Bastards Outta Ohio, Not Carolina

Probably a sign of impending infirmity, but it seems ages since my last rock show of significant magnitude. These days, only sure-fire bets carry the hope of coaxing me away from hearth and home. I broke the losing streak last night. I ventured out into Frigidaire™ freezer we call a city and down to the 400 Bar, a dive situated on the Mississippi’s West Bank, surrounded by high-rise tenements and a community of African-owned businesses. The reason: The Heartless Bastards were in town, they’re third visit since releasing Stairs and Elevators, a debut record on the Fat Possum label back in February of '05. I’d been fortunate to catch them on their first stop through, but missed out on the second. That error made attendance at this third gig practically mandatory in my book.

What the 400 Bar lacks in amenities and ambience, it also lacks in general punctuality of performances and affordability of alcoholic wares, paucities that made me mindful of why I’m sometimes not as prone to the allures of rock gigs as I once was. The mystique of the fashionably dilatory rock star just isn’t one I buy into. Insult to injury, the enticing collection of instruments arrayed on the stage made the wait even less endurable. I surveyed the usual suspects of racked guitars and drum kit, but also a baritone saxophone and Lap steel stacked on top of a Fender Rhodes. Openers The Soledad Brothers hit the stage 2+ hours after their scheduled start time to a modest and predictably inebriated crowd. Their blend of Stooges meets The Allmans meets The Blues Explosion in a Southern fried alt rock stew resonated with only a dull echo in my cranium thanks to some handy ear plugs inserted at the start of set.

I kept thinking of Judah Bauer, front man for that last reference, and his offshoot band 20 Miles (also in the Fat Possum roll call), particularly in the stage mannerisms of guitarist with lots of strutting and herky-jerky hip shaking. The drummer was part dervish, part flailing taiko dynamo, kicking up a barrage of noise and dust, but under all the din serving up only relatively simple beats. Sadly, the lap steel-Rhodes guy, dressed suspiciously in 70s era Barry Manilow duds, played second fiddle much of the time with numerous fills, but only a few solos. One highpoint: a barnstorming version of Hound Dog Taylor’s “Gimmie Back My Wig” played with honking baritone sax and stinging lap steel as lead instruments. The squealing Illinois Jacquet meets James Chance style of sax stirred the crowd into a frenzy and the band milked the energy for it was worth. They capped the set with an extended MC5-indebted free rock freak-out that refused to die, finally expiring with a prolonged rheumatic rattle as the players exited the stage.

To their credit, The Soledads were quick when it came to striking their gear, leaving the stage clear for Bastards front woman Erika Wennerstrom to tune her trio of guitars. Seeing her in person is a trip. Short, slight of frame and unassuming, she doesn’t fit the typical chauvinistic garage rock mold. The hand-drawn skeleton of a charging Tyrannosaurus gracing her black t-shirt was the only visible harbinger the stomping, rafter-rattling sounds to come. Bald, burly and bearded, drummer Kevin Vaughn quickly assembled his kit while bassist Mike Lamping, tall and bookish, waited slouching in the wings, a vintage Rickenbacker bass slung low against his waist, playing quietly with a pick between his fingers.

One of the most immediately endearing aspects of the band is the irony that weighs heavy in their chosen name. Firstly, they’re led by a woman. Second, her songbook is stocked cover-to-cover with a passel of humanity and heart. Many hold a deceptive sea shanty-like simplicity, working off pummeling beats, roaring bass and ferocious guitar, but retaining a melodic and rhythmic thrust that marks the presence of superior song-craft. After some brief, but friendly, salutations, Wennerstrom shouldered a handsome, gamboge-colored Gibson and kicked in to the first tune, pealing distortion blasting from the pair stage-side speakers. Minus my plugs, the music was so loud I could feel it reverberating through viscera and skull in exhilarating waves.

Between a regular set and a generous five-song encore, they played pretty much every track from Stairs and Elevators, closing with an epic version of what I consider their finest effort from that album, “The Will Song,” Wennerstrom filtering the song’s bridge through a trebly, almost piercing, clarion tone. The accelerated tempo shift to pounding metal cadence in the final third, transparent as it may be, still has the power to make me swoon. Wennerstrom’s singing was strained in places, competing with a mic calibrated too low in the mix, but there’s a nakedness in her vocals that’s drawn comparisons to Janis Joplin and Grace Slick. Personally, I hear more Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde in her powerful pipes, but either way she’s in good company in a sisterhood of declamatory and distinctive singers. She’s also given to employing her voice as instrument, altering inflection and pitch in dramatic swoops and ascents in tandem with her grainy guitar chords. That measure of variance also stamps the songs with a highly personal colophon that can’t be mistaken for any other.

Lamping and Vaughn might occupy positions of less prominence on the surface, but their roles are just as essential to the Bastards’ whole. Vaughn kept a thunderous pace throughout, easily matching the earlier Soledad drummer for density and volume, but playing with a heightened degree of precision and poise, interlocking blues rhythms slingshoting off his sticks and ricocheting off the bunker-like walls of the club. That focus also points to another of the band’s strengths, a canny flexibility which serves as a secret weapon in ramping excitement. They’re a tight group, even when they’re sounding purposefully loose and the synergy is born out of one of the most basic adages of rock: touring is the best way to build and cement unconscious musical bonds, whether it’s between band mates or band and audience. The Bastards have certainly put it into practice with a touring schedule that would presumably make most major-label anointed acts blanch. In ’05 alone they played 112 shows. That’s some serious mileage on the road and a telltale sign why the tour van has become their emblem of choice.

The grinding timetable also allows for plenty of concert tune-smithing and one of the best parts of the show was being privy to newer material that’s set for release on The Bastards upcoming sophomore effort, set to drop sometime this summer. I didn’t catch any titles, but several of the tracks are fluently on par with the best of their older brethren. One, an anthem-style piece fueled by massive, distortion-doused rifffage and undulating bass vamp, absolutely blew my away. Another of the new tunes incorporated keyboard switched to a piano setting and using a loop to free up Wennestrom for more blister-inducing guitar. She broke a string on her Gibson early-on in the set and switched to a gold flake Les Paul without missing a beat. She also plugged in an amplified hollow body acoustic for a couple numbers, but no matter the axe in her hands the emphasis stayed centered on high-intensity multi-hued rock through a stunning selection of fuzz tones. That tonal diversity and depth coupled to stentorian breadth reminds me a little of Bob Mould and while Wennerstrom’s isn’t an elaborate soloist, I’d still be comfortable placing her alongside that fast and venerated company. Long chronicle short, this is a band I recommend catching in person without delay. Odds are they’re on tour more often than not, making their accessibility even less an issue. And if there’s any waiting time involved for the real deal, Stairs and Elevators will supply suitable means of getting in on the ground floor. At the very least, I’m thankful they pulverized my previously swelling apathy toward rock gigs into an easily soluble paste.