| swearing at motorists |
BANDLIVESTUDIOWEBSTORE |
september 10, 2002 - los angeles, ca - spaceland
from la weekly
What do you get when you cross a tattered baby doll from a dusty attic in Nottingham, a will-rock-for-drugs duo from Dayton, Ohio, and a comedian who wonders aloud if "we've entered the world of the threefold panda"? Answer: something like cabaret, and something completely strange. Nobody understood where the performers were coming from on this night, and that made for great theater. The intermission standup comic, Jason Traeger, described it as "stage art."
When Scout Niblett followed Traeger's odd humor to the stage, a brilliant juxtaposition took place. Niblett turned in one-two-three-chord chansons that cast a contemplative grayness over the room. She did her best to maintain her voice (which was hoarse from constant touring), often interrupting her own trance-inducing songs by laughing playfully as it cracked. Nevertheless, that voice cascaded through her sparse guitar arrangements like something altogether tragic. Midway through the set, Swearing at Motorists drummer Joseph Siwinski joined Niblett in a jarring rendition of Otis Redding's "These Arms of Mine." Niblett herself then got behind the skins and played the tribal "Boy," which was like listening to an amplified heartbeat with somebody dreaming on top.
Swearing at Motorists opened their set with singer Dave Doughman holding a cell phone to the microphone and playing a message he'd left his mother. Thus began an enthralling hourlong excursion of Rabelaisian-style rock, derisive threats to the audience unless they delivered him some drugs, Prince-like leg-kicks and death-defying aerial jetés. With nary a spare moment in the set, and almost too much energy to ingest, Doughman was disappointed that his show had to close, and invited everybody to the sidewalk outside, where he would gladly play on and on.
-- Chuck Mindenhall
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