INTRO
INTERVIEW
PICTURES
I'm walkin' into Bananna Joe's with a sick stomach and a cranky Tommy Timebomb right behind me. Some fuckin retarded bitch workin' the door takes my money and expresses a fake and overly excited reaction to my being a jouranalist, she's obviously mistaken us for a magazine that gives a damn about their club. I must say we were treated very well by the staff, unfortunately they were all extemely unhelpful and completely clueless - but they were polite about it. So there we are... trying to find Flickerstick, but this place is soo fuckin big, I mean, I don't know why you would book that place instead of fuckin' Melon Arena or something... we gave up after 10 minutes and started indulging in the fabulous $1 drink special. I was on my second drink when Flickerstick arrived and seing as how I am the understanding/lazy jounalist that I am, I gave them their time before the show to do whatever it is they wanted to do or had to do. Let me just point this out now, the first thing I noticed about those guys was the expressions on their faces and how obviously tired they were. Fletcher said something to me right off that their road manager had been injured and hospitalized the night before the show; but more than that, I'm sure they were anticipating the oncoming of the 500 bizillion people wanting to talk to them, get an autograph or at least a story to tell their friends. Without haste, they loaded in their gear by themselves the way big boys do, not pampered rockstars, and the groupies (both male and female) came a runnin' as soon as they saw the whites of their eyes. With no comfy backstage to run to, no catered food service and no plush couches to lay their sleepy heads on the guys were in it for the long haul and became the focus of the Stip District's mob scene. We kept drinking. I could give a fuck who else played, I went there with a purpose and none of the other bands were part of that, and if I tried to keep track of where the Flickerstick boys were at any given time I would've had a nervous breakdown. (Side note - I could hear the other bands, being as I'm not deaf, but we all know there's nothing to tell about generic alternative music.)
Fast forward an hour...it's around eight...drink 3or 4...Flickerstick is about to play. It's been a long time since I've been to a show where so many little girls ran immediatly ran right to the front of the stage (only at Submachine shows does this happen...hehe). This made Tom feel incredibly gay, when I demanded his presence to help observe and watch my shit while I ran from side to side taking pictures. He pointed out an ultra cool Clockwork Orange sticker on Brandin's guitar, so I applaud him on his effort to try and make the best of his stage position.
Ok, here's where things really became cool. We'd listened to the songs on the computer, and seen the clips of them playing on TV, but this wasn't that band. These guys are just amazing, really. I was far more impressed than I had hoped for. I can't recall the set list or anything so I won't go into much depth about the songs. They did do that Mazzy Star cover, which I liked because I am a big Mazzy Star fan. My favorite was that "Chloroform The One You Love" song - I dig that one the most.
It's been clear to me for a while that in order for a band to be truely good, they have to have good stage presence as well good songs. Flickerstick persevered in both of these arenas. It seemed strange in a way because the songs tend to lean more towards the mellow side of my musical tastes, that they behave on stage much like a lot of the sleeze rock bands or good punk bands should. I couldn't see Rex very well because for whatever reason the person doing lighting, just couldn't manage to get the damn light over 2 more feet - asshole, I shouldn't have to walk to the other side of the stage so I can see a guy who is playin his fuckin ass off! Their music is really...pretty (for lack of a better word), so it's like your expecting like a bit of swaying and fluttering eyelashes from the band, you don't get that though, they're really pretty ballsy; evident in Brandin's climb up to the second level on unsteady speakers. Hell, he had me ready for any act of indecency actually. He has the stage mannerisms of a Mick Jagger/Iggy Pop combo, but even though I was preped for anything, the most nudity was displayed by the talented Mr. Cory's bare feet. Another thing I found interesting was that there wasn't any of that "lengthy-talk-to-the-crowd" bullshit. They went out there, did their set (35 mins. or so) and got the hell outta there.
"We're so pretty...pretty vacant", was the crowd's message, only most of them aren't cool enough to know that quote, and too dumb to know what vacant means. They had there in front of them, a band that was beyond what a good band should be, both in coolness and musical talent, but those dumbasses would rather those guys have just sat on stage getting plastered and makin' out with random VH1 groupies than sit through a great set of rock n' roll. There was one tubby guy in front of me (creepy....) who seemed to appreciate them too. After that the feeding frenzy started...we went back to the bar.
We drank...and waited...and drank...and waited. I began to feel like that kid in "Almost Famous", when he said "I have to go home, I can only stay on the tour til' Cleaveland, so can you please help me get my interview?!?!" - except that I was far more trashed and I wanted nothing to do with the Flickerstick groupies. About two hours later, Cory finally got the guys together and we crawled to the otherside of the bar to do it. Please don't take my complaints about waiting as me saying Flickerstick has some stupid rockstar mentality, they don't - it simply was that every fuckin person in that bar wanted to talk to them for an hour, and well, like I said before, that place is huge, and there were a LOT of people in there.