Chattanooga Pulse

Written by Ernie Paik
Wednesday, 17 December 2008 19:05
Monotonix, Dark Meat, ADD/C at JJ’s Bohemia
After furious sets from ADD/C and the overwhelming Dark Meat (kind of like Boredoms, Crazy Horse, and a marching band on cocaine wrapped into one), the Israeli trio Monotonix began their performance by setting their drum set on fire. The lead singer jumped all over the bar counter and overturned a garbage can on the audience, and the drummer managed to crowd surf while still playing his drums (held aloft by helpful audience members). To end the show, the band ran out into the parking lot, drums in hand, for a spontaneous 12:30 a.m. beat fest, and then scrambled over a chain-link fence for a good-natured shouting match with the audience.
2. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss at the Memorial Auditorium
Raising Sand was a nice surprise, but to have Robert Plant and Alison Krauss actually play those songs live, here in Chattanooga, was nearly unbelievable. The excitement level was off the scale, with people immediately jumping out of their seats when they recognized the opening of a Led Zeppelin song, like “When the Levee Breaks.”
3. Melted Men at JJ’s Bohemia
The whole club served as the stage for the unclassifiable, electronics-heavy group Melted Men, who frequently changed costumes and entered the audience to freak people out in various ways. One member paced while cracking whips, another walked on all fours with a disturbing mannequin torso mounted on his head, and another dressed like a doctor with a stethoscope and would insist on checking your heart rate. Possibly the highlight was a mock dismemberment, which dowsed the audience with fake blood.
4. The Brothers Unconnected at Barking Legs Theatre
Alan and Richard Bishop, the two surviving members of Sun City Girls, paid tribute to the late Charles Gocher and their band’s legacy with an incredible set, performing some of their most bizarre and tasteless songs. These included a ditty about murdering your children and blaming it on crib death and a spoken word piece about a surreal Kennedy/Marilyn Monroe role-playing tryst, and the unwitting audience had some of Charles Gocher’s ashes scattered on them.
5. The Slits at JJ’s Bohemia
The legendary British post-punk-era all-woman band played to a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, with an infectious vigor; I usually have low expectations for band reunions, but this one blew me away.
6. The Strimp Sinister Burlesque Show at Barking Legs Theatre
Nashville’s Monique Honeybush and Miss Lolly Pop performed their hilarious, playfully themed burlesque routines to the sounds of Strimp Sinister, enhanced by the masterfully offbeat guitarist Davey Williams.
7. The Rocky Horror Show at UTC
Rocky Horror is crazy enough, with its gay-monster-sex story and audience participation (people screaming expletives and bad jokes every other second), and this charmingly frank stage presentation featured a few surprises of its own, including a rotating phallus gun and a flying prophylactic.
8. LaDonna Smith and Misha Feigin at Contrapasso
Viola and violin player LaDonna Smith and guitarist Misha Feigin accompanied a vibrant performance from the Contrapasso modern dance company, where everything was improvised. Smith and Feigin are proficient improvisers, using extended techniques to make wildly unorthodox sounds.
9. Voices of Dissent at UTC
Pianist Marilyn Shrude and saxophonist John Sampen adeptly played a variety of fascinating, out-of-the-ordinary modern classical pieces with critical wartime themes, including the cheekily off-kilter accompanying video for Martin Wesley-Smith’s “Weapons of Mass Distortion.”
10. Any show at Deadwood Station
It’s closed down now, but the rowdy Red Bank honky-tonk Deadwood Station was the most OMGWTF venue in town, with unabashed decorations in a stereotyped Southern style (rebels flags, and, most offensively, a noose). I felt like a conspicuous intruder.