Spencer Moody is My Favorite Human Being Right Now
Posted by Eric Grandy on Sun, May 24 2009 at 7:00 PM
Murder City Devils just finished the set to beat for the weekend. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the band was fucking tight and rocking out and all that, but the best part by far was what Spencer Moody did in between songs. (The following will be an incomplete account, if anyone has video, audio, or a full transcript, I'd love to see it.)
After playing "I Want a Lot Now (So Come On)," Moody roared, "A lot now, we play these shows in front of a lot of people, and I see a lot of gross, disgusting high school jocks in the audience. But what we do is for all the beautiful faggots, and the rest of you can all eat a big bowl of wet dicks."
He then encouraged the audience to get in their cars that their daddies paid for and go drive home to their daddies' houses. "You think this many people get together and they're all good people," he continued. "They're all shitheads."
Then they played "Dancing Shoes." They played "Idle Hands" and "Dear Hearts," Moody shoving the mic in his mouth and growling, garbled, not giving a fuck, literally falling all over himself.
"I may be stepping out of bounds," he said after another song. "But all the heterosexuals in the audience, all the straights, can just turn around and face the other way. If you don't turn around, I'll accept that you're homos, just like all of us up on the stage."
Then they played "Get Off the Floor": "if you're not gonna dance, get your ass off the floor." (Some guys in sports jerseys with their frat name embroidered on them got their asses off the floor.) They played "It's in My Heart."
"Right now, we play and you all sing and cheer, but after this show, you'll go back to your high schools and pick on the faggots and the kids in the chess club. Fuck you, all of you guys. Who do you think we were? When I went to shows, it was just faggots."
They played "Rum to Whiskey" and "I Drink the Wine." Moody wandered off stage after another song and came back with Past Lives' Jordan Blilie cradled in his arms like a baby, holding him for a moment before letting him head back offstage.
The band started playing "Broken Glass," and Moody kicked the mic down, walked over to the organ and palmed the keys, fucking things up, living up to the song. When he did get on the mic, he just bellowed out a strangled, wordless moan: "Ohhhhhhhhh." Then, he delivered a monologue:
"I'm glad you took the time out of your day that you usually would've spent flat-ironing your hair...But before this band, there was a band called Iggy & the Stooges (cheers), and you can cheer all you want, but you don't know a fucking thing." He went on to talk about getting his first copy of Metallic K.O., giving kind of a punk rock origin story for the Murder City Devils. That was the end of the set, and it was fucking brilliant.
You just don't see enough bands turning their whole act into one giant middle finger these days (there were lots and lots of "fuck you"s directed towards the crowd). It was just fucking great.
May 2009 Archives
I do not go to Sasquatch because I would rather not spend my weekend with hordes of drunk American Apparel-y 19 year olds. But shoot, what I would've paid to see this.
My band is scheduled to play our first show tonight. And I know I'm supposed to play it cool, because, hey- THIS IS ROCK 'N ROLL. But it is hard to be cool about something you've wanted for ten years.
Because I've been forming theoretical bands since I was 14. My girl-punk daydreams have stuck with me while all of my other teenaged ambitions have been outgrown or checked off.
So I know that I am supposed to pretend to not be completely euphoric, to not be thrilled to wordlessness, to act like I do this every day, no big deal, whatever- but fuck, man, I am in a band with two other women with whom I can play the music I have always dreamed of playing. I am in an all-lady/all-queer band; these are the kinds of bands that have had the most salience in my life, and now I cannot believe my luck and that it has taken so long. Because now that I am doing it, I can't imagine that I have spent so much time not- this is what is getting me up in the morning, giving me butterflies in the afternoon, what I am falling asleep to at night.
I have long believed that one of the most punk rock things you can do is represent yourself honestly through the things you make- nothing cuts through all the layers of cultural bullshit like a real human being. So this is not another one of my PSA's on girls and punk rock and gender (or maybe it is, just a different flavor)- moral being, I AM PLAYING MUSIC TONIGHT WITH SOME OF MY FRIENDS. I am doing the things of which I have always dreamed, and it feels really fucking good.
Because I've been forming theoretical bands since I was 14. My girl-punk daydreams have stuck with me while all of my other teenaged ambitions have been outgrown or checked off.
So I know that I am supposed to pretend to not be completely euphoric, to not be thrilled to wordlessness, to act like I do this every day, no big deal, whatever- but fuck, man, I am in a band with two other women with whom I can play the music I have always dreamed of playing. I am in an all-lady/all-queer band; these are the kinds of bands that have had the most salience in my life, and now I cannot believe my luck and that it has taken so long. Because now that I am doing it, I can't imagine that I have spent so much time not- this is what is getting me up in the morning, giving me butterflies in the afternoon, what I am falling asleep to at night.
I have long believed that one of the most punk rock things you can do is represent yourself honestly through the things you make- nothing cuts through all the layers of cultural bullshit like a real human being. So this is not another one of my PSA's on girls and punk rock and gender (or maybe it is, just a different flavor)- moral being, I AM PLAYING MUSIC TONIGHT WITH SOME OF MY FRIENDS. I am doing the things of which I have always dreamed, and it feels really fucking good.
I would like to tell you about noisy radical soul-sisterhoods that are sprouting up across state and national borders;
about "this is not a band," instead it is weirder, more confrontational- what is in the water that is making all of us feel like we need more practice being loud, collectively?
Her Jazz Noise Collective, Knot Knocked Up, our Post Post Fuck Fuck: it is deeply affirming and also a little disorienting to find out that we are all tapping into a similar collective consciousness.
about "this is not a band," instead it is weirder, more confrontational- what is in the water that is making all of us feel like we need more practice being loud, collectively?
This is an experimental music network for women in Vancouver. We are determined to help create an inclusive noise community and supportive space for women to meet and experiment musically. We hope this project will be a catalyst for the formation of more female-based groups in this genre. We are trans-inclusive, please and thank you! No experience or commitment it required - just the desire to try... This is not a band, its the beginning of a more radical, open, posi-core community invested in dialogue about gender, power and personal experience.
Her Jazz Noise Collective, Knot Knocked Up, our Post Post Fuck Fuck: it is deeply affirming and also a little disorienting to find out that we are all tapping into a similar collective consciousness.
