Those NYers familiar with the nation's largest and oldest punk zine, MaximumRockNRoll were in for a treat this past Friday night as three of their most popular columnists played in the same show.
Although I missed the Criminals waiting for my AOL blind date, I did catch the latter part of the Jerk Off's set. They're a four piece from Jersey who sound a lot like Green Day, but a bit angrier and not as snotty. The lead singer Jay is frequently referred to in Maximumrocknroll as "Mike at 18" by George Tabb since he looks like Mike from the Blanks 77 when he was eighteen years old.
After the Jerk Off's set, I wandered over to my friend Erin who was involved with a conversation with a strange looking fellow to my right. Seeing me, and realizing that I publish a zine with a significant press run, she ran to get her own zine for me to review. Meanwhile, I turn to my right to greet this person to the right. "Hi, I'm Marc." I say. He grabs my extended right hand with his and, while shaking uncontrollable and jumping up and down, he responds in a cartoon voice, "N-N-N-Na-Na-Na_NORB!"
It was none other than the infamous Rev. Norb of Boris The Spinkler. Norb also writes for MRR and lives in Green Bay Wisconsin. So we taunt him with the necessary Green Bay/Green Day jokes, but not before "MY ZINE!! MY ZINE!!!!"
Erin's zine is being pressed vigorously against my nose. "Ahhhh!" I yelp. "Pour Some Sugar On Me" is a great zine, and I highly recommend it. You can get it by sending a dollar to Erin Quinlan, 3 Orchard Dr., Yorktown Hts, NY 10598. Erin is highly intelligent, and irreverent and pulls no punches when she rants about something.
Anyhow, Artless is next, fronted by MRR columnist Mykel Board, who has recently come back from a year's stay in Mongolia where he taught English. Artless has been broken up for three years, but got back together for this one night so they could play with Norb when he came to town. Needless to say, they didn't play a very tight set, and you're not really missing anything by never seeing them play. Their only good song was a long "Beer Is Better Than Women", a musical version of the shirt that mall kids wear.
NYC's Furious George was next. Not only would you know him if you read MRR, but citizens of Manhattan and the surrounding area can read his amusing punk memoirs in the New York Press, a free weekly newspaper similar to the Village Voice. George is 35 and has been into punk since the beginning and has many, many interesting stories. He also happens to write for my zine, Supplicant, so that's really special.
Anyhow, after a bad set last week playing for Joey Ramone's birthday party, they played really tight. George plays Ramones influenced punk with a '90s take on it, and angrier vocals. A few of his songs deal with monkey themes, such as "Monkey in a Man Suit" and the newer "I've Gone Bananas." This is band with clever hooks, minimalism, and a sense of humor. "Betty Crocker, Punk Rocker" is one such song, not to mention his usual finale, "Gilligan" which he's had numerous special guests to sing with him. Last week it was birthday boy Joey. This week it was, of course, Mykel Board and Rev. Norb.
George always starts out by bringing out a set of hand-made signs. "This next song is a singalong." He tells us. "If you know the words, come up on stage and sing it with us." Then he brings his guest on stage to hold up the signs to show everyone what the lyrics are. Norb holds up the first sign and reads it: "I wear a white hat.' George commands, "Everyone!, 'I wear a white hat.'" The crowd gives a halfhearted repeat. "Yuppies in the back, 'I wear a white hat.'" Not much of a response. "I swear to God I'll play 'Freebird'" The crowd gives another so-so response. George launches into the opening bars of "Freebird" and Norb belts out the lyrics. "Ok, one more time...I wear a white hat." The crowd gives a yell this time. "Good. 'I wear a red shirt.'" This time there isn't a good response, so they play a rap song, which Norb improvises the lyrics to. The crowd does better this time. "Good. 'They all think I'm stupid.' Good. 'One day I'll kill them.' Good. 'I am Gilligan!' He commends the audience on their cooperation, and tells them they were really close to him having to play "Stairway to Heaven." The crowd sighs in relief. The three MRR columnists, on stage for the first time together, sing Gilligan, right down to the "KILL KILL KILL" at the end. He does this every show. Bless him.
Next was the ever hyper Norb, who you might have also seen on the Jenny Jones show for the topic "My Secret Crush." It turns out that this 15 year old girl had a crush on Norb because of his band, Boris the Sprinkler, which he named such because, as he puts it, it means "The cows in the fields are dying. No uh, 'Boris the Spinkler' means that one day I was at work I was listening to the second Who album and singing along with the song 'Boris the Spider.' Thusly, singing along to 'Boris the Spider' all day, thereupon returning home to watch Rocky and Bullwinkle, thusly seeing arch-nemesis Boris Badenov, thereby being moved to sing once again, thereupon realizing that Boris, being a Potsylvanian secret agent type was no arachnid, thusly quickly attempting to modify the lyrics on the fly, thereupon looking out a window and noticing a lawn watering implement of the sprinkeling variety, thusly singing 'Bo-O-ris the Sprinkler!' And ever it shall be." As you can see, Rev. Norb is quite the character, and made his show quite interesting, even though his songs are a bit boring in contrast to his between-songs antics. When the sound guy would speak to him through his microphone at the console, Norb would pretend it was the voice of God and start talking about how he didn't have to do as much work if God was here. Keep in mind that Norb is wearing a red silk fully body suit which reveals his "bulge" (Norb's record label is called Bulge) and he begins speaking about how sometimes he has good bulge days and bad bulge days, and that this was a bad bulge day.
He also wears what is known in punk as the "Antler Helmet" which is a helmet with antlers on it and the word "geek" on the front. He could maim someone with one headbutt. One of his running topics in MRR was the theft (and eventual return) of the Antler Helmet. Norb says "Jerry Garcia sent a Styx/Kiss/Head tribute band from Chicago to heist the helmet in hopes of demolishing my stature with the ladies. One of them left a fingerless Zildijan drumming glove at the scene of the crime, by which Paul #2 was able to catch their spore and thusly track. After rudimentary physical interrogation, including farting, the flunkies spilled the beans, so I hightailed it to California, tracked down Old Man Garcia and kicked his ass in two straight falls in the astral squared circle - resulting in the death of his host body - returning witht he one and only ANTLER HELMET!!" I had to leave before the encore to catch my train, and amusing as it sounds, you really had to be there.
You can order MRR by sending $3 to PO Box 460760, SF, CA, 94146-0760.
Furious George has his first full length Furious George Gets a Record coming out on Recess Records next month. You can purchase his EP, Furious George Goes Ape on Lookout! Records in most large stores that carry cool stuff, such as Tower or Virgin. You can also send $6 to Lookout!, PO Box 11374, Berkely, CA 94712. There is also a more obscure seven inch on Devoir Records, which you can get by sending $4 to PO Box 566, Prince Street Station, NY, NY 10012. It has "Pumpkinhead" on it, and its a split with a rock band called Stanley. It was produced by Don Fury.
You can get Boris the Sprinkler records by writing Rev. Norb, c/o Bulge Records, POB 173, Green Bay, WI 54305.
| Marc Lefton |