No camera no video right (nah - we have video from A2 that Jeff shot a few weeks back that we opted not to post at the time because he was planning this interview so look for it back here tomorrow)
3/12/08
CHILD BITE RUINED MY LIFE
by MCB contributor Jeff Nolan
http://www.therealjeffnolan.com/
CHILD BITE, BLASE SPLEE, HOTCHACHA, & TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS @ THE CROFOOT PIKE ROOM
After walking a few blocks through some sort of rain/slush hybrid and arguing with the guy at the door that I was in fact on the list to get in, I was in no mood for my digital video camera to take a shit on me. It did and that is why you, dear reader, are not watching this right now.
Blase Splee began the evening with their quirky set of catchy songs that bounce from genre to genre without really committing to one or another. All members were dressed as sharply and as tightly as they played, and even though that sounds awkward and a little creepy its fitting of their unique sound. The strangest thing I find about Blase Splee is that I have inadvertently been hanging out with and listening to these guys for a year or two at their neighbor's house in Royal Oak without really realizing that they had a band. Even better is that they really know how to play.Following Blase Splee was an all girl band named Hotchacha. They vaguely mentioned being from Cleveland or Cincinnati or some such Ohio city, but were just as incoherent when I inquired with the guitarist.
They had a very playful and energetic stage presence with just a tinge of bittersweet angst. How can you not love someone who screams for 3 minutes about the guy who dumped her while chugging a High Life and bouncing around like a wounded animal?The next set was performed by a band who failed to mention their name, but it was just as well as I wouldn't have wanted to remember it after listening to 30 minutes of their shrill and obnoxious tunes. Plus the guitarist was too cool to talk with someone from MCB (evidently he works for another website which shall not be named).Child Bite. Holy Hell, these guys have got it going on. I first saw them a few weeks back when they opened up for Man Man at the Blind Pig.
That show did not nearly do them justice after seeing them at the Pike Room. They started out by raffling off an I-Pod (who does that?) giving out stickers by trading away personal belongings and introducing a bizarre cast of characters who wandered about the room. The characters included a girl in a gold sequin dress with bananas on her head, an asian guy with some sort of weird hairy skull-cap and snakes for arms, and a big fabric rectangle covered in eyeballs who could barely walk. It was a "mythological characters meets Fruit of the Loom" they said.The set was equally unusual and fun.
They featured at times up to 8 or 9 band members who all knew just when their parts were to stop going crazy and play. Constant antics onstage ranged all over the board from dancing/drumming cows throwing streamers at the audience, the guitarist quitting the band ("fuck you guys I quit") to distribute tambourines to everyone who would take one, popping a giant balloon, getting the entire crowd to sit on the floor and chant with the band, to inviting everyone in the crowd to jump onto the stage and go nuts with them (they did).
Wow. If I were you I would be pissed that my camera wasn't working.
