Super Diamond Plays for Bitches; Modest Mouse; The Last of the Juanitas and the Fucking Champs at Brownies

For the most part it was literally embarrassing: stick-figured white girls shifting their weight back and forth, one set of fingers snapping to the beat, the other busy clutching a Kate Spade bag. There were a few exceptions, like the Gamma in the turquoise tube top with leather bracelet and matching necklace, just like the ones she saw in Time Out, whose idea of being a sex kitten was maniacally flipping her long blonde ponytail around and around in circles over her head. Considering the competition, she at least seemed doable, in the same hate-fuck sort of way her boyfriend did, provided she cut out the bizarrely jerky bump and grind routine and start eating instead of going to the gym on her lunch break.

There's always one in this type of crowd?the low-rent, wrong-side-of-the-tracks friend who teeters on the edge of this scene, tolerated mainly because, without her on the side, the boys would never consider committing to a lifetime of monogamy. In college I witnessed one of these fascinating creatures do an impromptu striptease to "Fever" in the middle of a bar (if I close my eyes I can still see every thrust). The next girl to jump onstage reminded me of her?same heavy build, same dyed blonde hair, same easygoing/white-trash vibe. She spent the next few minutes proving that money in fact can't dance, in between retrieving her strapless dress by grabbing it in front with her fist and yanking the thing heavenward, which, after the Stepford Wife Revue, seemed sweet. Almost endearing. A half hour later it still hadn't stopped, one girl jumping up onstage and then motioning for her friends to join, who would then look at each other and yell, "Shit, Muffy did it!" Finally I was forced to begin shouting, "Take your shirts off," reasoning that if one is going to get onstage one must put on a show, and seeing as how none of them could dance... Luckily, the heckling did the trick, and within five minutes the bitches were neutralized, but not before a buzzcut, thick-necked Bubba who heard my plea looked me dead in the eye and raised his beer can in an eerie salute.

Meanwhile, the band, who seemed completely flabbergasted at having to share the stage, played it off nicely. The six-piece cranked out all the anthems: "Sweet Caroline," "America" and "I Am... I Said," as well as ballads like "Hello Again," "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" and "Love on the Rocks." Cover bands are often better than the real thing because, just like you, they're fans. Plus you don't have to pay a lot of money for arena rock seats because normally they'd be hard-pressed to pack the local bar. (That reminds me, has anyone else noticed that what this country really needs, possibly even more than national healthcare, is a decent Rolling Stones cover band?) My only complaint with Super Diamond was that the guitarist, self-nicknamed "the Nuge," kept going into the first few bars of "Crazy Train," yet never delivered the goods. Otherwise I drank, I laughed, I cried, I bought the t-shirt. It was a hell of a good time, and as is true of all memorable evenings, it came as a shock. I thought I was just going to see a Neil Diamond cover band.

Tanya Richardson

Modest Mouse/ 764-HERO/ The Shins Modest Mouse/ Black Heart Procession/ The Shins Irving Plaza (September 22-23) I never thought I would see the day that Modest Mouse would sell out an almost-800-person venue two nights in a row, much less for $14 a ticket. Granted, school was back in session, but I still found it hard to believe that tickets were hard to come by. While most were in attendance to see El Ratón Modesto, I was there to watch the openers, 764-HERO and the Black Heart Procession. Seattle's 764-HERO played Friday night after Sub Pop's latest addition to the roster, the Shins. Named for a highway commuter-lane hotline, 764-HERO have come a long way since their start in 1995 as a two-piece playing house shows. With their latest album, Weekends of Sound, comes producer Phil Ek, the man behind Built to Spill's Live album released earlier this year. I note this because 764-HERO's Irving Plaza performance reminded me of the fuller and more drawn-out sound Ek captured on Live?contributing to this was the addition of Modest Mouse's tour guitarist, who sat in on most of the set, and Polly Johnson-Dickenson's improved drumming skills. Also the full-time addition of bass player James Bertram (ex-Lync). Although he's been playing with the band since '98's Get Up and Stay release, it's the first time I've seen 764-HERO with this lineup. Singer/guitarist John Atkins kept the band together with his moody vocals, which fluctuated between sincere and sarcastic. While the band continues to grow stronger, I think they have yet to reach their peak or fully hit their potential audience.

Saturday night I arrived early to secure a spot up top to watch the Black Heart Procession, a San Diego band with varying lineups but always including frontman Pall Jenkins and Toby Nathaniel, the duo also behind Three Mile Pilot. Known for their odd use of saw and sheet metal, the Black Hearts create beautifully haunting music that's subdued and stunning. Singing through a microphone attached to a 2-foot stand a la Sinatra in Vegas, Pall began the set with "Guess I'll Forget You" from the recently released 3. The music was intensely pretty, with rhythmic drums and keyboards, that shaking sheet metal and the striking of saw with bow, yet they maintain a sense of sadness at the same time. The ignorant college kids who filled the Plaza talked loudly enough almost to bury the Black Heart's quiet songs. The best point of the set was when they broke into the most memorable song from their second album, "It's a Crime I Never Told You About the Diamonds in Your Eyes," a song I've been told Johnny Cash will be covering. The set ended with "On Ships of Gold," featuring guest vocals by Blonde Redhead's Kazo Makino, and Pall singing through his Frank Sinatra-style mic again. We couldn't have been more amused.

Lisa LeeKing

Last of the Juanitas/The Fucking Champs Brownies (October 1) In one of my more productive bouts of late-night television consumption I came across Bon Jovi playing an Unplugged-type show on VH1. I have mostly fond memories of harmless little Bon Jovi: there was a girl in my class in junior high who would sing, "Shot through the heart/and you're still lame!" Although I had already disavowed hair bands in favor of the Smiths?not that that's something to brag about?even I knew that she had the lyrics wrong, although presciently so. But I kept my mouth shut about it because the girl was extremely popular, due to the fact that her older sister was a renowned slut in our neighborhood. I was mesmerized by the specter of Bon Jovi 2000. Jon Bon Jovi has tried to go legit as an actor, chopping his wild frosted locks and camouflaging his flat noodle of a nose with a long fringe of bangs. He still wears painted-on jeans, but he's muted, as if his morning affirmation is, "Be cool, man." But the flamboyantly Jersey Richie Sambora is married to melodrama queen Heather Locklear, a woman so light that calling her an airhead is granting her extra atomic weight. Richie's still got the cheese: on this show he was wearing a see-through black shirt unbuttoned to the navel. He whips out the double guitar, of which he will only play one, and Bon Jovi 2000 eases into a bare-bones version of "Livin' on a Prayer." At first it's unrecognizable but familiar. But when Jon utters, "Tommy used to work on the docks," the camera pans over the studio audience comprised almost entirely of gals my age who are swooning and mouthing the words, eyes closed in near-ecclesiastical reverence. Poor Jon Bon Jovi is trying so hard to make this song sound cool: he's clipping his vowels and deadpanning the "deep" lines like, "Gina dreams of running away." But Richie's having none of it, and backs him up with an impassioned falsetto, "Yes she duh-uh-es!" Jon flinches perceptibly. There goes my cred, you can see him think.

But "Livin' on a Prayer" wasn't a good song to begin with. And there's no amount of tinkering that will make it a good song now. That's not the case with all cheese metal. The Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne once said he makes mix tapes of his favorite 15 seconds of songs. About 15 seconds of Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train" is used in a car commercial. But much more crappy metal can be resurrected with one very simple tweak: take out the vocals.

The Fucking Champs and the Last of the Juanitas play a very cool instrumental strain of heavy metal. They're neither kitschy nor ironic, and yet every song they play is unrecognizable-yet-familiar. But unlike listening to a reworked "Livin' on a Prayer," you never do recognize the song. The Last of the Juanitas are cribbing from the Slayer handbook, with seriously thrashing guitar and flywheel drums, but the lack of lyrics makes it sound fresh. The Portland three-piece are a good deal sloppier than Slayer, but it's a small price to pay in the name of thrash. Their upcoming album, Hawaii, on Flapping Jet Records, sees the Last of the Juanitas translate their metal sound to record much more effectively than on their first album, Brangus, which leaned toward the Melvins' side of heavy rock despite the presence of Drive Like Jehu's Rick Fork on guitar. Hawaii was recorded by the Fucking Champs' Tim Green, who is obviously on the same wavelength as the Juanitas.

If the Juanitas are a redux of Slayer, the Fucking Champs are praying at the altar of AC/DC, albeit with a better name. There's none of the layering, none of the languorous moody effects of other instrumental rock bands. It's just intricate, braided math-metal without the big albatross of metal lyrics around its neck. Neither the Champs nor the Juanitas are much to look at onstage, by which I don't mean they're ugly, but that they don't put on a show. You're not compelled to watch them anyway, because you're headbanging. Or chatting pleasantly with your neighbor, as most of the crowd at Brownies did. All the talk didn't detract one bit from the show, and it's to both bands' credit that they play a gig where socializing is encouraged.

Previously recording as c4am95 and simply the Champs, the Fucking Champs have been around for years in various punk bands, but are finally getting a buzz off their Drag City release, IV. Their proclaimed aim is "to destroy weak music and its purveyors by simultaneously rejecting and exalting the tenets of the classic rock idiom." Read: we sound like AC/DC. It's alarming how palatable rock can be when there are no pretentious vocals. Tighter than the Juanitas and with half the thrash, the Champs revisit the harder edge of classic rock, and are more likely to dupe the audience into thinking they're playing a cover when it's really an original. Wait?isn't this a .38 Special song? Oops, nope. But it's so familiar?

Erin Franzman

Señor Coconut (release party) Cafe Noura, West Hollywood (September 25) Emperor Norton Records has probably one of the most eclectic indie label rosters around, with an array of international acts whose only esthetic connection seems to be a shared dedication to unique sounds, hyper sampling and a certain innate feel I can only describe as "chipperness." The Emperor Norton band tends to have a good time doing what it does, and does what it does with no apologies or sidelong glances or smugness. Not to say it's all about hipshaking pigtailed pop music. The label has released Air's haunting Virgin Suicides soundtrack as well as a host of other acts whose dreamy tech-heavy soundscapes sometime dip into the cool waters of melancholy. Señor Coconut is not one of those bands. Señor Coconut is high-concept-abstract-comedic-new-millennial-postmodernist futurism, if you want to get analytical about it. Señor Coconut is not a band. Señor Coconut is a state of mind. Deep in the steaming heart of the South American jungle a German expatriate works among loose wires, flickering monitors and scattered recording equipment struggling to transform his icy Anglo-Saxon blood into the fiery and libidinous temperament of Señor Coconut, maraca-wielding Latin loverboy.

Tonight this enigma, this fictional creation, this mysterious Señor Coconut has flown jet-set style straight into the belly of the West Hollywood beast to celebrate the release of his album, El Baile Alemán. The work is the newest incarnation of Señor Coconut's pseudo-salsa, this time with more than a touch of country roots. El Baile Alemán is a techno-inspired, merengue-tinted Kraftwerk cover album.

Cafe Noura is a dark Middle Eastern restaurant with a hint of opium den glamour crossed with a fecund New Orleans boudoir vibe. Out on the patio, between mirror and dangling fern, an assortment of freshly scrubbed kids with clean shirts and dirty, meticulously tousled hairdos drink tall purple drinks and look cheerful. I sweep past the two adorable Japanese girls who are manning the Emperor Norton merchandise table and set my sights on acquiring one of the glasses of liquid pastel. I learn from a drunken man with green hair that the drink in question is in fact a $9 mai-tai. I'm feeling decadent. I'm feeling like the sort of girl who would drink a $9 mai-tai. I'm feeling like the sort of girl who would drink not one, but two $9 mai-tais, fast. Hereafter the room takes on a lovely pink glow.

As the music begins (floating quietly at first from an unseen corner), a man crouched on the tiny dancefloor baptizes the night by shaking his silk black hair with erotic abandon. He's leaping, pacing the floor like a tiger, doing a tantric-sex pagan-ceremonial prance right up there in front of everyone. A soft-faced vixen joins him, and, despite her earth-mama voluptuousness, still has the misfortune of moving like a suburban soccer mom. But no matter. Everyone here is polite. Everyone here is open. The dancefloor fills and the room begins to grow dimmer and hotter all at once. I consider standing up to catch a glimpse of the Señor as he spins, but the velvet floor-cushion thing I'm balanced on won't let me. I give myself over to the music.

The music. Señor Coconut, as far as I can discern (and I'll admit I'm feeling a bit foggy), is not playing Kraftwerk. The cut-and-paste remake of "Trans-Europe Express" does not seem to be showing up on the set list, but what he is playing is certainly pleasant, salsa-inspired techno tunes, which have the future-hippie goodlove pulsing in warm waves across the room. I tap my feet. I nod my head. I have another sip of the sweet cold mai-tai, a drink whose brute alcoholic kick is a feeling akin to a lover's pinch.

The music swells. I peer through the sea of painfully thin corduroy-clad legs and catch a quick glimpse of the man behind the turntable. The man of many names. The mysterious music man. Uwe Schmidt, aka Atom Heart, aka Señor Coconut, is staring with a fierce Germanic concentration into the crowd, as if he can read our desires in the air. He has a formidable forehead and a porn star mustachio in pale strawberry blond. He is the happy future of music, an international potpourri ushering in the new sexy with a dash of good humor and hint of old European pragmatism. Kraftwerk in all their stiff electro-myth glory would be proud. It's Woodstock drum circle getloose, only this time it's streamlined and programmed and produced. I'm feeling giddy with the good luck of being still young enough to taste the fruits of the new millennium, where one is allowed to drink tropical delights in a faux-fertile crescent harem tent full of beautiful boys with pouty mouths and whip-slim bodies while listening to a German/Chilean spin early 80s techno through the red-pepper filter of Latin American swing. Life, it seems, is good, and to that I raise my third $9 mai-tai, spread my arms, close my eyes and begin to sway.

Jessica Hundley