Last Call for Vitriol

I probably shoulda written this back on Wednesday, but work has been a little busy lately. So, Tuesday night, I unexpectedly went to a show at the Shelter. I didn't mean to. I was aware that the show was coming up, and I was curious, but I didn't intend to go. Next thing I know, there I am.

Remember the band Superdrag? They were great power pop type stuff. I think they had three or four albums altogether. I saw them on their last tour a year and a half ago at the Magic Stick (Detroit). It was really good. Just simple aggressively poppy rock and roll. Kinda like later Husker Du or the Replacements. I guess they broke up last year, and now John Davis, the singer is out on tour in support of his new solo album.

He played the Shelter on Tuesday, and I got there in time to miss all the opening acts, which is good because that may have been painful. I think there were maybe twenty people in the room altogether. Pretty bad considering that at least nine of those people were either employees or people who got in for free (like me). The first couple of songs weren't too bad. He had a full band with him; he was playing guitar, and then organ, he had a bassist, another guitarist and a drummer. After the second song, NO ONE was talking, and my friend felt the need to change that. It was so dead quiet, he just felt like there should be at least a little bit of noise between songs. He started going on about the new Star Wars movie. I thought it was funny. After the third song, Davis said that they were going to play the whole album because that's all they know. One of the bartenders yelled out to ask how many songs were on the album. Davis answers: "twelve." Bartender yells: "what track number was that one you just played?" Davis answers: "three." A few songs later we got up and left, and when I say 'we', I mean five of the twenty people (all of us are either employees or friends of) were suddenly gone. I felt bad, but it had to be done. This is why:

The songs that we did hear were good, they were poppy late-Beach Boys type songs. John Davis is a good songwriter and musician, there's no doubt about that. But...this is the thing: after Superdrag broke up, he quit drinkin', he quit doin' drugs, and he found Jesus. Don't get me wrong, there are musicians out there who can get away with that sort of thing, but when you come from something completely opposite...it has to be a hard transition. If I hadn't ever seen or heard them before, I might have liked the show more, but it was a bit much at times. I did like the first line of the third or fourth song: "every night is Saturday night, and I fucking hate it." I can relate to that. The next song kept going on about salvation and that killed it for me.

Is there life for John Davis after Superdrag? Maybe, I don't know. Others have done it, but the whole Jesus thing will hurt him, like it or not. A good example (minus Jesus) would be Bob Mould after Husker Du broke up. Several solo albums and several albums as Sugar, and he's still going strong. I also like Greg Dulli's 'solo' work a lot, too. He has no actual solo albums, just his post-Afghan Whigs work with Twilight Singers. More on that later.