The Neurotic Adventures of FrankensteinI have only been talking to the assembled members of Boston motorpunk kingpins Rock City Crimewave for about 15 minutes, and they've mentioned cheeseburgers on four separate occasions. There's a lot of cheeseburger eating in this band.
"Cheeseburgers are fun", drummer Barry Smith offers. "I like eating anything that gives me gas."
Ian Adams shrugs. "What can I say? We have healthy appetites."
Now, normally, a thread of conversation like this would land on the cutting room floor, to make way for the tried and true rock interview elements- the usual numbing chatter about records, tours, influences, and, if you're lucky, pussy and cocaine. But Rock City Crimewave is not a normal band. They are the Undertaker and his Pals ripped off the silver screen and dropped onto the stage, the living distillation of every teenage fever dream about what good rock and roll ought to be-sexy, creepy and crazy all at once. Although they do have a tendency to lean a little harder on the crazy pedal.
"But I thought you were a vegetarian?" I ask Ian, getting back to the cheeseburgers.
"Well", new guitar player Gardner Key interjects, "He did go to art school."
"Listen, I'm a preacher's son", Ian explains, "I have problems. Often times, my views on what's best for my spiritual, mental, and physical health are just plain fucked up, and I don't realize it until a year after it happens."
I explain to the rest of the band about how Ian and I went to a Chinese restaurant last year, and he had tofu. Tofu? At a restaurant that uses plastic forks?
"Well, at the time, I had this major freak-out", Ian says. "In a nutshell, I'm a hypochondriac and an obsessive compulsive. I had seen this documentary on Mad Cow disease, and there was no way in hell I was going to eat anything from a Chinese restaurant after hearing about Mad Cow, and about what causes it, and stuff. Because you know, it's the same basic genetic defense mechanism that keeps people from becoming cannibals. It's a spongy form of virus, and when a human eats the brain of another human, it causes these little spiral formed germs that basically eat through your brain, leaving your brain looking like Swiss cheese. That's what results in Mad Cow disease. The Borneo headhunters called it the 'Laughing Disease'. It was the same thing, you bounce around like an idiot, you forget your name, or how to eat and pee."
"So", I sum up, "That's why you wouldn't eat meat at the Chinese restaurant?"
Ian nods. "Right. Because I didn't want to get Mad Cow disease."
Resurrected Like an Ugly Rumor
These are the kind of bad obsessions that have fueled the perpetual Ian Adams trash n' roll freakshow for years, since the days of the influential surfabilly ghoul-bash 8 Ball Shifter, the band that ultimately served as a trial run for the "Ass kicking, bloodsucking, motherfucking" rock and roll killing machine that Rock City Crimewave would quickly become. After ascending like a gasohol powered rocket to local fame, thanks to a devastating live show and a Motown-meets Detroit- meets Monster Island sound that simply cannot be argued with, the band suffered a sudden run of bad luck. There were traitors in the ranks, legal hassles, and personal tragedies to contend with, and dark days replaced the endlessly entertaining neon-lit nights they were used to. But, you know, so what? You can't kill what's already dead, baby. "Rock and roll", as Ian will tell you, "Is always an experiment with disaster, to see how close you can push it." But with a new guitar player (the oddly named Gardner Key is a St. Louis native, an ex-Syphloid, and was hired on the spot mostly because he looks like he died five days ago. He stayed because he rocks like fuck), a new record ("Sealed With a Curse", out now on Pig Pile), a new van ( Poundy hit it big at the Blackjack table), and a new lease on life, Rock City Crimewave is on a whole new killin' spree. Lock up your daughters.
Lizard in a Bottle
We'll get around to talking about the record at some point, I'm sure. But not yet. First, we talk about the drummer. Ian's longest running partner in crime is Barry Smith, who is well-known and much beloved in this town for three things: he's a 4-armed demon on the drums, he's a bit shorter than his band mates, and he's absolutely capable of anything. In the groovy ghoul cartoon world of Rock City Crimewave, he's the perfect mallet-wielding foil for the slinky black leather monsters up front. He's Igor, Bam Bam, and Animal, all rolled into one compact, high-strung ball of lightning. He's also a master at deflecting the rubber bullets his band is constantly shooting at him.
"Tiny Stud, Tiny Philosopher, Tiny Dancer..." Gravel throated bass player Steve "Poundy" Venable runs through the myriad of band-hassle nicknames given to Barry. "People call me 'Tiny' everything, I don't care", he shrugs, and I can tell, he really doesn't. But I ask him which one he likes best anyway.
"I prefer Smitty", he says. "Smitty the Knee Biter."
Smitty gets up for another round of beers, and while he's gone, I ask the rest of the band if they have any good stories about him to tell while he's gone. They do.
"Oh, this is a good one", Ian smiles. "See, Barry is a little fella..."
"Is he aware that he's little?" I ask.
"No. He knows he's short, but he doesn't know he's little. So, one night me and the Tiny Stud were at the Lizard Lounge, and Barry got it in his mind that it'd be funny if he started doing some little tricks. He started putting out cigarettes on different parts of his body, and all at once, he got all belligerent and crazy. So I figure, 'Ok, time to get out of here.' I grab Barry by the scruff of the neck and the seat of the pants, and I carry him out of the club. At that point, Barry just has a complete breakdown. We're outside and he's screaming, crying, hugging me around the waist, going, 'I just don't know anymore...' Just then, Poundy comes walking by. I only knew him as sort of 'Hey, how ya doing?' then. He just looked at us, with Barry sobbing into my bosom, and shook his head."
Barry returns to the table with a handful of Bud longnecks, and he immediately smells trouble.
"Are you fuckin' assholes talking about me?"
"Yeah", Ian admits, "I was talking about the Lizard Lounge."
Barry laughs. "That was pretty fucked-up", he simply says, as if it was just another bad day at work. And in a very real way, it was. Rock City Crimewave is no part-time gig, after all. It's a life-long commitment to rock harder than everyone else, to wholly accept trash culture as high art, three chords and a grudge as religion, and b-movie madness as an agreeable hyper-reality. Nobody does it better, because nobody could, even if they wanted to.
3 Ghosts Later"Sealed With a Curse" is the new Crimewave long player, and for perhaps the first time, all the crazed energy and spookshow atmosphere that the band so freely channel on stage has been successfully bottled for home consumption. Highlights abound, but special mention must go to the future jukebox hit "Zero High", a dark, scary song that sounds like Roy Orbison sweating out a Lovercraftian nightmare. In typical Crinewave fashion, it happens to be based on a real-life experience. "It's got an interesting back story", Ian tells me. Zero High Street is a special place. It's in Hanson, Massachusetts. I had a really bad acid trip there when I was 22 years old. At the time I was hanging around these girls who's mothers were lesbian witches. We were hanging out in this house, doing acid, and we had a really bad trip. Anyway, I found out about the history of this house. Initially, when it was built, the people living in it were a guy and his wife's mother and father. So, the guy was living with his in-laws, and eventually went insane, because he couldn't deal with it anymore, and killed a whole bunch of them. Then he grabbed all the money in the house and took off for the train station, which is about a quarter mile from the house. But there was a hole in the sack, and it was dripping money the whole time, which was how the cops tracked him down and caught him. So, at any rate, ever since this happened, and I think the house has been around since the 1700's, it's been notoriously haunted. Those were my first three ghosts, the in laws."
Everybody just kind of stares at Ian for a few seconds.
"I had no idea that Zero High was an address", says a bewildered Gardner.
"I thought it was about an acid trip", Poundy adds. "I didn't know about any ghosts."
"It is about an acid trip. An acid trip in a haunted house", Ian says, as if it's the most normal occurrence in the world.
"Is there a theme to this record?" I ask.
"Yeah, It's about being creepy, criminal, and out of your fuckin' mind", Barry says. "It's something that people can dance to. And fight to."
"It's a party record for people that weren't invited to the party", Ian adds, and waits for a round of applause before continuing. "For me, with this record...it's been a very hard 4 years, full of disaster after disaster. And if you listen to the lyrics, there's a real sense of doom, of things going wrong, of being cursed. It's got a lot of 'Death is looming over your head, and could drop on you at any minute' themes.
"While still being about chicks and monsters", Gardner points out.
"Yeah", Ian says, "Maybe our horrors just need to be distilled into specific beasts."
Death is For Quitters
At this point, there are so many empty bottles littering our table at the Chophouse that it looks like the band's been playing a game of Drunk Man's Checkers. The bartender's been flicking the lights at our table on and off for a half-hour, presumably hoping to clear the dreck out before the businessmen and hookers crowd shows up. It's time to stop talking about rock, and just get the fuck out there and do it. But with a monster album about to hit the streets, there's always the hope that this is the last pre-fame interview the band has to do. Would success spoil the Crimewave? What would a million dollars buy guys like this, anyway?
"Barry would spend it all on porn", Ian says, with confidence. Barry does not debate the point. Gardner, ever the realist, simply says, "I'd buy a house and go live in it."
"I'd buy a ranch with cows and horses", Poundy decides. "Maybe with a bowling alley, too."
Everybody looks at Ian, who's baring his fangs. "I'm thinking guns. I could start that militia I've always wanted."
But even if that big payday never comes, the band will go on, presumably until one of them drops dead. As the band fishes in their pockets for tip money, we flash forward 20 years, imagining a middle aged Crimewave.
"I think by then, Rock City Crimewave will have gone in a more doom-country sorta direction", Ian supposes. "Kind of like Johnny Cash."
"Hopefully without the nerve disorders", Gardner deadpans.
Barry drains his last beer. "I'm probably gonna end up playing in a lounge band somewhere", he says, "until the day that Poundy walks in and says, "Hey man, we gotta get the band back together!"
I ask him if he'll say yes.
"Absolutely." He answers, and you just know he means it.
Get the Record: Pigpile
Pix: Eric Johanson