Experience The Black Lips

by Stephen Tringali

The Black Lips, a frighteningly fun rockabilly punk band, will make an appearance at D.C.'s Black Cat Saturday night (3/24/2007). Despite their second billing at the Black Cat, the Atlanta, Georgia-based quartet has managed to generate more press than their headlining counterparts, The Ponys.

You might be wondering how this happened. Pitchfork described their PR philosophy best: “They believe that you bleed and sweat and abuse yourself for rock and roll, and the most fucked-up band wins the prize.”

It appears that this notion is true. The most fucked-up band does come out on top and does receive glowing reviews all around — just because they play every show as if it’s their last. They hurl their music, nurtured by a shameless abandon and illegal substances, against the crowd and hope that something will stick.

Something has in fact stuck: a message the press and audiences understand after only one show. The Black Lips and their combustible live act occupy a transient plateau from which they taunt, “See us now. Before we burn out and die.”

Caitlin Servilio and I can attest (see: "(Mis)Adventures in Ticketland" for more concert trips with Caitlin & Steve) first hand to the power of the all-or-nothing approach of the Black Lips. Last October, we saw the band open for Be Your Own Pet and we were instantly entranced. It wasn’t just their blithe pop meets dirty southern rock that hooked our interest. It was their willingness to embrace the self-sacrifice that rock and punk once perpetuated.

Just picture for a second the band slinking through “Hippie, Hippie, Hoorah.” The lead guitarist, complete with gangsta grill, sets an eastern-tinged riff in motion, while the lead singer, adorned in black-and-white-striped shirt and redneck mustache, croons longingly. Between verses, the rhythm guitarist cackles into his microphone and mutters disturbing ghost noises.

Other notable antics of the night included a quick make-out session between male guitarists, and non-stop, violent flailing. Based on other concert reviews I’ve read, Caitlin and I experienced what might be considered a mild Black Lips show.

According to the band’s website, the shows often feature “flying blood, group kissing, sudden nudity, fireworks explosions, and pissing into their mouths and onto the audience….”

No wonder Rolling Stone has called them “one of the best live bands in America.”

(Photo of a Black Lips performance in Münster, Germany by Christian Kock via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license. To see a video of the Black Lips playing "Boomerang" in Tijuana, Mexico, check below.)



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Black Lips
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