Hamburger helping

“A collage of white hipsters, ready to get their irony on”—that’s how comedian (and Alcohol Stuntband frontman) CHRIS CROFTON described the crowd at last Thursday’s NEIL HAMBURGER show at The End, and he pretty much nailed it. Crofton’s opening stand-up set was one of the best we’d seen him do—the pressure of preceding a comedian of Hamburger’s, ahem, stature must have lit a fire under Crofton’s self-loathing, porn-loving, hipster-bashing ass. Among the highlights: his Dirty Sanchez bit, wherein he listed a whole new slew of alleged sex practices—The Hindenburg, The Muhammad Ali, The Murky Water Snorkel Reenactment—the definitions of which we will omit here for fear of losing all those LifeWay advertising dollars. Next up was “Australia’s Premier Parlor Magician,” DR. EL SUAVO, who’s opening many of the shows on Hamburger’s current tour. Though his washed-up vaudeville shtick is a good stylistic fit with Hamburger, we weren’t overwhelmed, to say the least. Which only made the arrival of America’s Funnyman all the more welcome. Hamburger took the stage and—after a minute and 40 seconds of hacking up loogies into the mic (yes, we timed it)—let loose with an enthusiastic “Let’s get this party started,” then dished up 50 minutes of cornball groaners, outrageous celebrity lampooning and relentless ridicule of washed-up rock stars. (Greg Turkington, the man behind the Hamburger curtain, owned Amarillo Records, a San Francisco post-punk avant-garde label, in the 1990s.) To wit(less?): “Why….WHY?!…did al-Qaeda—under the direction of Mister Osaaama Bin Laaaaden—burn, in the public town square in Kabul, Afghanistan, over 10,000 copies of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album? Well, because it’s a horrible album.” Another: “WHAT?!…is the difference…between the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Harriet Tubman? Well, Harriet Tubman…the late Harriet Tubman…was, of course, a heroine to the slaves…and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are slaaaves to the heroin!” (That joke was the centerpiece of a 10-joke Chili Peppers assault that had us gasping for air.) After a while, the jokes were almost irrelevant—the mere delivery of the word “Why?!” was enough to have the audience in stitches (which is ironic in itself, since 75 percent of the crowd was too young to remember the Borscht Belt hacks Hamburger’s sending up). If this is anti-humor, why is it so fuckin’ funny?

Smokin’ set

The Spin arrived midway through DINOSAUR JR.’s opening set at City Hall on Friday night, only to find that working our way to a choice spot in the center of the room was going to prove difficult. The place was front-to-back packed, partly the result of a massive ticket giveaway coordinated by show sponsor Camel cigarettes. Every wall and corner of the room was taken up by cigarette propaganda, and two huge screens on either side of the stage flashed what we suspected to be subliminal advertising between sets. All of this distracted somewhat from the show itself, which is a shame, as Dinosaur Jr. were in typically fiery form. Looking like Gandalf the guitar wizard with his long gray hair, J. MASCIS unleashed torrents of twisting, exquisitely-crafted sludge on material from the band’s new Beyond as well as older numbers like the sing-along crowd favorite “Freak Scene.” Dino’s set was enthusiastically received, but it was a BLACK KEYS crowd, and the heat index rose measurably as the Akron, Ohio, duo delivered a feverish set of their uncommonly primal brand of dirty garage blues. Drummer PATRICK CARNEY bashed away stoically while DAN AUERBACH growled and moaned beside him, flailing and leaping about the stage in a manner that was astounding less for its reckless abandon than for the fact that despite what must have been unbearable heat, he never removed his sweat-soaked long-sleeve shirt. We left during the Keys’ encore, feeling strangely compelled to go buy cigarettes.

I heart rock ’n’ roll

“Keep an open heart,” advised ’80s hard-rock veterans TESLA in their biggest hit, the model power ballad “Love Song.” Their Friday night show at The Ryman offered a reminder of just how openhearted this music was, what an oasis it offered from the machismo and misogyny of the era’s hair-metal hegemony. During two hours and 20 minutes of pulverizing blues-based riff-rock, lead singer JEFF KEITH espoused charity (“What You Give”), noncompetitiveness (“The Way It Is”), distrust of jingoism (“Freedom Slaves”), nuclear disarmament (“Modern Day Cowboy”)—hell, even redistribution of property (their hit cover of the Five Man Electrical Band’s “Signs”). For the encore, Keith (a jeans-and-T-shirt guy in a jeans-and-T-shirt band) emerged in full Nudie-suit regalia and introduced a pedal steel guitarist, keyboardist and female harmony singer for a full-on country mini-set. Most of the audience seemed to appreciate the gesture, but one decidedly inebriated gentleman began angrily flipping off the band and screaming, “Fuck that! Rock ’n’ roll! Play rock ’n’ roll!” Seconds later, he grabbed his even more inebriated date by the arm and left. Open-heartedness is one thing, open-mindedness is quite another.

The Sunday night backyard bash at SHEA STEELE’s new Local Honey location in 12 South (in the former Creative Fitness Center building for all you old-school arty types) got a bit of a late start due to vacillation over bowing to the weather gods—it was meant to begin at 8 p.m. sharp, but stalled until closer to 10. No one minded the extended cocktail hour too much, especially with the evening’s featured director Roman Polanski’s Knife in the Water rippling on a homemade projector screen tied between two trees. With one more Casio-themed band name we could’ve had a triple-header, but as it was THE DONKEYS were sandwiched between the spastic charm of opener and one-man wrecking crew that is CASIO CASANOVA— whose bleepy angst and whiny sing-shout are well-served by his affection for frantic pacing—and headliner CASIOTONE FOR THE PAINFULLY ALONE, a.k.a. OWEN ASHWORTH. The steadily growing crowd was treated to sets of mellow, friendly tunes from the last two bands that seemed about as perfect for an early summer show as the light rain that fell off and on throughout the evening. Steele confirmed at least two more shows set up for the summer, but we say hook up this outdoor excursion every weekend as long as the weather permits. In fact, we love this setting so much we’re thinking about passing the hat next time to help Steele buy some plastic chairs—at least for a VIP lounge.

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