"So you came to see the Licks on Halloween, " the lead singer snarled Monday night at the Ottobar ."You must be special or something!"The Licks refers to the band "Juliette and the Licks", and the lead singer is none other than Juliette Lewis of Natural Born Killers and Other Sister fame. And yes, she has a band, and yes, I attended her performance. And no, I will never make that -mistake again.
Now, I've been going to punk shows since the tender age of 13, so when I say there's only one performance I've ever hated this much, it means a lot. For the record, avoid "The Silence" like the plague.
Besides the "other sister," the band is made up of truly experienced and powerhouse musicians: Todd Morse-, who used to be a part of the seminal New York hardcore band H20, guitarist Kemble Waters recommended by Linda Perry herself, with Jason Morris on bass and Paul Ill on drums. And they are tight. They are experienced. They like power chords.
This must have sounded great on paper: Juliette Lewis -- quirky, sexy Oscar-nominated actress and four guys who really know how to rock -- what could go wrong? The answer: everything.
She delivered a truly soulless performance. To be a rock star you need fire, raw emotion, charisma -- Juliette gave us heeled black boots and long hair. You can tell she's studied her Iggy Pop and Karen O. Todd Price of blogcritics.org may have said it best, "The band ... pounded out accomplished punk metal, while Juliette rehearsed her rocks star moves. She whipped her long hair back and forth. Shoved the guitarist. Flexed her muscles ... It was like watching live karaoke."
During the endlessly monotone set, she writhed around on the floor and threw her body into all kinds of poses -- clearly aware of the photographers seated next to me. She was like a little punk rock robot, all of the image none of the attitude.
Her web site announces to the world that she, "formed [the band] with the determination to revolutionize the state of commercial rock-n-roll." Furthermore, Juliette says, "My intention is for our music to serve as an antidote to self doubt, apathy and fear, which has become rampant in society right now."
Quite a mission statement for a pet project; and there's nothing wrong, at heart, with actors wanting to be musicians, or vice versa. What I find offensive is that Juliette Lewis thinks that she can save rock and roll; she who literally crafted a band of paid studio musicians with star producer Linda Perry, who is also credited with Christina Aguilera and Pink's fame.
And they take themselves so seriously. They must have stopped the show half a dozen times to have the sound booth check the balance, or fix the vocals, or just to confer quietly -- that ain't punk rock.
So, okay, form a band to save rock and roll with no experience --- even this could have been forgiven. If only she had any idea what the genre she was trying to reenact, with all of her hair tossing, actually meant to the musicians who wrote her songs. Punk rock, hardcore and thrash are nothing without political and social commentary and the emotional intensity that spurs from them. Introducing songs as being about "sexual frustration" just doesn't cut it.
And there's no connection with the vapid crowd made up half of sycophants and creeps and half of 14-year-old girls. Most were nodding their heads and vaguely trying to capture a picture of the starlet on their camera phones. In the crowd of nearly 200 people, about 300 short of capacity, it seemed that only two people actually knew any of the lyrics of the songs: the band manager and a girl in a skeleton sweat shirt.
What about their songs, you might be wondering. Well, until the encore, I actually couldn't recognize one word of her set. She managed to carry a proficient scream for almost an hour, which was fairly impressive, actually. After a pretend walk off stage, they rushed back on for an "encore". Who shouted enough to get them back on stage wasn't really clear.
They performed two derivative and generic covers, The Who's "Who are You" which Lewis said was for her father; and less than "Search and Destroy" by Iggy and the Stooges. What a slap in the face to all music fans everywhere-: you can't cover the Stooges Juliette, not yet and, maybe, not ever. Before she launched into possibly the worst cover, ever, she says, "Okay, but this is the last one and then we'll go on our merry way." Well, you could have spared us the favor.
