The Severed Cortex

Before I start in on the show I must first Nancy Schultz for getting us in the show for free. She has an unbelievable knack for being able to swing a deal like no one I've ever met before. While I like to believe I'm pretty good at the art of the deal, Nancy makes me look like an amateur. The next time I buy a car I'm taking her with me.

The Supersuckers rock. Last year (actually 14 months ago) I caught the Supersuckers for the first time as part of Little Steven's Garage Band tour which was led by the reformulation of The New York Dolls. While the Dolls were great (they'll never be the same without Johnny Thunders), the Supersuckers stole the show. They came out with a giant wall of sound that blew the roof off of Mississippi Nights. Incidentally it was one of the last shows ever at Mississippi Nights.

I was under the impression that there was only one opening band and since the show started at 7:30 I had visions of being home by 10:30 or 11:00. Alas. It was all for naught. It turned out there were three opening bands. Despite the fact we showed up just shortly after the show was to start, we completely missed the first band, Walkie Talkie USA. They must have played a four song, fifteen minute set. I never saw them when they were the Phonocaptors and now I've missed them as Walkie Talkie USA. The next band up was called Airborn or Afterbirth or Adelweiss or something like that. They played all originals so they get the props for that, but they were also pretty boring. There was nothing overly exciting about their music at all, or at least they didn't seem very excited about playing it. It was a very small crowd and a Monday night so I understand it's a little tough, but you would have thought that a local band opening for a rock and roll icon like Eddie Spaghetti would have pumped them up even if both bands' music is a little far apart from each other. They mostly went through the motions. I did think the band was better when the lead singer was playing guitar. When he sang alone and it was just a three piece they didn't sound very good. Plus, the lead singer played a PRS guitar and I just don't like them. The drummer was much better than I could ever play, but that's not really saying all that much.
Next up was a bit of a surprise. I knew there was an opening band and that it would be Eddie Spaghetti playing with a guy named Jordan Shapiro. I'd even listened to a little of his music on his MySpace page and came away not all that impressed. That's why Jesus invented live shows. This guy was fantastic in person. He played a red Gibson SG and the tone he got out of it was incredible. Pretty much all he did was country blues back fills while Eddie played acoustic and sang, but the fills he worked out of that guitar were unbelievable. And then he switched to pedal steel, or as Eddie called it, The Hillbilly Piano. I'm paraphrasing Eddie here: That things got letters on it and pedals and you have to use your arms and your legs and everything. That things all fucked up. Regardless of Eddie's perspective on the instrument that seems to only show up in country music, Shapiro played a darn fine pedal steel. He's no Robert Randolph, but he's pretty good in his own right. I liked the Gibson SG playing better. Eddie and Shapiro did a range of country and alt-country covers and threw in a couple of what was either very obscure or their own compositions. They even did a cover of Merle Haggard's Misery and Gin. I've got a Merle CD on my iPod, but it doesn't include Misery and Gin. Be that as it may, I still knew the lyrics and that seemed to come as a shock to Nancy. I may not look like I'm from the country so much, but there's plenty of country in me. Some of you are already more than aware of that. It's probably why I like the Supersuckers so much. They can be as alt-Country one minute and punk the next.
And then came the Supersuckers. At first I thought Dan 'Thunder' Bolton was not on the tour, which wouldn't be a big surprise. But I realized it was Dan once he turned around. Which meant who was the other guy? For a minute I thought it was someone completely different than Rontrose Heathman, but then I realized that it was him minus about 50 pounds from the last time. Or so it seemed to me. Eddie was in the usual Gilley's t-shirt with cowboy hat and glasses, just like he was with Shapiro. Rontrose was wearing a George Jones shirt. (I should mention here that Jordan Shapiro was wearing a Bocephus t-shirt.) I had earplugs in when it started, but it wasn't near as loud as the last time so I took them out. I had no ill effects the next day, but I think part of that was due to the fact that Illinois clubs are smoke free now. In fact, one person did light up a smoke and everyone in the place knew it immediately. The band went through an almost two hour set which included just about everything you'd want to hear. They closed with Born With A Tail after doing their patented fake encore routine. I say patented because it's apparently a trademark with them, but this being the first time I'd seen them headlining a show, I had not been exposed to it before. Basically, the band feels the whole rock and roll encore thing is bullshit. Instead, they pretend to go offstage and we pretend to clap louder to get them to come back out. They then pretend like they were jacked up by the crowd and decide to come back and play two more songs. The whole charade was over in a matter of five seconds and we got our two more songs. Nancy's friend Seth got kicked out for slam dancing to Born With A Tail, which was total bullshit. He should have been kicked out for throwing beer during the first encore song.

What did you expect? It's Pop's.