Nothing’s Shocking … or Even Mildly Interesting, For That Matter

I have had to leave concerts for a variety of reasons. I confess, I’ve been thrown out. I’ve gotten sick. I’ve gotten bored. I’ve gotten too drunk to remember anything anyway (a sort of mental exit, I suppose).

But I have never had to leave a show due to depression. That's exactly what happened tonight.

As I was walking up the street towards Bogart’s, I got a little sad. First, it was remembering that Top Cat’s, one of the longtime hold-outs of Corryville’s complete downfall, had just closed. Nothing but Bogart’s remains from the strip’s halcyon days.  I didn’t get too misty-eyed, though. Everything’s always better in hindsight. The music scene that has thrived around the University of Cincinnati has long been a good time, almost always a good night out.

But really it was just a street with crappy bars (that happened to have good music and people) and smelly record stores (which always had great records). Don’t get me wrong — it was perfect for what it was. But it wasn’t like those glossy “dirty Rock & Roll music scene” portrayals in movies, where clubs looked like  multi-million dollar entertainment complexes — with a few carefully placed band stickers plastered on some speakers to give it that real-life Rock & Roll vibe. It was the music and the people that made it fun back then. Today, there isn’t much of either in Corryville (though there is Mad Frog holding strong, they're just outside of the Short Vine area).

It was spooky quiet as I walked up the sad, deserted strip of Short Vine, the heart of this once thriving (at least relatively) hood. I parked within spitting distance of Bogart’s front door. Parking was never a huge deal on Short Vine, but to get a spot that close was unthinkable 15 years ago.

There’s no one out, save a few guys having a smoke outside of a tattoo parlor. No line out the door. No scalpers. I’d heard murmurs about how tonight’s show by Perry Farrell’s new band/concept album/whatever the fuck it is, Satellite Party, was not selling well. It was showing.

I started getting depressed, kind of nostalgic, thinking of the days when an appearance by Perry Farrell at a club as “small” as Bogart’s would be cause for an all-weekend freak parade/festival. (OK, at the very least Sudsy’s would be packed with pre-show revelers getting tanked at around 3 in the afternoon.) In this onetime “hipster” haven (though I don’t remember if that word was around then or not), tonight’s streets make it seem like it’s Christmas morning, at the crack of dawn, when absolutely nobody is on the road.

The show was listed as starting at 8 and Bogart’s has always been pretty insistently on schedule with start times. Not so much tonight. Perhaps they were waiting until more people showed up to start. The extra time was unnecessary.

The show got going around 8:30, when there were about 50 people in the club. A band called Mink — who I immediately dismiss because the legendary (to me) Dayton band Mink should own that name in perpetuity — opened. But they sure acted like they were the headliners. The band was one part the Gap Metal of the ’80s, the Metal Pop stuff between Hair Metal and Grunge, which Guns N Roses inspired, but just sounded like Hair Metal with a little more grind and grunge and more inconspicuous scarves (bandanas always preferred, of course). The other half reminded me of that generic “Alt Pop Rock” of the ’90s. So kind of like L.A. Guns jamming on Sponge and The Verve Pipe covers with Bang Tango.

The band was apparently a bunch of Australian fellas and an American bloke as the lead singer. Someone said the singer was on one of those Rock & Roll reality shows where bands find new singers. Or something. Maybe not. But given the band’s outrageously mundane and contrived sound, it wouldn’t shock me if this was the runner-up's prize on Rock Star: INXS, the show that sought to replace a singer who died from a horrible wanking accident (allegedly?). Something like, “Sorry, you’re not the new Michael Hutchence. But you still get to go on the road … with some random Australian musicians! The musicians may have even been influenced by INXS themselves!”

Or maybe they were friends from birth and they’ve been working towards this all their lives. To be honest, listening to this band was so painful, I really don’t care to know anything more about them. Google it if you’re that interested.

Let me go no further without saying that the really bad vibes I got from tonight’s show could have everything to do with my mood. I’m not even in that bad of a mood, but I am starved for quality distractions, like a great live show. I ended up being more annoyed tonight than inspired or uplifted. I’ll take some of the blame (my whole damn “thinking too much about shit” problem gets in the way sometimes). And, to be fair to Bogart’s (which has been bashed a lot lately, largely fairly), it wasn’t their fault at all. Though the sound still sucked, as usual, the staff is a bit more relaxed at sparsely attended shows. I think the door person even smiled at me.

I’m not really blaming the bands, though Mink certainly contributed greatly to my foul mood. And they played what seemed like an hour-long set. I think my expectations in general were just too high. In the current issue of CityBeat, I wrote a little love letter/show preview to/for Perry Farrell, whose “band” “Satellite” “Party” (whoops, a little trigger-happy on the quotes, but those words should be quoted, because all definitions are up for debate) is basically a pick-up crew. I’m kind of embarrassed now. I wrote gushingly about my crush on Perry’s crazy-man idealism. I like people who can dream big and execute that dream. And I like people who view art and music as vital needs for the human “soul.” I like a lot of his music from the past. I think he’s been one of the greatest frontmen of the past 20 years. And I just think he’s funny.

With Jane’s Addiction, Perry was a Tasmanian devil driven by freakazoid, banshee-like impulse and dangerous debauchery. You couldn’t stop watching Perry when Jane’s was in their heyday (though Stephen Perkins is a fascinating drummer to watch play). I’ve seen different incarnations of Jane’s and I’ve seen Porno for Pyros. All good shows. And I have seen Satellite Party twice before tonight, both times at Lollapalooza in Chicago. They didn’t do too much for me. Perry seemed pretty chill at the most recent Lolla a few weeks ago. I didn’t see that hunger, that prowess, that theatrical mania in his eyes (though he's still oodles more tolerable than, say, the singer for Mink, whose Rock Star stage moves were more phony than a prostitute’s moans of “Oh yeah, baby, that feels so good”). I loved seeing Perry play the kids’ stage at Lollapalooza, where he did “Pets’ and a cover of “Whole Lotta Love” (a song with the words “fucked up” in it and a song about — just guessing — fucking?). He seemed even mellower than he had on the main stage, surveying the kiddie crowd and beaming proudly, perhaps moved by the curious generational overlap.

He surveyed the small crowd at Bogart’s tonight, too. His glance around the venue seemed to say, “Wow, how humbling, but these people really love me.” The audience may have been small in numbers, but almost everyone there seemed to love seeing their hero on stage. Perry’s children’s-stage haze seems to have stuck with him and, while he’s graceful and still somewhat engaging on stage, he came off a little like an AltRock Icon version of Perry Como. Comfortable and familiar, but not even remotely provocative.

About three songs into Mink’s set, I started to think about leaving. I was just bored. The crowd was a mix of old dudes, younger dudes and a few ladies who looked like remnants from the old Jane’s "Band Aids" days (colored dreads, striped stockings, nose rings). Once there would have been about 100 women in a Perry Farrell audience like that. Tonight there were three, maybe four (one didn’t fully commit to the piercings and neon hair color).

No one was really riled up. No one seemed especially excited. I decided to stick around, if only to be close enough to Perry to … um, see his gyrating wife/backup singer/backup dancer’s ovaries (it was cool, she had a seamstress who ran on and fixed her equipment/costume like a roadie fixing a broken guitar cable).

But Mink pushed me to my limits. I started to think maybe it was Perry’s little test for the audience: “If you can sit through this shit, then you may have the honor of watching me perform.” Every time a new Mink song would start (even when they did a disturbingly precise version of "Suffragette City"), I’d bristle. It seemed like they were on their last song for at least 30 minutes. Every time they’d start a new one, I’d groan something like, “Are they serious?” and “Who the fuck is this band?” (Still not intrigued enough to learn anything more about them though.) At one point, they asked a woman to get up on stage and dance. She proceeded to do a stripper routine all across the stage (without getting naked, of course).

It seemed completely staged — I mean, who would actually do that? For a band like this? Marilyn Manson or Young Jeezy, maybe. The guys in the band didn’t even look at the woman grinding on their amps and performing imaginary oral on their mic stands. I think Rock dudes on the road for even two days are going to be taking a glance over their shoulder at that, even if it is just for their wank Rolodex, to be used later. The singer guy made a comment about how cool it was to have “spontaneous” dancing. I don’t buy it one bit. Even if she wasn’t a plant, the fact that I doubt so strongly that the band is capable of having this happen to them should speak volumes.

I’ve seen a lot of bad (or mediocre) bands before. I can usually sit through a 30 minute set, no problem. Even 45 isn’t that bad. But Mink seemed to play an eternity.

When that band which has the same name as a much better but dead band from Dayton finally finished, I half expected a huge turnover wait. Surely, with the grand concept of Satellite Party (something about parties on satellites in space in the future … and maybe love and sex, etc.), there’d be some kind of spacey stage set.

But the curtain didn’t lower after Mink. You could watch them schlep their own equipment off the stage. You could watch new equipment being set up. Then, you could watch Perry and his bandmates (and dancer/backup singer/wife) take the stage and wait awkwardly as someone decided they need to hold off the already-too-long show until the Pixies song that was coming over the PA comes to an end.

Perry smiled, said some crazy stuff about love and sex or something and, again, looked a bit humbled. Satellite Party’s debut album has only been out for a month or two and it hasn’t really found its place. It’s hard, even for an icon, to get exposure in these times of locked playlists. Or maybe a lot of people have heard the album and just didn’t want to hear it ever again.

Ultra-Payloaded isn’t a bad album — like the last few Perry projects, there’s always at least a couple of diamonds in the rough-around-the-edges wilds of Farrell filler. And Farrell and his band sounded pretty good — there was a dandy guitarist who filled the Nuno-from-Extreme role from the album pretty damn well.

But there was something depressing about seeing Perry go through his mostly-crap new album and back-catalog greatest hits to such a small number of people. Why, just last week, there were several thousand people watching him. Maybe Perry has calmed down and domesticated in his (really not that) old age. Maybe he’ll get a creative boost from the small club experience. Or maybe he’ll just fade away, popping out like a groundhog on Lolla weekend every year. He’ll be like Wavy Gravy at Woodstock and other hippie fests in 20 years. Though everyone will probably be “going to concerts” online by then.

It was sad like how watching an unrealistically over-confident stripper dance is sad. You want to be nice and appreciate the efforts of someone who is clearly a good-intentioned person. But when there’s any element of pity in entertainment value, that value goes down rapidly.

I was reminded of the scene from Raging Bull where Jake LeMotta gets old and fat (don't get me wrong — Perry's in great shape still). Long after his boxing glory days are over, he starts doing “comedy” in nightclubs, where he gets an apathetic-at-best response. Or those scenes from Sid and Nancy, where Sid’s “solo” band plays Max’s Kansas City, but the few people who do come throw their hands up in disgust and eventually all leave.

OK, again, it wasn’t that bad. But it is a letdown. It’s kind of triggered a little existential crisis in me, actually. Watching someone who was once so intense, vital and magnetic become so calm and humdrum goes in the same category as watching people find God and golf as they age. I fear it. Perry once seemed immortal. Now he just seems … normal.

I got through about two songs while I was standing at the lip of the stage. I wasn’t as in awe of Perry as I have been when I’ve been that close in the past (from a Hara Arena show in Dayton to Lolla press conferences and chance run-ins). So I just started wandering around (it was easy to do with so much elbow room) and watching the fans watching Perry. People seemed genuinely entertained, some even riveted. A few were into the new stuff; most only responded to the old classics; all seemed to have an irresistible fixation on Perry.

I heard a fairly faithful recreation of “Mountain Song,” an old Jane’s showstopper, and decided it was my cue to go. Maybe the band got better and got back to that transcendent place Perry has visited in the past. But I don’t think all the wine in California could have made that happen. Perry was gleefully pulling from a wine bottle throughout the show, once a romantic, Rimbaudian gesture, but now just a little “remember this?” prop.

Perry does seem happy, which is cool. But I want my good art back! I’m selfish that way. I’ll admit, I’ve wished upon a star that certain “morose” stars would get off their legal meds and get back on the illegal ones so they can make more good art for me to experience.

But maybe the disappointment in this show was just further disillusionment. There’s now a perception that the early ’90s “AltRock Revolution” was all dark and gloomy and doomy. But I remember a sense of hope. It was exciting to watch groups that I had seen play to 20 people at a tiny, dark, dank club months earlier suddenly get played on mainstream radio and dissected in the mainstream press. It was a weird feeling, but It felt like “something” was happening. But nothing ever really did. Pearl Jam gave up on their Ticketmaster fight. Kurt blew his head off. Cheesy Pop made a comeback. Mall stores started catering to the “Grunge” crowd. Peace never came, so the cynics just said, “See told you so” and put their headphones back on. The dream was over. Still is. Maybe that’s why hardly anyone was at the show.

But we still need dreamers who don’t think about the end and the bottom line. We need more Perry Farrells. We need more young Perry Farrells. To evolve, we need people who think beyond themselves.

So, I was disappointed tonight and I’ll probably not go out of my way to see Perry play again (at least until he puts out something new that is worthwhile).

But in 30 years — 10 years after the big “AltRock” revival that puts Jane’s, Nirvana (with a still-hot 55-year-old Jared Leto playing the role of “Kurt”) and the supergroup Red Hot Alice in Pearl Soundgarden on an AltOldies tour — if I see Perry playing a hotel lounge, I’ll sit and listen respectfully as he tinkles his way through Lounge versions of  “Standing in the Shower Thinking” and “Pigs in Zen.”

Then I’ll shake his hand for at least having a hand in shaking things up for a while.

— Mike Breen

Comments

[Philip Shade]

I drove from Cincy to catch the first Lollapalooza in Chicago and Cleveland back when. I was pretty excited to see Jane's Addiction live. But then they came out and Perry started doing his thing and I realized "wow this guy believes his own hype, how sad" and walked out bored to my eyeballs.

Interesting to see nothing has changed.

[War-N]

This is rather sad. Nice to be BoingBoinged though:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/16/perry_farrell_yawn.html

[JasonB]

Here we are now - entertain us. Why waste your time with Perry, who hasn't had an interesting thing to say in 10 years? There's plenty of folks who need the ink and have the hunger you're craving. Short of that, do what Greg Tate did - form the band you always wanted to hear. Want great art? Make it yourself. Will the last critic out turn off the light?

[DCer]

Well, I lived through Janes Addiction mania and frankly they weren't all they were cracked up to be back then. Influenced by Redd Kross's "Neurotica" and the Pixies they sort of blended these styles together to form something that to all of us sounded far too polished, professional and phony. Farrel never changed, a businessman all the way. So he was never an Ian Mackaye or Rollins or even Kurt Cobain.

[Mark]

Dude - couldn't get past the second paragraph because you were whining so much.

Maybe EMO is more your thing...

[Gary R Boodhoo]

if i understand this (lengthy) post correctly, you're sharing a personal insight that artists & audiences change as they get older? That the context that made someone spectacular is generally more spectacular than the "star" themselves?

[Breen]

Exactly, Gary. It's subjective of course; the time you find certain music, how old you are, where you are in your life, it all influences how much meaning you put into a piece of music or an artist. I always use the Breakfast Club example — when I saw it as a 15 year old, I thought it was the greatest thing ever made. Now I think it's awful.

Mark, I can indeed get kinda emo over here. I've got an Emo For Life tattoo across my belly, just below my aching heart. And just above my Fall Out Boy crotch tattoo.

[kevin]

You should probably remember that Nothing's Shocking and the Triple X album came out 20 years ago.

[Obiter]

"Perry's reinvention fails to resonate with old fans."

That's your piece in a nutshell.

Great critiques clarify and edify. This was merely a meander through your dusty attic of subjective ghosts. Nicely written though it was.

[Zunger]

Please, the bit about the 90's alt rock scene having the feeling of a revolution...that's just too much. That scene was, by and large, as manufactured as any other that gets pop radio play. Sure, many of the artists believed in their music, but then again, when they realized they were being used by greedy corporate bastards they blew their heads off like Kurt. "Peace never came." Yea, and how many of the fans really gave a true shit about peace?

Music may play integral parts in real revolutions (see South Africa), but the early 90's in the U.S. was not a revolution. We do need more people who don't give a shit about the bottom line, but expecting mainstream musicians to provide your hit of social justice is a little, umm, ridiculous.

[Breen]

Uh, Zunger, thanks for telling me how I feel. It's a personal essay; I'm not trying to relate anything but my own experience.

[g-rant]

anyone that has seen short vine's decline since its late-80's early-90's hayday will know exactly what you're talking about. i remember the moment in the mid-90's when the bad sound and obnoxious bouncers at bogart's finally got to be too much and we started going to newport in columbus instead (from dayton).

there was a sense of community then. troublemakers were ostracized, thrown out of the pit. when someone fell we picked them up and kept dancing.

there were no hipsters then. it was all punk & alternative and alternative was everything from the smiths to front 242.

in 1992, the year that punk "broke," punk was also broken, seemingly beyond repair. commerce was finally able to co-opt the DIY spirit, at least superficially.

as far as short-vine goes, for a city that is as hung up on its past as cincinnati, we do nothing to preserve what's good about the present. we seem to prefer nostalgia to now. i hope that changes, otherwise northside will be the next to fall and become north camp washington.

is it true that there are now only 2 live music venues near UC? mad frog and bogarts? oh, and downstairs at the holy grail if that counts. that's just sad.

fianlly, that jane's show at hara where the rollins band opened WAS amazing.

[Patrick in Chicago]

As someone who has seen Jane's many times I can say that the Satellite Party set at Lolla in Chicago was BORING. I also was bothered by Farrell's comments to one of the hosts on the NPR show "Sound Opinions" on selling premium seating for $1000 a ticket....I found his response to the host very snide. All while still charging $2 for a water! Very annoying and very disappointing.

[eric]

I didn't even read the whole bit. But I saw the same show in amsterdam. the thing was that the room was filled with record company and press people. everyone was invited. All 30 something boring motherfuckers.(including me). All pre-judgemental. Waiting to see perry's new thing. All old people wating to relive their early 20's. With digital camera's in hand. Cell phones ready to call their friends to tell them what a special evening they were experiencing. like being there was like collecting stamps.

No 15 year old kids on a retro binge were there. I could stand in front of the stage and my glasses wouldn't fly off because of mosh pits. lame, lame lame. Something that was different the first time around.

This was not perry's fault. this is our fault. this is the next generation of kids fault. this is bush's fault. this is everybody's fault.

This is because no new music genres have stood out since 9/11. It's because the white marketing machine cant compete in subservevisness to suicidebombers. 50 cent looks like a pussy next to an palistinian teenager willing to blow himself up. Everything turned out to be a sales pitch in the end. from nirvana to led zeppelin. all marketing (except the foo fighters cause they truly rock!).

I hope that pretty soon our young generation will stand up. straps on a 'gun belt' and will kick our 30 something asses. Something perry did. cause despite the amsterdam crowd being utterly professional within 10 minutes he rocked everyone's asses.

So all you boring winers. I hate you! I hate myself! And every 16 year old should hate you. As long as he can tear himself from away facebook.

"A" with a circle around it! remember.......

[PotownAl]

I saw Jane's at the first Lolla. I knew I was having "The Doors" moment my mom always talked about...knowing you are seeing a legendary band perform that people will talk about into old age. I've seen Perry in all his various get-ups since and I agree, it's just not the same. I remember hearing an interview with Perry just before Jane's hit it big. When asked what he would do with all the money when he became rich, he responded "I'm going to take a helicopter ride above LA and drop all the money down to the people" Maybe he should try this today, he might fill a club or two.

[Lolah]

"We need more young Perry Farrells."

We need the spirit of "young Perry Farrell" in all ages.

[Lolah]

"Mark, I can indeed get kinda emo over here. I've got an Emo For Life tattoo across my belly, just below my aching heart. And just above my Fall Out Boy crotch tattoo."

And your Slipknot trampstamp.

[Lolah]

"Please, the bit about the 90's alt rock scene having the feeling of a revolution...that's just too much. That scene was, by and large, as manufactured as any other that gets pop radio play. Sure, many of the artists believed in their music"

But it caused a fire in people hearts,
so it doesn't matter how it came about...