Thelonious Monster at The Echo

Last night I went to see Thelonious Monster at The Echo. The band is probably too old but not quite old enough for a lot of you to know, but I saw them often in the mid '80s and early '90s. They played with L.A. bands like fIREHOSE, Fishbone, X, and the Chili Peppers, yet sounded nothing like any of them. Way more rock-flavored with amazingly observant, personal, and often painful vocals by singer Bob Forrest who played with pretty much anyone who could handle his on-and-off problems with substance abuse. Or at least that was the image I got, which was reinforced by sloppy yet brilliant live shows--perhaps lending the name to one of their albums, Beautiful Mess.


Last night's band lineup was a classic one with Dix Denny on one of the many axes. Forrest introduced him as one of the 100 people that shaped today's popular culture--folks in a Hollywood basement (The Masque?) and London that affected the way everyone in last night's audience listens to music, dresses, and even thinks. Dix was in The Weirdos, a true original, first-generation punk band.


Also in the lineup was Zander Schloss. The Weirdos and Circle Jerks bassist also plays the key role of Kevin opposite Emilio Estevez in one my all-time favorite movies, Repo-Man, and became a fixture in Alex Cox and Joe Strummer projects after that. What a Renaissance man.


There's also Mike Martt from the influential cowpunk group Tex & The Horseheads and Dallas Don from the early OCHC band Plain Wrap, but of course the focus is on Bob. His between-song talking is often as good as the songs (which are great), and last night was no exception. From the starting point of pulling the mic stand so high he could lean on it and look up while singing and saying, "That's the way I like it baby, I don't want to go to heaven" and drummer Pete Weiss starting Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" before the band dug into the Stones' "Start Me Up." Two songs later, Zander got the band playing "Shattered," forcing Bob to reveal that the band's single practice session for the show was mostly squandered on Stones and Beatles covers...



A couple more quick details before I get back to work. After playing "Jeffrey Lee" (Pierce, of course) Bob started talking about what a fan he was of The Gun Club, and how X's Los Angeles and The Gun Club's Fire of Love are the only two albums you need to hear to understand everything there is to know about L.A. Then, when he sang "Looking to the West," he altered the "listening to KISS and Led Zeppelin playing rock and roll" by name-checking those bands. And then during "Lena Horne Still Sings Stormy Weather," the part about "They say Jesse Jackson will never be president and yet he's still the man I'll vote for" was made past tense with Barack Obama's name. Excellent, all the way to the encores of "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" and "Sammy Hagar Weekend."