Now, I’d be lying if I didn’t already think that The Jesus Lizard were one of the best (if not thee best) live bands of the 90’s. So yes, I’ve already seen five of the reunion gigs, so you could say I’m mildly gaytarded for them. And you know what? I’m fine with that.
I was able to convince my pal Adam to fly out from Chicago and meet me in San Diego to see what is, without a doubt, the smallest venue that the Lizard are playing on these reunion dates. I mean, the Casbah? It’s teeny! Like what? 250 on a good day? So yes, it was a no-brainer that I went.
I ran into the legendary (and very enigmatic) Greg Webb whose video makes up the lion’s share on the Harvey Milk "Anthem" DVD. Got to see Model/Actress (featuring Juan from Brainiac) who opened the gig, but really, I mean, it was The Lizard’s night.
Full throttle. That’s all I can say. The staff at the Casbah did a superior job of keeping the douchenozzles who were randomly clobbering people in the head to a minimum. How they can do that in such a small club is beyond me. Yow walked on the ceiling (which I hadn’t seen since Baltimore ’92), lost his mic and had the crowd sing "Puss" and bounced his microphone off the heads of everybody in the front row during the encore.
But yeah, click on the video I’ve attached for the first song to see how insane it was. Then again, the video this guy shot was mostly worthless but still fun to watch merely from an "I was there" kind of angle.
Adam and I stayed with Pall Jenkins from Black Heart Procession and I was able to buy a piece of art directly from the man the next morning which was a pleasant score from the trip! And man, Pall was en fuego the night of the Casbah gig. Hilarious, but totally en fuego.
The next day was much more hurried for me as I dropped Adam off at the San Diego airport and then made my way up the 5 to LA. That was where it went shitty. It took ages to get into LA, but I immediately went to the Hydrahead offices to visit with Mr. Thompson who runs the label and then went to their record emporium called Vacation in Los Feliz. If you’ve not been to Vacation and you live in LA, you really should go. Totally dug it. Went to the killer taqueria across the street from Vacation and then immediately went to the Fonda Theater. Ran into Tom Zaluckyj from Tar within minutes of arriving and then met long-time colleage Jason Pettigrew for the first time face-to-face.
I wasn’t comparing notes, but it seemed like the Lizard’s set was almost identical to the Casbah gig (a very minor disappointment) but still absolutely fantastic. I had to drive back to San Diego after the gig, so I just started drinking coffee the second I got on the 5 and got to the hotel around 4 (7EST!).
So I recorded both gigs, but really, the San Diego gig is so much more fun thanks to the small room that I thought I’d include it here. Click here and enjoy.
OH! And I’m off to Mexico for vacation with the wife for the rest of the week. Be sure to check out some of the crazy stuff I’m selling this week on eBay.
