminine—almost
scary, she’s so in control. Dark roots, shiny lip gloss. Fierce before
Tyra, there’s no “smizing” behind that black eyeliner. In fact, she
usually looks dead bored, like she has somewhere cooler to be.
Basically, everything your pimple-erupting brace-face is not, or ever
will be.
Deborah Harry, as iconic lead singer of Blondie, brought more than
late-1970s New York disco glam to Midwest Tang-drinking moms, she
slipped them some new wave, reggae, punk and rap. (“Rapture” was the
first song with a rap to reach number one on Billboard‘s Hot
100, and the first rap video—with an appearance by artist Jean-Michel
Basquiat—to be broadcast on MTV.) Of course there’s hanging out with
Andy Warhol at Studio 54 and sharing stages with The Ramones, back when
Times Square was a pervert’s paradise of live nudie shows and X-rated
theatres.
The band broke up for several years after Blondie
guitarist/co-founder Chris Stein became ill, but never disappeared. In
February 1999, Harry became the oldest female singer, at age 53, to
reach number one in the UK, with the band’s single “Maria”—20 years
after “Heart of Glass.”
Record labels have tried to contain and commercialize that Blondie
thing, and, for the most part, failed miserably. Avril and Katy have as
much edge as a Teletubbie. Amy Winehouse and Courtney Love had it for a
glimmery second, and lost it big time. Pat Benatar, Beth Ditto, Shirley
Manson, The Breeders and Kathleen Hanna come close, but fall under
Harry’s platinum shadow.
Whatever it was that Blondie has, it’s timeless. Blondie songs get
dropped in clubs, screamed at karaoke and sung at weddings. And though
our city has somehow become a concert-graveyard destination for
past-their-prime hip-hoppers and balding metallers, no one is mistaking
these weekend’s concerts as Blondie’s last stop. We’ll all be studying
Harry, and hoping a little of that coolness rubs off on the rest of us.
–Sue Carter Flinn
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2009.
