5min Kills Review

UPDATE: A pal of mine edited this into a much better review and posted it with me as author on his blog. Check it out if you like.

Go!

1. Seeing Todd was the best part. We had a blast driving around Detroit, eating at Mexican Village, hanging out at the Magic Stick, and talkin'. One of my best buddies ever. Thanks for the invite, Chaka!
2. My favorite part of the Magic Stick is: the outdoor patio. The view isn't great (lighted signs at Harper Hospital), but the neon bowling sign is cool. It was a great night.
3. As a room to hear a band, Magic Stick gets a C+. I am not a short person, and I never have trouble seeing the band at your average stand-on-the-floor-in-an-unorganized-mob venue, but visibility ain't great. There are two staircases (to the aforementioned patio) that afford a decent view for fewer than 10 people.
4. I expected the show to be louder. I'm not complaining, as I wear earplugs during most of the show, but the sound was a little wimpy and the room was a giant bass trap. Believe me, I like bass more than the next guy, but it wasn't nice.
5. The openers were interesting. The Horrors reminded me a bit of Killing Joke--a major compliment. The Magic Wands, or whatever their name was, were fairly unremarkable. I kept trying to see what was going on with the drummer--I don't think he was playing half of the time.
6. I'll save my thoughts on The Kills for a later session--gotta keep it moving this morning. I'll end by saying that the Magic Stick is a great place to not watch a band, and I don't mean that as an insult. If you were going to shoot pool, drink, and talk with pals without keeping an eye on the stage, this would be a nice room. If you want to take in the band, dance, watch the show... well, someone needs to redesign the place a bit. I'm spoiled because the last show I saw was at The Double Door in Chicago, which is a great room with excellent visibility in every part of the wedge-shaped space.

A review of The Kills next time I log on.

Okay, back... 5 more min:

1. I need to begin by saying that I am not anti-drum machine. I love beats, electronic or otherwise, and I don't turn my nose up at an act with no real live drummer. (The Beastie Boy lyric "I'm in the pocket, just like Grady Tate / I got supplies of beats so you don't have to wait" comes to mind).
2. The Kills got off to a bad start. Some kind of sound/guitar/beatbox problems. The guitarist dude seemed pretty irritated when they just turned on their heels and bagged it in the middle of their opener. Their tech guy was concentrating intently on smoking, which he seemed more interested in doing than actually fixing their problem. He dutifully re-tuned the crappy guitars as they were alternated (that is, when this activity fit in with his smoking).
3. I also need to say that I am not anti-cheap guitar. Far from it. I loved the guitars up there--from the looks of them, cheap Mosrite/Teisco-like 60s Japan jobs. Very cool. But the swtiching of guitars and the lack of bottom end on a few of them was a drag.
4. As performers, The Kills seemed off last night. Less energy than I expected from reading ahead. Then there was the mis-step in their opening song, which had a "let's go back downstairs and start this over again" kind of feel to it.
5. There were some great performances. I danced for most of their show and had a good time (slapping an empty Red Stripe against my leg for part of it). It was a good show.
6. I saved this for last, because it almost ruined things. They did three really bad covers. Or should I say one bad cover, one terrible cover, and one inexcusable cover. I'll write about those three when I come back again.

The Covers

1. Since I've used the "first I must say" locution a few times, and it seems to be necessary, I will use it again: First, I must say that I love cover tunes. I also don't think that there are "off-limits" tunes, e.g. tunes where the original is so great that they shouldn't be covered. That's baloney. Any song is cover-worthy, and if you don't think that any song can be rehabilitated by a good cover version, you've never heard Richard Thompson's version of "Oops, I Did It Again."
2. I think that The Kills are at a special disadvantage on the cover front; I will illustrate this by negative example. At Todd's house before the show, his iPod shuffled to Seu Jorge's cover of "Changes" by David Bowie, which due to Jorge's excellent voice and samba guitar, coupled with the lyrics in Portugese, simply could not fail. It was cool from the beginning. I think the inverse is true of low-fi/garage rock/whateveryoucallit. A quickly executed cover for Jorge is instantaly different and cool, while the same thing from The Kills sounds, well, like band practice in the garage.
3. One last pre-review cover pontification: I don't think that a great song automatically makes a great cover. In fact, it's often harder to make a cover of a great song work. All three of the covers I will talk about are great songs in their own right. Fantastic songs, actually. My personal opinion is that The Kills ruined all three of them--I would have much rather they played their own stuff during this time.

BAD: "Crazy" / Patsy Cline

First off, if I were a female singer, I wouldn't touch this tune with a 100' pole. It's only one of the greatest country songs ever, and the Patsy version is imprinted in everyone's mind. But okay, you're going to give it a go.

What went wrong: Mr. Hotel man played the guitar part straight, including the jazz/country turnaround chords. The Kills sealed the deal when they went up a half step like the original; that kind of modulation from a low-fi garage band is literally laughter inducing... it was like wearing a gorilla mask with a prom dress! VV's vox weren't exactly up to the task, and this was underscored by the fact that she used much of Patsy's phrasing. Unoriginal, uninteresting, and unfortunate.

TERRIBLE: "Pale Blue Eyes" / Velvet Underground

Now, this should have worked. This band has VU cred and Mr. Hotel man looks quite a bit like Lou Reed. If someone was able to pull of a Velvets cover, this act should be able to nail it. This is a wonderful song, and it's been covered well many, many times (even R.E.M. did a passable job with this one).

What went wrong: Very much like the Great Patsy Cline Disaster, they played this straight, the way every band that was ever formed has played it. I turned to Todd after the first chord and gave a "thumbs down," and I'm never that negative when I'm having a good time. It was awful. The singing was uninteresting, and while Mr. Hotel man did try to mix it up rhythmically a bit at times, it just didn't work. Because they are carrying on in the VU tradition so well with their own material, they get extra points off for botching this one. Yeeeeuch!

INEXCUSABLE: "I Put a Spell on You" / Screamin' Jay Hawkins

This just shouldn't have happened. I can understand why they like Screaming Jay and this song, and I can picture them doing it early on before they wrote their own stuff, but unless you're going to radically re-shape the tune, you have dug yourself an impossible hole: that hole is called "how to sing/act/scream crazier than Screamin' Jay" and you ain't never getting out of that hole.

What went wrong: Again, they played is straight. Mr. Hotel man tried to approximate the drums, horn section, and bone-in-the-nose energy with his little guitar and it just didn't work. VV once again sang it like the record and came up way, way short. Want proof you can re-work this song? Check out this 1968 cover by Nina Simone.

Let me end on a positive note. I think The Kills are a great band. I think they put on a good show last night. I had a blast with my pal Todd, and I would go again in a heartbeat.