First The Music Tapes and now Clem Snide – that makes two Middle East shows in a row with the singing saw. Considering both of these groups have been rockin’ for over a decade, I guess this says more about my taste for quirky, beloved fringe bands than an indie rock trend. Today’s theremin is the 90s’ singing saw.
Touring in support of their significantly delayed yet solid release Hungry Bird, Eef Barzely and company brought their lovable quirkiness to Cambridge. Recent years have seen some band shake-ups and Eef working on solo albums and film scores, so Clem Snide’s comeback was long overdue. The full Cambridge crowd eagerly welcomed the band back, buying the guys whisky and yelling out favorites like “Ice Cube.”
Throughout the night, Eef maintained an oddly charming persona on-stage, acting self-centered and easily annoyed, which resulted in ironic sweetness and humility. I’ve seen other artists try to pull this off, but it was clear they actually don’t like their fans. For example, a murmur around the bar between songs led Eef into this (meta) tirade: “What’s so important that you’re talking about over there? Did you buy a new i-phone or something? [pause.] Sorry, I’m drunk. I’ve been waiting to play for a while. And for all of you who are going to blog about this, saying, ‘Eef is so unprofessional,’ I’m going to read it. It’s called google alerts, motherfuckers, and these words hurt.”
Or this self-centric spewing of non-sequitors that somehow led into a song introduction: “Let me tell you some things about me - ‘cause that’s why you all came here tonight. To learn about me. This is like facebook’s 25 things about me, God help us all. Here we go. I don’t like raisins. You raisin advocates make me sick. But I love craisins. I’m a generous lover, but that goes without saying. I just want to love you, Boston. I just want to look at you. I hate Christians. That’s not true. It’s more complicated than that. Here’s a song called, 'Jews for Jesus Blues.'”
While Eef is the oddly appealing frontman, opener Chris Otepka, aka the Heligoats, is the oddly compelling storyteller. Playing solo acoustic guitar, yet jokingly referring to his band (the internet tells me he does sometimes play with others), Chris spun elaborate tales, often inspired by real life stories, albeit wildly re-imagined. Though I won’t do them justice, I’ll leave you with three of his crazy stories, as he introduced them.
“When my dad dies, he wants me to scatter his ashes over the lakes of Wisconsin. So I think it would be cool to do the same thing when I have a kid. But I wonder, ‘Will my surgical bolts burn?’ Maybe I should swallow a bike chain right before I die and tell the kid I was a robot, just to fuck with his head.”
“This song is about a couple who missed their wild drug days. So they looked for things around the house to take, but they only found an old packet of weed under the couch cushions. So they took a full bottle of Children’s Benadryl. They thought they were on the trip of their life, but they woke up in the hospital.”
“This song is about going to a party, hiding in the kitchen, covering yourself in cooking oils, and sliding through the air ducts so you can eavesdrop on your friends talking about you. When I did this, I met an old man doing the same thing. He was escaping his wife and her friends who were watching “Jeopardy” and eating Werther’s Originals.”
Yeah, Chris Otepka is awesome. Go see the Heligoats yourself.
