Summer 2013 officially kicked off with the reappearance of two legendary though largely unknown bands with drastically differing temperaments but a shared legacy of rocking harder then most arena-fillers.
One prides itself on wallowing in glam-rock sleaze while the other is so family-friendly that it routinely lead sconga lines of pre-adolescents in a jolly sing-a-long about trees and nature. What this says about rock 'n' roll in this era is anybody's guess.
Turbonegro, glam rockers from Norway, have been at it since 1989. The band's calling card is a fermented queer hooliganism that may be a sham (the members seem to have watched Rainer W. Fassbinder's version of Querelle a little too often) that is draped over a foundation of snark, kink, ribald humor as well as some of the tastiest hard rock jams ever recorded. With the sailor suits, nancy-boy drag, lipstick shoveled on like cake frosting and anthems that celebrate kink as sport ("Sell Your Body to the Night," "City of Satan"), it's unknown if the members are gay, straight or just slumming. However the band presents itself, Turbonegro always seemed to love poking the eyes of vanilla-swilling right-wingers and "decent folks."
With that reputation for lurid rock flash, I wish I could say that the new Sexual Harrassment (Volcum Entertainment) adds to it. "Tight Jeans Loose Leash," "You Give Me Worms" and "Hello Darkness" all have guitar interplay like a rogues' ballet courtesy of Knut "Euroboy" Schreiner and Rune Gronn, and frontman Tony Sylvester sounds like he's singing with a mouth full of lit cigarette buttslike he should. But glam rock, especially this brand, should pull you in and Turbonegro's allure has always been to gleefully yank the listener right into the sweat and warm grease with muscle and a leer. Sexual Harassment feels removed and distant, like something in a display case that is not exactly what anyone can call "fun."
"Mister Sister," a big sloppy slice of '70s glam thunder with punch, makes the album worthybut just barely. Fortunately, Turbonegro's recent show here put it and the rest of the album on a par with the band's history.
The first masterstroke was to move the show from the spacious Metro to the more confining Double Door; Turbonegro is best appreciated with a concentration of wet body heat and the aroma of beer breath. "You Give Me Worms" and "Mister Sister" were all well and good but they worked better as appetizers for the good stuff: "Prince of the Rodeo," "Sailor Man," "I Got Erection," and "Get It On." Sylvester had a high old time chewing through the rockers and prancing around between high kicks in his leather-bear uniform, but Schreiner and Gronn burned from the instant they got on stage and gave him a run for the spotlight. The only quibble to be made about the show is that it happened a week too early; Turbonegro would have been perfect for the opening-night festivities for IML.
Back when Turbonegro was refining its reputation for backstroking down the silt-caked gutter, Chicago's Lovehammers were up to something more, ummm, wholesome. Starting out as just another high school rock band, the four principals and best friendsBill Sawilchik on guitar, brothers Rob and Dino Kourelis on rhythm, and Marty Casey as frontman/vocalistcreated a formidable reputation onstage that guaranteed them a large local audience without benefit of radio or media exposure. Now after lots of adventures (an oddball break via a reality-TV show, a world tour, a disagreeable run in with a major record label, hit singles, marriage, babies) the Hammers have become something more than just a Chicago institution. In fact, the band seems to embody all that is attractive about the "City of Big Shoulders" while remaining the kind of nice people you would want your mom to meetnone of which can explain the brand-spanking new album, Set Fire (Reep Records), and the lead-off track, "Into the Insane (Drugs)."
The song kicks off with a hard current of driven guitars but then Casey snaps "What do you know about how I live!!?!!!?," with such blunt bite that he literally sprays the song with bile and piss. By the time Sawilchik tears into a positively hair-frying solo and the Kourelis brothers pummel the beat with murder in their hearts, the song turns uncharacteristically (for the Hammers) into a pretty nasty epic of bitterness and cynicism. If the Hammers seemed like such nice people, "Into the Insane" paints another picture but, understandably, it's the only sane way to kick off Set Fire.
The album has so many delights and surprises tucked into itmore polished and precise writing; uncharacteristic keyboards and codas unexpectedly popping up and enhancing the songs; and Casey doing all kinds of nifty things with his tone, phrasing, and voicethat the album plays like a sleek, sexy leopard in motion with spots that change color and shape from moment to moment. Set Fire has such variety and flavor that it gives this established band a whole new palate to work with. If "Into the Insane" is surprisingly brutal, "Runaround" has the catchy charm of a '60s brit pop single redressed in the sloppy mayhem of the finest garage rock. "Get Out" is even better, with a non-stop wave of lyrics that come tumbling off Casey's lips like pellets shot out of a paint gun. I know it's only the band's seventh album but Set Fire just may be the Lovehammers' finest … but just don't tell them that.
Onstage at House of Blues, Casey jokingly skirted around how old the band really is; however, if anything, the show revealed not how the members aged, which they really haven't, but how they've evolved. Yes, Dino still bounds about like a newly animated bronze statue and Rob still flails away on the drums like some wild damn thing from the zoo. And, yes, Casey still whirls like a dervish, climbing from the stage into the balcony like a possessed delinquent and dancing like the collision of hydrogen and oxygen. And, yes, Sawilckik still rips out odd guitar shrieks that sound like they came from the planet Venus. (I swear he's an alien.) But what came across was a lightness, elegance and gracefulness that I've never seen from the band.
None of this implies that they didn't kill onstage. Older rockers like "Eyes Can't See" and "Rain On the Brain" got a fresh recharge but they were also shrewdly sandwiched between witty choices: a syncopated and funky "Black Angel (Not Gonna be the One)," a pleasant and casual "Trees," and a heartbreaking reading of "Heavy Crown." Even "Into the Insane" seemed, well, friendlier. But for all of the thunder, mayhem and theatrical lighting, this version of the band seemed much less frantic, more relaxed and more confident; they literally radiated joy. The Lovehammers are the fucking bomb.