Overheard on Delmar

Your reviews of the Riverfront Times Music Showcase

By Jordan Harper on Wed, Jun 8, 2005 at 4:00 am

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Some folks mark the passage of time with coffee spoons; Riverfront Times music editors measure their reign by Music Showcases. It's the Big One, a day for cramming as much local music into the gullet as they can stand and then vomiting their impressions into a column: critical bulimia. Anyway, that's how it happens most years. This year I spent as much time listening to the crowds as I did the music. Eavesdropping is fun anytime, but listening to sun-addled music freaks during an all-day rock festival is more fun than lurking in a sex addicts' chat room.

So here are your impressions of Sunday: music fans, the bands themselves, folks I prodded for comment, overheard on Delmar.

Teflon Poetix, performing with Sac Lunch: "Don't compare me to Malcolm X/I ain't never been shot."

Guy with hemp necklace: "It's like 'sac,' without a 'k.' That means, like, balls."

Guy: "Beatle Bob doesn't really know how to dance to hip-hop, huh?"

Girl: "Is he air-humping?"

Elderly woman walking past the Choir's outdoor set: [puts fingers in ears] "Oh, my, that's loud."

Me: "So the Choir only played for 30 minutes?"

Guy: "Well, punk rock, man. You ought to know that by now."

Guy listening to Lojic: "Anyone who thinks they're Rage Against the Machine, I love."

Guy: "I'm going to go use the porta-potty before they get toxic."

Guy number 1, as Lojic launches into its metallic cover of "Eleanor Rigby": "Is that the Beatles?"

Guy number 2: "Ballsy is what that is."

MC: "The one band you don't want to find in your food: The Pubes!"

Peat Henry of the Pubes: "What that guy doesn't understand is that we're dead-fucking serious. Kick it!"

Girl: "[The Pubes] remind me of high school."

Me: "Is that good or bad?"

Girl: "Just -- high school."

Femme Fatality: "We're the Grateful Phish Fatality -- at least that's what we told the RFT to get booked at Cicero's."

Jason Barron of Harkonin, before launching into a song in which the only discernible phrase is "witch cunt": "This one's for the ladies!"

Me: "I'm going to see Berry."

Guy: "They're very polite. Even their noisy parts are polite."

Guy, as Ruka Puff and his two hype men, the three of whom easily weigh half a ton, bellow, "I'm a grown-ass man, dog/Say it to my face!": "They're really big guys."

Me: "You're good at this. You should have my job."

Guy: "Did you tell her about Turducken?"

Guy: "You mean Harkonin."

Me: "What do you think of Bunnygrunt?"

Guy: "That's a happy goddamn band -- can bunnies grunt?"

Me: "Well, they can't vomit."

Guy: "Uh-huh."

Me: "They eat their own poop, too."

Guy: "..."

One of the Mega Hurts, the next day on Delmar: "Everyone [at the Halo Bar] was great last night. I'm wearing jeans today because I've got bruises up and down my shins from falling over an amp. There were a lot of sing-alongs."

Last week I had lunch with the fine fellows of Lost Parade. We talked about playing bar mitzvahs for friends, how I'd dissed them once when they were Shine (they were really nice about it) and about the band dropping out of the finals of the Emergenza battle of the bands so they could headline Mississippi Nights this Friday. Emergenza is one of the biggest international battles of the bands around. It also makes bands sell tickets personally, a practice I'm not to fond of. Check out Parade with the 12 oz. Prophets on Friday, or check out the twelve-band Emergenza finals at Pop's. Or do both.

(Me? I'm rooting for Team Tomato.)