America, Welcome to the Jesus Lizard
“For God and Country.” So reads the sign above the stage at the American Legion Hall in Peoria, Ill., where the Jesus Lizard are playing a warm-up gig for their Lollapalooza opening slot. And it couldn’t be a more appropriate message for the moment because these Jesus Lizard fellas –— well, after seeing them live, it’s clear that they are men on a mission.
Shirtless and covered in sweat, singer David Yow stalks the stage like a drunken hobo crossed with the bastard son of Robert Plant. Slithering like a snake charmer, he unleashes a demon howl into the microphone, nonchalantly ignoring the volleys of kids flying onto and off the stage. Bassist David Wm. Sims skulks around intently, leaning deeply into the rhythmic lurches. As the band pounds into “Boilermaker,” their pile-driving ode to a cold Bud and a shot of bourbon, the kids go insane, descending on the stage like a swarm of locusts. Distracted by the sudden melee, Sims pauses to whack a hesitant stage diver on the head with his bass. (“That big, dumb-looking kid? He was in my way, and he made me fuck up twice,” Sims says later of the violent outburst.”) His oily back covered with deep, red scratches from the overenthusiastic hands of mosh-pit revelers, Yow pushes the mike into the faces of the front row, letting them scream to their heart’s content before he leaps into the crowd.
Over on stage left, classically trained guitarist Duane Denison calmly bobs his head; seemingly oblivious to the commotion, he serves up hot slabs of blues punk with the precision of a surgeon wielding a meat cleaver. Holding it all together is drummer Mac McNeilly, whose permanent shit-eating grin belies the volcanic fury he coaxes out of his kit. As the band starts its final song, a grinding metallic dirge titled “Then Comes Dudley,” Yow unzips his jeans to unveil the “Tight and Shiny,” the pièce de résistance of the many party tricks he can perform with his male member. As he twists his testicles into a form resembling a sweaty, shriveled kiwi, adoring fans with outstretched arms lean in for a grope.
A pudgy adolescent leaps up in front of Yow and, unzipping his baggy shorts, begins to perform his own set of penis maneuvers. Yow, not one to be upstaged, shoots the kid a withering look before shoving him into the hands of his peers. The song winds down; Yow grabs the mike and yells, “Good night, diarrhea.”
America, welcome to the Jesus Lizard. You have been warned.
In actuality, despite their confrontational stage antics, the members of the Jesus Lizard are some of the nicest fellows you’ll ever meet. Although they write songs about murderous pygmies and careen around the stage like, well, murderous pygmies, offstage they’re soft-spoken, hard-working and courteous to a fault. “I guess we have a reputation as real mean guys,” says McNeilly, a married father of two – Elsa, 2-1/2, and 1-year-old Owen who looks about 16 of his 35 years. Relaxing after the show with his trademark Budweiser and shot of bourbon, the also happily married Yow, 34, a short, long-haired elf with a dementedly literary sense of humor, glad-hands the band’s devoted fans. He cheerily signs the T-shirt of a bloodied but unbowed mosh-pit survivor (“My cock is here ,” he writes). “These idiots came all the way from Atlanta!” he exclaims proudly, pointing to three grinning, sweat-covered devotees. “Anybody stupid enough to do that, I got to put them on the guest list!”
Over by the stage, underneath the bingo board, guitarist Denison surveys the empty hall as he lugs a speaker cabinet toward the tour van. “You know what they say: ‘If it’ll play in Peoria, it’ll play anywhere,'” he says, laughing. “Well, we played in Peoria, and it wasn’t a bad thing.”
As part of the Lollapalooza tour, which runs from July 4 to Aug. 18, the Jesus Lizard will see a lot more of America than Peoria, although that’s nothing new for them. Since forming back in 1989, the band has earned a reputation as the hardest-working indie noise-rock deviants in showbiz because of its wall-shattering live performances and constant touring. Yow claims that, indeed, the band’s live shows offer wholesome entertainment for the entire family.
“Somebody’s mother was standing by the soundboard,” Yow says, “and Liz, the woman that sells our T-shirts, went over to her and asked her who forced her to come to the show. ‘My son,’ she said, ‘he’s up onstage.’ And the mother said to Liz, ‘I didn’t really like those first two bands, but these guys have a lot of energy.’ And right after she said that I unzipped my pants and did the testicle thing, and Liz saw her angling to get a better look.”
Beyond any displays of frontal nudity, it’s the combination of grisly humor and a bulldozing yet complex sonic attack that, according to Denison, draws in fans ranging from “an older crowd that’s been with us for a while to younger kids turned on by Beavis and Butt-head” and places the Jesus Lizard as an odds-on favorite with Lollapalooza denizens. The Jesus Lizard have perfected their sound –— an aggressive mixture of crunching punk noise, arty rhythmic experimentation and boogie-fried hard rock overlaid with Yow’s atonal caterwaul – — which never gets stuck in any stylistic rut.
“There are bands we all seem to like – — Gang of Four, the Birthday Party, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles,” Denison says, “but we don’t consciously go after anything.”
Over the course of four LPs (1990’s Head, followed by Goat in 1991, Liar in ’92 and Down in ’94), two EPs and numerous singles on the prestigious punk indie label Touch and Go — including a 1993 split single with Nirvana –— the Jesus Lizard have become one of the most popular indie bands this side of Fugazi, typically selling in the high five figures (last year the band also released a one-off live album, Show, on the Warner Bros. subsidiary Giant). Yow attributes the band’s increasing popularity to the tension between his inspired lunacy and the crack musicianship of his band mates.
“They all know what they’re doing and do it pretty well,” Yow says, “and I don’t know what I’m doing, but I do it very well.”
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