On November 28, I was lucky enough to go to Cheeky's Last Show EVER. Held at Death by Audio, it was bigger than any other Cheeky show I'd been to, and drew a much larger crowd than I was used to. But there were plenty of other surprises that evening: between unexpected appearances from Ari Up and Jeff Rosenstock, covers of Fugazi, The Descendents, and others, moshing, circle-pitting, crowd surfing and stage diving, Cheeky's final performance felt less like a show and more like a carnival squeezed into two dimly lit rooms.
Cheeky chose their openers well. From Zombie Dogs' confrontational throw down, through Stupid Party's slow and dirty garage rock stomp, to Slingshot Dakota's joyful hymnals, the bands kept what would have been an otherwise long night interesting (I'm sure Shellshag was great too, but I spent most of their set socializing in the venue's other room, sorry dudes!). The openers turned in solid sets, interacted happily with the crowd, and offered paeans to the band of the hour between songs.
Cheeky's set, while strong overall, went through a bit of an awkward, adolescent phase a few songs in. After starting with a 15-minute burst of unadulterated energy, it suddenly seemed uncomfortably quiet onstage between songs. The show felt tense, and lead singer Kate Eldridge even apologized for not having 'anything to say'.
Want to judge for yourself? See Cheeky's last set, all of which is on youtube!
At that point I remembered that I was, after all, at a last show. A positive, spirited, upbeat celebration, but still, a celebration of the end of something. My friend Anna's friend summed it up while we were chatting outside between sets: "It's kind of weird," he said. "I'm excited to hear the new songs, but...I'm really not excited for it to be their last show." There were mixed feelings in the audience, and there must have been mixed feelings onstage as well. I'm guessing that it was maybe a harder gig to play than the band made it look. Both band and audience more than 'recovered' after Eldridge's apology; the audience even got kind of rowdy towards the end (the band was forced to admonish the crowd, reminding everyone to be respectful of people around them.)
Despite the mixed feelings they elicit, last shows are important. They provide a band a final opportunity to express their thanks and declare what they might have stood for, provide the audience a final opportunity to hear the music in its intended live setting, and in general remind us all that live shows are kind of the point of music. Records are just that: records of the music written by a person or group, a means of preserving a certain sound. Records are important, but they aren't a substitute for the experience of going to a show, and hearing and seeing how a band does what it does.
That night, Cheeky did what they did with bands that are their friends as well as their peers. They played their last set with even the stage packed with their friends, colleagues, bandmates from other projects, and significant others. They played their last set for charity -- the show was also a benefit concert for The Walk for PKD (look it up!), and raised almost $2000 for the cause.
Cheeky played their last set the way they played all the others I was fortunate enough to see: with guts, heart, and zero tolerance for the macho scene bullshit so many of their songs cleverly and concisely deconstruct. I can't speak for anyone else, but I know I left that night feeling like it was everything a last show (last thrash?) should be.
I've had a few weeks to deal with it, but I'm still bummed: at Rock Camp last month, I got the incidental news that one of my very favorite local bands, Cheeky, "isn't really playing anymore," from a former member. I'm going out on a limb here and assuming that "isn't really playing anymore" is a euphemistic way of saying that the band broke up.
Maybe 'broke up' is too strong a way of putting it. "Break up" implies that a deliberate decision was made by the band to stop working together. It also implies that there was some concrete entity, a working, functioning, and frankly ass-kicking thing to break. I don't know how the band made the decision to stop playing, so I can't say whether it's a real 'break up' in the traditional sense.
I've noticed that in this particular community, this 'scene' if you will, bands don't really 'break up'. Bands come and go, projects start and stop, and everyone kind of plays with everyone. When one of these bands stops playing, it's not this big thing, because everyone knows that new bands, new projects, and new music will come from it. There's something almost refreshing about this zen-like, anti-ego approach to making music.
But I sometimes worry about the lack of documentation of these bands. A band doesn't have to be together very long to make an impact (see the Sex Pistols for proof of this). I can't tell you how often I go to see local bands, I go to these great shows, and all I want is for other people who can't be there to have some access to this music. And, I want the people in the bands, some of whom I'm usually acquainted with, to receive some recognition, even if they aren't playing to get noticed.
To that end, today I post one of the handful of videos of Cheeky as today's Hump Day Treat. Turn up the volume, click play, rock out, and just think of all the amazing stuff these kids are going to do next on this humid hump day.
Hear more at Cheeky's myspace, where you can also find out how to order their Choke on a Cheeseburger 7"Wanna see more? Look up Cheeky on Just A Visual, an awesome site dedicated to documenting the New York and New Jersey scenes.
In the interest of taking my own advice from my last blog, and starting off the new year right, I went to see some of my favorite local bands last month: I saw Cheeky play with P.S. Elliot and Little Lungs on January 1st, and then saw Mortals on January 10th.
On that first day of the new year I ventured into the labyrinthine heart of Brooklyn in single-digit temperatures, determined to have a better year than the last, and convinced that seeing Cheeky was the way to make this happen. I eventually arrived at a rickety little apartment building where all the tenants seem to be friends, and the kind of kids who consider an apartment-wide houseparty/show a regular weekday night, rather than some sort of special event. The radiators were hissing, the floors were creaky, the stairs were narrow, uneven, and seemingly on the verge of collapse. By the time I went up to the top floor where the bands were playing, every hallway and room seemed to be filled to capacity.
Just after I got there, Cheeky launched into their first song with the combative and irreverent energy they bring to all of their performances. In the live setting Cheeky is fast, dirty and vicious. They are the sonic equivalent of a skinny hockey player -- light, fast, and more than capable of slamming you into the boards and taking some of your teeth. Cheeky's fun, off-kilter, intentionally sloppy style of playing always reminds me of the Lunachicks, and always seems to put everyone in the room in a good mood. By the end of their set, their were shouts from the audience of "You fucking twinkie!" This wasn't an insult or homophobic slur, but lyrics from, and requests for their song "GROW FINS TURKEY." While I wasn't exactly shouting for it, I have to admit that I was happy when they decided to close the set with GFT, and I definitely was not the only one. By the end of Cheeky's set, the entire room was singing along.
Just over a week later, I went back to Brooklyn, to see Mortals at the Charleston. Located conveniently near the Bedford Avenue stop on the L, the Charleston is a dim, cozy bar with a very much unfinished basement and some pool tables in the back. That night there were two bartenders with Neil Young-Crazy Horse era hair cuts and beards working, and their decision to play a Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band album informed my decision to wait outside for the bands to get set up.
Mortals has only been performing together since August, but you wouldn't know it from watching them. The band faced considerable obstacles that night: there was terrible weather, the venue was cold, the sound was questionable at best, and the openers were frankly terrible. (I could name names, but I won't.) And then their set was disrupted by the smell of a dead mouse and a girl dramatically collapsing to the floor, her drink falling to the ground and her glass shattering into a thousand pieces like a scene from a movie, or something. Despite all of this the band performed valiantly. They produced a sound much grander than the tiny, dirty basement setting, and as soon as they started their set, I forgot about the low temperature and the dead mouse. Mortals already have a distinctly dark and sophisticated sound, and richly layered, inventively structured songs. Even with the fuzzy sound at the Charleston, they recreated their complex pieces with force and intensity. When their half hour set ended, the only critique I could come up with is that it was too short. I was ready to hear more of their new songs, and I was ready right then, damn it.
And that, friends and readers, is the power of the live show. It inspires you, amuses you, forces you to get out of your house and out of your head, and gets you thinking about the possibilities. Will my year actually be better because I went to see Cheeky and Mortals in January? Maybe not. But for those two nights, I felt like maybe this year would be a good one. For those two nights, I thought "this is the new year, but I feel completely different. And when I think about those shows, even now, over a month later, I start to feel that way all over again.
