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The good people of Ralph's apparently tried to hide the place, so that no one would ever discover it, but I am too clever for them! I find the stage in time to catch part of The Last Ones. In truth, I'm not that impressed: their sound has all the two-chord, whump-whump simplicity of The Ramones, without their oddly sunny and insanely catchy buoyancy. And their one attempt at a ballad is misguided; the sloppiness can read as punky energy when they play fast, but slowed down it's just sloppy. The guitar leads aren't too bad, though, and they make a decent first band on the bill.
And now, the man, the myth, the freak of nature, Ed "Moose" Savage. Tonight is Moose's record release party for a live double album comprising one disc from Moose and The Mudbugs, his mid-'80s band, and one from Siamese Triplets, his late-'80s/early-'90s combo. Each band plays one set tonight, and as far as I can tell, they have the same lineup, with different names. But there are, I think, subtle differences in their music.
I'm haunted by the knowledge that it may be impossible to convey the experience of Moose in words. I think it's probably important to start with the fact that Moose's voice is nobody's idea of euphonious. If you need pretty tone, find another review. But hiding in that tone is actually a really good, wild, jazzy sense of pitch, and he loves to perform, and writes fun, catchy, intensely surreal songs about vinyl siding and vermin. And food. You'll shake your head in amusement the first time you hear him, but the songs really stick with you. The room is nearly empty when they start, as the Red Sox fail to get eliminated from the playoffs, but slowly fills up with drunken people who dance and whoop. The band is actually really good--his drummer, in particular, seems able to hold it together through absolutely anything--and Moose and his guitarist hit a high point with a dueling-banjos-style call and response on guitar and kazoo. Siamese Triplets play some druggy covers ("I Am the Walrus," and a double-time "White Rabbit") and close, incongruously, with a somber song that seems to reference the genocide of the Native Americans. And the crowd goes wild.
