Turns out I missed the last Skytrain for Betty -- or should I call her Holly Holy? -- at the Waldorf tonight (is that name a reference to Holly Body in Body Double? It surely must be). Cost me $40 in a taxi to get back home from the foot of Commercial. Expensive night!
...but it was worth it. Betty gave me some skin! She peeled it right off her arm. I'm not sure where I'm going to put it -- it's in my pocket as I type this. I guess in the CD sleeve? I've never had souvenir skin before.It isn't REAL skin, mind you, but given where it had been -- with a needle stuck in it, hanging from Betty's arm -- it might still count as a biohazard.
The skin wasn't the only reason I was glad to have stayed. Daddy Issues covered NoMeansNo's "Dad" tonight as the closer: peeking at the setlist, it was like, "Ah, well, I guess I'm finishing this gig, no matter what the transit consequences." It was the final of a few Dad-themed songs, or songs repurposed to be Dad songs, performed throughout the night, beginning with KISS' "Love Gun," which she introduced, as ever, by saying it's "about your Dad's cock," followed with a song that I think is an original, "Bad Touch," which she says is "also about your Dad's cock."
What was the other Dad's cock song, "Ham Sammich?" I'm looking at the setlist but I'm not sure.
Other covers included Ween ("It's Gonna Be a Long Night" and I believe "My Own Bare Hands"), Devo ("Gut Feeling," but no "Uncontrollable Urge"), and her ever awesome version of Pat Benatar's "Heartbreaker" (during which she spat chunks of a "heart" she was gnawing on into the audience, inviting other women of the 80s and 90s to come to the front of the stage, that they might chew on it too, whilst pushing away men who tried to take a bite. How does that lyric go, "Take it, take another little bite of my heart now baby"...?)
And of course the second-to-last song was Mudhoney's "Touch Me I'm Sick," complete with stretchy vaginal goo.
I've seen Betty's goo a few times now, but it never gets old.
My camera was long dead by then. I shot no vid, and my pictures end while Ratboy Roy of Hung Up (also with Willy Jak!) still had his clothes on. That was fairly early in the Hung Up set; clothedness, with him, is apparently a state that does not last long. Did Hung Up cover the Alcoholic White Trash theme song, at one point? I had taken a bathroom break, but it sure sounded like that from down the hall -- the rousing chorus of "so fuck you!" was very clear.
Ratboy looks a bit like a younger, punker Joe Mantegna.
I think I saw Alcoholic White Trash once at the "vintage" Cobalt. Talking to a friend about bands from that time, I found out that Ange Trash had sung for Lesbian Fist Magnet, too. I saw them once there, for sure, probably on a bill with SNFU, maybe also with AWT, but I don't know that I ever realized that was Ange...!
Incidentally, Betty's cock was bigger than Ratboy Roy's, but it wasn't real. Actually, Ratboy had some sort of shiny silver, errrm, codpiece, or perhaps fetish tool or shiny gynaecological equipment or, fuck, I dunno, a repurposed chrome gravy boat or something, covering his cock the whole night, so I didn't actually SEE how long his cock was, but Betty's rubber one was way bigger than the whole unit, codpiece and all. What was that about a baby's arm holding an apple?
She stuck it in Philly's mouth a bit, slapped him on the face. He seemed to enjoy it. Was that "Love Gun" she was flopping and thrusting it around for? Must have been. It's hard to keep things straight (so to speak).
At one point during Hung Up's set, as Ratboy Roy grew progressively nuder, he asked if it smelled like "low tide in here," then quipped, "Showers are for sissies." I smelled nothing, but was momentarily worried as he prowled the pit, 95% naked and aggressively stalking towards audience members, that we were going to veer a little closer to the actual (infamously stinky) "GG Allin end" of the punk spectrum (as opposed to the BB Allin end, which is much safer) than I was prepared to go, but rest assured, no feces were flung, no one got punched. About as gross as it got was during Daddy Issues' set, for the aforesaid "Touch Me I'm Sick," when Betty was dribbling foamy beer froth into kneeling bassist Richard Katynski's mouth. Now THAT was real froth, from Betty's real mouth, with, no doubt, trace bits of her real saliva in it. He lapped at it enthusiastically, a baptism of froth.
Rich and Orchard abase themselves magnificently at Betty's hands. It must be very satisfying. I have no photographic evidence to share of this, however.
Mind you, Fuk On Riots and CFSK were both real fun too. I haven't fully adjusted to CFSK's current mode: my first experience of the then-dubbed Campfire Shitkickers was back when they were a sort of acoustic "rude sea shanty" novelty act complete with things like banjos and washboards, if memory serves. As an Oscar Brand fan, I adored the band in that mode, from the first time that I caught them at the Flamingo in Surrey on a bill with Circus in Flames and China Syndrome, maybe ten years ago? They were more of a joke than a fully-realized punk unit that night, but it was a joke I really enjoyed, so (having only seen them at Bowie Balls and such in between, where they're doing something yet still other), I was not entirely prepared for the full-on punk powerhouse they now are. Was it the SNFU cover that changed everything, set them on a new path? It might take some further adjusting.
But that song about shitting the bed tonight was pretty damned amazing. I would have bought Parole Models, their album, if it hadn't been sold out.
Plus Betty, before her makeup change, joined the CFSK onstage and twirled flaming pasties, alternating vocals (unmiked at times, alas) with Philly; on leaving them to finish out their set, she rather spectacularly broke a bottle over his head (the fake kind that shatters everywhere; I've felt her do that on me, but had never seen it done to someone else, so that was interesting to observe from afar).
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Later, during Daddy Issues' main set, Betty gave a posthumous Fuck You to Robert Pickton, apropos of PJ Harvey's "Dress," during which she donned a red dress. I have seen her do that song a couple of times before but I didn't recall that particular costume change previously -- maybe I've just missed it? (There's always lots to see at a Betty Bathory gig). She did something else I had never seen before, either (I don't think), holding Ted Bundy's face over her crotch and thrusting it pelvically at Rich during "Be My Baby." (He was kneeling again then too, if memory serves. Playing with Betty, one tends to get down on one's knees). Maybe I was just poorly positioned, but I think before last night, I had only seen her hold Bundy's face over her own face. What does it mean to Bundify one's cunt? And how does one both don a Ted Bundy mask (sort of) and speak out from the stage about MMIWG and date rape ("Bad Date")...?
I only ever pick out a snatch here and there of what Betty is singing, live, so I'm keen to actually listen to the CD and see if I can make out the lyrics; maybe they will shed light on these mysteries. I guess that "I've Been a Bad Bad Girl" song is a cover? Who is it a cover of? I'm surprised it's not on the EP.
(Update: Orchard Pinkish , helming Tequila Bats at LanaLou's the nezt night, will explain to me that that song was originally written by Murray Acton for Betty, before Orchard's tenure in the band, with Murray co-performing lyrics with Betty. Since Orchard has taken over these parts -- learning the song from a Youtube clip "filmed on a potato in a basement with no lights," he said, or something like that, just now, standing over our table at LanaLou's -- the song was not ready for their first volley of recording sessions, but will be in the next! There was also some stuff about hot dogs, charts written in mustard on a napkin, amd pornhub, but I cannot do it justice here. Dr. Pervert? Who?).
Truth is, I had hoped for vinyl, but I will settle for now for a little piece of skin.
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