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[Live & On Record]

BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB
FUN WITH FEEDBACK

The squall of swarming feedback that coalesced around "Whatever Happened to My Rock ’N’ Roll (Punk Song)" was as direct a statement of purpose as the lines that followed it: "I fell in love with a sweet sensation/I gave my heart to a simple chord/I gave my soul to a new religion/Whatever happened to you?/Whatever happened to our rock ’n’ roll?" The answer to this query made by the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club during a rapturous 75-minute set at the Paradise Friday night could be found within the song — and the band.

As the San Francisco–based trio’s darkly lustrous homonymous debut (released on Virgin earlier this year) attests, the defiantly anti-current brand of rock and roll BRMC have fashioned for themselves is quite alive and well. It’s a specimen whose genus stems from the brooding cool and casual menace of groups like the Jesus and Mary Chain and Spacemen 3: a sustained sonic roil that on Friday emanated from the murk and haze of a distant darkland universe, magnified and backlit by spectral washes of crimson and white.

With singer/guitarist Peter Hayes and singer/bassist Robert Turner alternating lead vocals and switching instruments, and drummer Nick Jago counting off time on his drumsticks like Mission Control, BRMC explored, with brutal majesty, the themes familiar to this particular sort of noisemaking: sin, salvation, and soul saving by way of melodies warped by distortion pedals. Although the songs themselves — the ominous storm of "Rifles," the savage desperation of "Love Burns" — gleamed like the teeth of a diamond-fanged beast, the point seemed to be less about individual tunes and more about the expression of a snarling, suggestive whole: a compound of constantly unfolding atmosphere, helped along by dry ice and dramatic lighting.

The Vue, one of the night’s two openers (local rocker Ramona Silver primed the crowd with an early set), are also a San Francisco band, and they delivered defiantly retro rawk of a different sort with an abundance of hooks, looks, and showmanship. The visually striking quintet — including a crazy-legged blonde harp player named Jonah Buffa who resembled Aftermath-era Brian Jones defecting to Paul Revere & the Raiders in a Minuteman jacket — kicked up a gloriously knotty noise while drawing heavily from their new disc, Find Your Home (Sub Pop/Headset).

BY JONATHAN PERRY

Issue Date: November 29 - December 6, 2001

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