Jesse Malin: Live Review

2008-05-11 10:28:23

It’s the Rescue Rooms on a Saturday night and the alternative rock Cub Scouts of America join hands across the globe. It is a surreal moment. The flyer, gaffer taped to the column, says the gig will be dead in the water by 10pm to make way for the Devil’s jukebox indie disco.
    
The dice are loaded from the get-go but Jesse hits punch-drunk chords on his guitar all the same, his nasal New York vocals confirming his tag as street hustler, poet of the street and bleary eyed romantic.
    
He batters out the opening riff to Russian Roulette, another acoustic punk rock anthem for the lonely and disenfranchised, wearing tatty sneakers, hustling the streets with his nose running down to his chin, huddled up against the wind and waiting for the man. He inhabits the same world as the Velvet Underground, Elliot Smith and Hubert Selby Jnr. His narratives play out like little movies and still-life portraits, of con tricks that fail, of women who leave and motel room drug deals gone wrong.
    
Endlessly annoyed
    
He seems endlessly annoyed that they have to clear out before the disco. He downgrades himself and describes his band as the backstage petting zoo. I get it; the disco sucks and heaves with people who should buy a fucking mirror because I don’t want to look at them half as much as they want to look at themselves. Problem is, he talks a lot to the point of talking too much and when he’s only got an hour I want him to play a song.
    
He plays Going out West followed by a Neil Young cover of Helpless and ends this by jumping into the crowd and telling stories. It’s hyperactive and hectic. It’s amazing, a communal feeling, but ending minute by minute and crashing like a night cranked up on speed.
    
Raw with intensity
    
The last song he plays is his first single Wendy. He pounds the strings, his throat raw with intensity. This is the fine art of self destruction. He namedrops Tom Waits and Jack Kerouac, with his heart bleeding on his sleeve, running to escape, vagabond heart and the asphalt tread of the lonesome, 200 more miles till home.
    
He plays Replacements covers, snatches of Here Comes a Regular and Bastards of Young. He tells us all that we are the sons of no-one, going nowhere but hell in a handcart. From what I’ve seen tonight, I’m surprised the place is still standing.
    
Review: Danny WIlson
    

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