The Mooney Suzuki - New York Bowery Ballroom - 13/12/02
4/5
By: Nicole Spector
Set-List: 'Make My Way, 'Don't Fence Me In', 'Half Of My Heart', 'Electric Sweat', 'In A Young Man's Mind', 'Singing A Song About Today', 'Oh, Sweet Susannah', 'Natural Fact', 'It's Not Easy', 'Turn My Blue Sky Black', 'Scorpion V. Cobra' (guitar duel/finger dance), 'I Woke Up This Morning', ENCORE, 'My Dear Persephone', 'And Begin', 'Everything's Gone Wrong',
'And Begin (Reprise)'.
The Mooney Suzuki want you. Tonight, the New York foursome has packed lower Manhattan's Bowery Ballroom. After two albums and a nearly-year-long tour with acts such as The Hives and The Strokes, the Moonies are closing the deal with a sold-out show in their first and foremost city.
If you were to ask a relevant band-member, they would most likely tell you that their fan-base is largely comprised of older men, yet it is clear that theirs is a diverse audience, ranging from 18 year-old hipsters to those blessed 40 and beyonders in badge-adorned sporting caps. A rare, intrepid respect glows from the anticipating faces, and the 'Suzuki aren't about to let any one of them get out the door without some serious participation. Supporting performances by rising rock'n'rollers The Witnesses and The Go (might I add, an awesome line-up) have left splash-marks all over the stage and floor. Those who caught both acts have a look of whetted enthusiasm, a filling of rich dessert before the savoury main course.
The Mooney Suzuki dart onto stage inconspicuously only several minutes after The Go finish their set. Singer/guitarist Sammy James Jr. and guitarist Graham Tyler clang on the electric guitars. Bassist Michael Bangs plucks on the bass strings. Drummer Augie Wilson batters on the drum. This is only a test. While sound technicians crouch the stage and chords rattle and slap, the Moonies are tuning their own instruments. This action, more like a gesture, a kind of affectionate and bashful wink, sets off a tone of intimacy that stays steady throughout the voltaic roar of the show. They scramble offstage. They return to the platform half an hour later, the air of emergency speeding them to their posts.
'What time is it? What time is it?' Sammy hollers, more of a mandate than a question. Puppy dog face half-covered in black sunglasses, he braces his guitar like a regular Johnny-Be-Goode and cries, 'It's show-time!'
The audience is in their hands from the offset - almost literally, as their mascot mounted behind the drum-set is a five-foot statue of a hand singing 'number one' and everyone has their claws stretched in the pose. The band builds up into 'Make My Way somewhat extravagantly. Sammy bounces dramatically to the chugging rhythm, his expression facetious when belting the mockingly lugubrious lyrics that mark many of their songs. Graham Tyler beats a glittering star-shaped tambourine. The band's explosive style comes to life recklessly, an indefatigable juggernaut of pop principle travelling at the speed of punk.
It is difficult to imagine the Mooney Suzuki in rehearsal, or in the works of song-construction, because so much of their song's pep and bop arise from call and response with the audience. They jiggle their hips and prance on tip-toe like pro-showmen. They point with serious and severe eye-contact, like a headmaster catching the crime of the head troublemaker, the cheer of acting out one's part is vivid in both parties. Augie leaves his drums at times, dismantles the giant hand and parades the stage with it high above his head, kicking his feet waist level. When Sammy is not coaxing the audience with a showdown drawl, Tyler, gripping his guitar at the edge of the stage, shouts belligerently at the crowd: 'Who's number one? That's right! That's right!' His fingers fly as his feet flutter. The audience is ingratiating. He takes their bets, jumps into their clearings.
'Lemme tell you a little bit about eeelectrictity ladies and gentlemen,' Sammy begins. 'How many of you are familiar with Albert Einstein?' The crowd waves and cheers. 'He had pretty good ideas about energy. The Mooney Suzuki got pretty good ideas about energy, too. The Mooney Suzuki want to do with notes what Albert Einstein did with atoms and molecules...' They pound out their second album's anthem 'Electric Sweat', ponying around the stage, kicking up their heeled boots; never has the title seemed so appropriate for the song and album. Yet, for that matter, neither has the name 'the Mooney Suzuki', which Sammy speaks with total personality and in which the whole ensemble seem to have found a mirror.
Their standard twelve-song set ends with a fixating, jamming guitar match that doesn't want to quit between Sammy and Graham stationed at either end of the stage. The music stops and all are called forward for the family pose - one hand triumphantly upright and the other holstered against the hip, legs pinned together, chests reared. Following their exit, there is chanting applause, pounding feet, index fingers up and jiggling as if to roll dice. We all know they'll be back.
They trot onstage to cheers that last the entire encore. 'The Mooney Suzuki got a strict no-encore rule. That's right ladies and gentlemen!' jives Sammy. 'The Mooney Suzuki are breaking it tonight!' He windmills his hand over the guitar; faster and faster, winding it up.
At one point, Sammy comments in his grating New York accent, 'I hope you can tell your children someday, 'Hey I saw the Mooney Suzuki at the Bowery Ballroom down in New York city! And man, that was a great show...' The band's audacious attitude - raw, eccentric - is playful and warm. Their megalomaniac stunts are bows of appreciation. The manner and sound of the music invoke images of '60s mod-rock and the electric blues of Chuck Berry, however the Mooney Suzuki don't seem so much a reminder of the past as an adrenalized event of right now. It is the rapacious punk tempo and soaring angular riffs that make the Mooney Suzuki live and on fire; and while slick, jazzy talk and greaser get-ups may be old-fashioned, they are never outdated, at least, not here. No; you might even call 'em classic.
Artists in this article: The Mooney Suzuki
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