March 27, 2009
Words and photos download by Virtual Gypsy & Femmebot
MIAMI – In the center of Little Haiti, where rude B-O-Ys are known to thrash about in a pub called Churchills, I stand in a corner observing and scanning tonight’s headliners as if it’s possible to remain unaffected by the rowdy scene, although by the end of the night I am fully saturated by the blood, sweat and saliva of the Black Lips and their wickedly loyal fans. It’s a sold out show and I banging my head around on stage with the Atlanta band.
“I’ve been listening to the Black Lips for like 3 or 4 years,” says Michelle, a Cubana from Kendall, who tagged along with the Lips and friends to the Gansevoort Hotel room back on the beach, away from the third world roughness of Churchills (the band’s favorite venue in Miami). “All it took was one song. One song and I was hooked.”
Not surprised, their tunes are full of jingly hooks. They play all the favorites – “Do you really wanna hold my dirty hand?” “Bad Kids” and a few new tunes from their new album, “200 Million Thousand.”
Femmebot’s Download…
We walk into the garden area of Churchills and run into Joe the drummer straight away, and he invites us backstage. He is so cute, like a baby, with kind eyes and a boyish grin. Cole sees that my beer is empty and kindly offers me another. These boys are so un-rude. You can’t help but feel like taking care of them like a mama…this is the effect they have on females, I think, although, their manager takes on role of papa. He is quite upset to find out that the boys’ box of condoms are missing. “I gotta make sure they’re wrapped up, you know?” he says.
Ian is so charming as he pops his gold teeth in and out of his mouth, wondering if he should lose his trademark since 2004. I tell him, yes, he should follow Madonna’s lead – you gotta always keep the fans guessing. I’m not sure he hears the sarcasm in my tone. He is sincere when he says he wants people to see his real, white, straight grill. I am dumstruck by the contrast, he looks like such a respectable young man, not a rock star who kneels into a yoga hero’s pose on stage while strumming his guitar with his eyes half open Buddha style.
It goes flower psychadelic like that during their set and suddenly I’m sucked into a vortex back to 1967.
I should have worn a bra with all this shaking around, but I had just come from the Scion party and I didn’t have proper underwear to change into…besides, the theme of this Black Lips party must have been “underwear optional” because a coked up dude wearing nothing but a woman’s shirt, stage dived into the pit, bare ass on display, to the dismay of all the fans standing behind him. Ew! Gross! Gross!
I’ve just about had enough of the Black Lips at 4 a.m. as the observation tower in my brain is shutting down, but Jared wakes me up in the Gansevoort Hotel lobby with some quotable comments I can’t resist.
“I love Miami,” he says. “Where else can you see an ugly ass bald man with a girl like that?” He points at the bubble of a butt trotting past us. “That guy is so disgusting, I can’t believe what he’s wearing.”
This, coming from a guy wearing too short short Euro shorts barely covering his big balls. I don’t know that he has big balls, but they must be large to wear what he wore in a pub in Little Haiti…
“People literally want to fight me,” he says backstage. I stare at his left thigh, swollen from a bee bee gun shot wound. Then he stirs up vinegar and cayenne pepper. Gargles it. His blue eyes widen and he blows quick spurts of air from his mouth, swearing that this technique worked for Sam Cook and The Mighty Hannibal.
Are these boys not classic or what? I have to apologize, though to Cole and Joe, who were subjected to the bumpy back cab of my 1995 Ford Ranger pickup truck, as we transported the party first to the yucky Vagabond on 14th street and back to the beach. Such cute as buttons boys should be riding in a Caddilac in style, I promise to do better next time. And maybe we can even hold each other’s dirty little hands. ;-D