david yow w/ shellac - the shellac pistols

are you ready for some treats?
you're going to have to open your candy bags nice and wide.
i hope that you have the inside of it scotchgarded or else you're going to have to burn it.
picture it....
the year is 1998.
chicago.
lounge ax.
halloween.
a band takes the stage.
are they from england?
so this guy doesn't want a holiday in the sun?
this is illinois in october so that's exactly what's happening.
waitaminute.
david yow?
shellac?
are they covering the sex pistols?

"david yow stalked onto the stage, in full 1970’s-era johnny rotten attire to the letter. bleached and spiked hair, psychotically glaring at the audience, the whole nine yards. he’d done his homework on this one. he was followed by the three shellacs, with steve albini doing his best steve jones in vinyl pants (!) and a red doo-rag on his head. bob weston *was* sid vicious, in spiked black hair, mesh shirt (with scratches and scars visible underneath), glassy-eyed, and an impressively bloody IV bandage on his arm. only todd trainer seemed to buck the whole pistols image. i mean, he could have found one of those big sweaters or something. paul cook had style too. anyway, they ripped into “holidays in the sun”, and that set the tone for the evening. yow had rotten’s nasal brit accent down pat, even in song. he pulled the whole thing off so well, i tell ya. weston kept coughing up “blood” and running into things. steve’s guitar sounded kind of sloppy, but I don’t think jones could have done it any better. between songs the band taunted the audience in mock cockney accents, steve asking if there were “any PAA-ties about”. the audience responded by throwing chunks of a dismembered jack-o-lantern at the band. the setlist was confined to material from NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS, including “bodies”, “submission”, “anarchy in the u.k.”, and closing with “god save the queen”. yow seemed to remember the words to them better than he remembers the words to jesus lizard songs. yow ended the evening by asking, “ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” and the band walked offstage, barely an hour after they started. for a long time, nobody left. the house lights came up and nobody left. todd trainer started taking his drum set apart and people booed. it finally registered that that was the evening, that they weren’t going to get anymore, and they weren’t getting any shellac songs"

yeah. that could've been you telling your friends about all of it. but no. you chose to stay home and hand out candy with your mom in hopes that the girl from down the street would show up in her pink power ranger costume. but she didn't. now what are you going to do with all of those black jelly beans? i'd tell you to bury them in your yard but the last time someone did that a portal to hell opened up. do you want that? sure. it sounds cool at first but then demons start coming through and making long distance phone calls and using the toilet in your parent's bathroom and spoiling the endings to all of the tv shows your watching. you don't want that. but you're going to do whatever you want,yeah? i mean...you've been wearing that same rush t-shirt for 4 days.

1 - holidays in the sun
2 - bodies
3 - pretty vacant
4 - seventeen
5 - submission
6 - pills
7 - anarchy in the u.k.
8 - god save the queen

DL