THE BLACK LIPS + CPC Gangbangs @ Main Hall

By Shaun Anderson - Losing My Edge - 09/26/2006

"Let me get this straight; we're not punk... When someone calls you a punk, it means you're nothin' but a bitch."

This statement, coming from anyone else's mouth besides The Black Lips singer/songwriter and lead guitarist Cole Alexander, would deserve a punch in the mouth as far as I'm concerned. Many around this station will tell you that I am one of punk rock circa-2006 staunchest defenders, and there is nothing more that bothers me in music criticism than the blind dismissal of punk rock by people who only discovered the music they have moved onto through punk rock in the first place -- such as the entire writing staff of Pitchfork, for example. These drunken words in quotations above, uttered about halfway through The Black Lips mind-melting set last Tuesday, summed up something that all of us lucky enough to have bared witness to their awesome spectacle have surely discovered. What The Black Lips are accomplishing in music right now -- on their records and on the road on a nightly basis -- are making every other currently active band in punk rock today (with the possible exception of Fucked Up) look like their collective bitches by comparison. After three full-length records and nearly a dozen singles since getting together as teens in the late 90's, people are finally starting to catch on to The Black Lips' magical brand of modernized pop psych-infused and 60's-inspired garage which they fittingly called "Flower Punk". This is hot on the heels of having just released one of the decade's best albums Let It Bloom less than ten months ago, as well as recently inking a deal with the major label-financed ūber-indie Vice Records. Having missed their two previous shows in Montreal (and having the crushing letdown of their third scheduled show two years prior being cancelled due to negligence among the promoters trying to get them across the border), I was ridiculously excited to finally get to see them play, even if it meant having to see them open for indie hype band Be Your Own Pet, as well as missing an opportunity to see one of the greatest Canadian bands ever Nomeansno play a set just down the street on the same night.

The evening started off well. I arrived just in time to see the notoriously inconsistent hometown purveyors of lo-fi trash punk CPC Gangbangs (with Paul Spence of Fubar fame on guitar and lead vocals) bang out the best set I've seen them play in at least six months. I was starting to think my patience with this band had worn completely thin after seeing them over a half dozen times in the last three years to varying degrees of success, but I think I have been officially swayed back onto their side. Granted, their brand of punk rock isn't exactly rocket science, and I honestly couldn't see them winning too many converts among the crowd that came strictly to see BYOP, but they deserve credit for playing a tight set with minimal ridiculous self-indulgence they can get caught up in from time to time. Their songs –- sort of what you could imagine Crime would have sounded like had they secretly worshiped Hawkwind and Chrome –- stood on their own surprisingly well, and I find myself looking forward to hearing what their forthcoming full-length on Swami will offer up.

Really though, this evening undoubtedly belonged to The Black Lips, who had the whole crowd eating out of the palms of their hands from the first song on, weaving their trashy, poppy, effortless-looking yet incredibly loose-sounding songs through some of the most hilarious and unbelievably great stage antics I've ever seen. Those stage antics are already somewhat of a thing of legend at this point, as they have regularly taken to puking all over themselves, playing guitar with their dicks, and (literally) pissing in their own mouths on stage, among other sorts of ridiculousness. This show was a little less crazy, but it was still amazing to watch Cole perform feats like make out with Ian (their rhythm guitarist), play guitar solos with his teeth, and catch spit balls he was launching five feet into the air back into his mouth, all while not messing up a single part (let alone note) of any song. Add to that the hilariousness of having used their Vice signing advance to add a smoke machine and cheesy 60's lava lamp-style light projector to their arsenal -- not to mention the obligatory brand spanking new guitars, drum kit and amps, of course -- and you have what stacks up to be one of the most viscerally interesting live bands on the face of the earth at this moment. This all would make them about as musically vital as GWAR would it not be for the fact that they are also arguably the best pure garage punk band since the Oblivians and easily, without question, the best pop songwriters working within the punk milieu since the Exploding Hearts untimely demise three years ago. Their command of the room and the energy of their performance was so incredible and awe-striking, many were shocked to learn that their bass player (and author of roughly 30% of their songs) Jared hadn't even made it across the border with them, and was being temporarily replaced by Jeffery Novak from the Memphis punk band The Rat Traps (and husband of one of the Be Your Own Pet members) on their two Canadian dates. When they ended their 35-minute set with the perennial tongue-in-cheek anthem "Freak Out" off of their first album, the whole crowd literally freaked the fuck out, prompting a huge circle pit in the front row, while several members of Montreal's Demon's Claws forced themselves on stage to frolic about, as The Black Lips put the finishing touches on one of the best sets of music I've seen this year. I could have easily put up with another hour of this non-stop greatness, but it was somewhat fitting to see them so effectively set an impossibly high bar to follow; a modern-day throwback to the days of Jerry Lee Lewis' piano-torching sets that no headlining act, no matter how great they were, could ever hope to top.

I honestly felt bad when I left right before Be Your Own Pet's set, but really, what could have topped The Black Lips? On this night -- and probably almost every other night in this day and age -- absolutely no one could touch them, so why even bother?

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