The Violents: Lust Returns

So often in my life rock and roll has been quite simply about lust – a pure, physical indulgence, nothing more. The glorious simplicity of the whole boy/girl, boy/boy, girl/girl thing is as big a part of the rockroll phenomenon as anything else, and rockroll is sexy, there’s no way of getting around that fact. But rockroll’s sexual dynamism isn’t necessarily gender oriented; I happen to like girls (a lot), but I get off on listening to the Stooges (all guys) Fun House more than any other record I’ve ever come across. Iggy gets me hard with all of those moans, groans, grunts, and growls. He more than gets me hard, he gets me off! It’s hot fucking stuff. Iggy’s hot! The Asheton’s are fucking hot! Every last note on that grand fucking record sends blood rushing throughout every goddamn capillary and corpuscle in my miserable body. It makes me tingle all over – every time I hear it. Sexy, sexy shit.

But Fun House isn’t the only record that does it for me. Shit, there are plenty of PJ Harvey moments that have sent me into spontaneous combustion (re: that ‘premature’ variety). There are many cuts by bands like the Posies, the NY Dolls, fucking Sublime, Bad Brains, and even mopey-assed Lou Reed that completely get me off. There are songs by boys and girls (Tam Spivey of Lucid Nation is ridiculously sexy: smart, funny, and above all, committed! That is hot shit!), there are sounds (the guitar on Bowie’s "Heroes" is nothing but sexy), rhythms (Sly and Robbie, come on now!), and attitudes…which is where we are now: attitude. I fucking love attitudes. Attitude is the epitome of rockroll sexuality. Attitude is what gets me off. And right now, the attitude of this little band from Illinois, The Violents, has me in fucking knots. I’m melting here…

Rebecca’s Morning Voice isn’t a perfect record, for at least two cuts (maybe three – four with more time well spent listening) it sure as hell portends a sort of brilliance. In fact, for those two songs, "Sledding" and "Whore", The Violents might just be the most perfectly loose and reckless rockroll band plying the trade these days. These two tracks are, without a doubt, the hottest (as in: sexy) two songs I’ve gotten into this year.

One, "Sledding" (with that spittle splattered "who flinched first" – sounding part accusatory, part defensive and always pissed off), is a rambunctious stab at savvy pop a la Sorry Ma-era Relacements that just can’t hide its bipolar need to break down and turn itself raucous and tattered. It hoots, hollers, swings, and sings about mornings after, drunken trysts, regrettable sex without regrets, and the inevitable end of any and everything that might feel good for a while. "We finally fucked it up" and "who flinched first" wrestle like drunken lovers, grappling for the upper hand as the songs refrain, both lines getting spit out like so much disdain for that awful fucking kissing session some pig of another person who makes you queasy now. Awful. The song ching ching ching-a-lings along, propelled by guitars on the verge of going over the edge and a drumbeat that has already been over the edge and is calling out "follow me…it’s ok!" Good, hot, danceable and sweaty fun, never remorseful or repentant for the petty consequences commonplace in those heady lives that are lived for the moment.

"Whore" is something altogether different. Slow, somber, and laced with fucking mood sounds for God’s sake (those whirring pseudo strings – staggering, heartbreaking genius) it’s a startlingly smart song. No make that astonishingly smart…spec-fucking-tacularly smart. Christamighty, the thing had me going from wanting desperately to do the slow burn with one of these Violents to flat out sitting on my ass weeping. She’s ain’t no fucking whore you bastard sonofabitch! You hear me? Do you fucking hear me? Answer me goddamn it! She’s not…a…fucking…whore! Goddamn it! Jesus man, just listen: "it’s just bad luck / just bad luck / what the fuck / it’s just bad luck" If that ain’t reality I don’t know what the fuck is. "Whore" is moody and breathtaking. It is as good and strangely moving a song on an early recording by a new band as I’ve ever heard. Moreover, it’s a spectacular success at being exactly what the fuck it wants to be: a cautionary tale without self-pity, an out-of-love song minus the emotional victimization, and in that, maybe the most honest love song out there.

In the end this rockwrite thing makes it pretty fucking easy to get too wrapped up in the at times (often?) phony quest to find ‘art’ or ‘meaning’ in the midst of so much rockroll racket. When you take on the act of writing about rock you mostly wind up trapped behind a bunch of inexpressive words that don’t do a goddamn bit of good when it comes to capturing the elusive emotional ghosts that hide in the music. Hell, right now I’m failing miserable at doing exactly that, which is why this gig is so fucking frustrating. So do yourselves a big-assed favor and just go ahead and give "Whore" a listen; these girls pluck at their scabs and pour everything they have into this song – and if you listen, you might just hear something that will help at understanding just what the fuck it is I think I’m saying here.

And lust returns…

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