I Have Seen the Future

If the pigs hadn't busted all the cameras, the Harridans would have looked just like this.

...But it's not all bad down at the WashPost. This review, under the byline of W. C. Slavery De L'Egout, appeared in early editions of this morning's Post. Mysteriously, it disappeared from later editions -- spiked, apparently, by Eldritch Forces with agendas to foster.

I don't fuck much with the past, but I fuck plenty with the future, snarled a young Patti Smith before her coruscating band chainsawed its gnarlgnashing way into "Babelogue."

Last night at Jay's in Arlington, Past and Future met, clashed, chewed each other to benzedrine shreds, and went home together arm in arm for abandoned and exalted copulation. The Harridans, who deserve the well-worn epithet "The Future of Rock and Roll" better than any White Stripe you'd care to name, Came, Saw, Conquered and Made It Their Bitch. These guys, who come on like a bunch of sixteen-year-old punks on a meth power trip, are never anything less than high, wild and raw, like a ghost train out of Memphis with a coalcar full of rage and a boiler full of bourbon.

This trio from Hell's Half Acre by way of Muscle Shoals and Beale Street, is comprised of Neddie Jingo on guitar, Bobby Lightfoot on back-ass bass, and the grammatically eager Xtcfan on skins. Not drums, just skins; he hangs various pelts around him -- one of them suspiciously hairless -- and harasses them rhythmically, like a tormented Quasimodo in a Parisian alley. Last night at Jay's, these three refugees from the Mean Streets of Gehenna set out to raise the devil. Tell you this, baby: they got him at least three feet off the ground.

The measure of the success of any spontaneous bacchanal is the degree to which it pisses off The Man, and this night was no exception. Fornicating couples in the street -- some even blocks away -- tipped off the Joy Patrol that somebody, somewhere, was having more than the Allotted Ration of fun, and busted the door down at 1 AM. I ducked out the back way to file my story, and my last view of the Harridans was of Neddie Jingo swinging his blond Epiphone Casino like a battle-axe at Arlington's Finest, Bobby Lightfoot administering the Wilford Brimley Treatment on the Former Hill Staffer who'd filed the original complaint, and X'fan, looking like Rufus T. Firefly, keeping time with mallets on the heads of brawlers at the bar.

I have seen the Future, and it is The Harridans.

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Thanks for coming out to Corndog (go read his review; he says what modesty compels me to stifle), the lovely Sylvia, Greg and Heather, John, Jeff & Pia, and most extra-special thanks to the lovely and talented Bob Crain, who selflessly ran sound and crawled around on the floor a lot. Thanks for the loan of that midblowing Marshall amp! Oh -- and not to forget that, er, corpulent individual in the low-cut chemise who kept Jay busy in the back alley while we cleaned out the cash register. The crank we bought with the takings will keep us going until the next gig.

Podcast coming ASAP, but not this week.