Stop looking cool, Seattle.

Douche bags are just something that’s going to have to be dealt with in Seattle. There thick as flies and at least twice as annoying. I got to Chop Suey early to watch the crowd come in see what type people are coming out for The Cops show. Right off the bat in walked the first super D of the night, a proclaimed twenty-nine, braces wielding, nineteen year old kid. Trying to show me a magic a trick, I willed the show to start. The first opener was a four piece hailing from the greater PDX area called Caves. I’m not really into paying to watch dudes stand around being cool, but they had some licks to cure some of that. David Benedetti hit some scales channeling into Andy Gill, and the whole band did a pretty good Gang of Four impersonation. The dancey, bombastic, angular post-punk that made enough people famous is a solid way of getting tunes out there, but maybe not the best way to quit your day job. Using a rock move I’m calling The Salmon, Tim West laid down some fatty bass and later we shared a friendship paper. If your not familiar with this concept take something you have two of, or in this case, ripped in half easily each take a half, and there fast friends forever. He shared some words with me, something along the lines of ‘the ‘70’s, The Police, London,’ something like that. Next, to continue this 1978 shit-warp was The Girls. A Seattle band that took thirty years to get from New York to Seattle. Look and no substance, look and no substance, look and no substance. It was slowly becoming the mantra of these Pacific-Northeasterners. Leave the leather jacket and shades at home Shannon Brown, you don’t look like Lou Reed, you look like Richard Belzer if he made a rock record, which in fact, I would rather listen to. After about forty minuets of sedimentary punk rock, spitting on their one fan, being spit on by there one fan, they finally stopped pissing off my eardrums. During the set full and empty beer cans were being tossed around like The Cars album definitely in the bands pockets, not to the chagrin of band, in a what seemed like an epic display of ‘enjoy it before they mean it.’ At least you can trust The Cops to let the music make the look, and that they did. The five piece hit the stage with palatable energy, even though Micheal’s mic wasn’t working. He blasted both sides of the stage’s face guitars before his was fixed with out so much as complaint and well, I ate it up. The three guitar onslaught worked out great to loosen up the staunchey d-bags into dancing like the girl they were all making fun of earlier. The great vibe of these dudes not into themselves helped to get the show’s stocks climbing back to eight buck price tag. Songs like “Don’t Take it Personal Dave” and “Invisible City” let John Randolph’s hair free and Brandon Bay to try to drive his guitar into the ceiling. Being tight, clean, and chop heavy The Cops did rock n’ roll a solid that night. Afterwards I caught up with the band, check out these sound clips:
Q: ‘Stoked ‘bout Squatch?’ JR: “Yeah” BB: “I’m a record geek” Micheal Jaworski: “We’re playing the same day as The Cure.”
There you have it, The Cops, the clips, the jams.