Less shock, more rock: Mack Messiah’s showman ruins the show
May 28th, 2008 by Abi Berwager in Backstage Pass, Kenny CrucialMaybe you have to be high or just extremely intoxicated to enjoy a Kenny Crucial performance. Unfortunately, I was neither of these things when I saw Mack Messiah at the Drunken Unicorn on Wednesday, May 21.
Despite his status as a local music icon, there was nothing profound or amazing about Crucial’s performance, and his attempts to be the intense rock star figure made him look insane, and not in a good, crazy rock and roll way. A heavy air of unease jostled everyone in the room. The typical hipsters were there, coolly sipping their PBR’s, only this time they were clutching them tightly with fear. Instead of dancing to the music they looked confused and uncomfortable, shifting from side to side, trying unsuccessfully to nod their heads to the Casio beat.
Looks of sheer disbelief and confusion spread throughout the room as Crucial resembled a deranged mole from the “Whac-a-Mole” game at Chuck E. Cheese … the one you’re supposed to bop with a mallet. Veins bulging and eyes wide, instead of popping out of a hole, he was popping up and down behind his music stand.
The music was not bad, and I actually enjoyed myself more when Crucial wasn’t screaming/singing. Their sound was a mutant hybrid of glam rock, psychedelic pop, and I would assume funk since one of the songs was titled “Funky Like Your Daddy.” It would have been fun and easy to dance to if everyone wasn’t so focused on Crucial, wondering what crazy thing he was going to do next. The saving grace of the performance was 18-year-old bass, keytar and omnicord player Monika Julien, who stood out even above the supposedly legendary Crucial. Julien met Crucial at the South by Southwest music conference in Austin. According to her, the two hit it off and soon began practicing together. Wednesday was the first time Julien had performed with Mack Messiah, but she has been a member of local experimental hardcore band When Rocky Beat the Russian for about a year now.
Fiercely hunched over while playing her omnichord, Julien was really into what she was doing and it was obvious through her prevailing sound and the modest smile on her face. Not modest at all, Crucial was really into what he was doing as well; however, he was obviously more into himself. Instead of a modest smile, he screamed at the audience and ended the show with his fists pumping in the air shouting, “Bow to me!”
Red faced and eyes full of rage, he no longer resembled the deranged but harmless Chuck E. Cheese mole. In fact, he suddenly looked more like the devil himself and after that little escapade, the band might best be served by calling itself Mack Lucifer.
May 28th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Kenny, a local music icon? Get real! He’s added nothing substantive to the local music scene. Of course, that’s no different than many other people around town, but it was CL that put him on the cover and created the sham to begin with. I’m glad someone at CL is finally telling the truth.
May 29th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Geez, Jay. What got in your socks? Kenny might not be the most important person rocking around the ATL scene, but he d*mn sure has added his two cents to it by showing his face at more concerts than most of the CL crew put together.
Kenny’s act is an act, to be appreciated by those who want to see it that way. But his real importance has become his presence…
I know a good line-up if Kenny shows his face.
May 29th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Why all the hate? Kenny Crucial is an Atlanta comedycore pioneer! Clearly Abi Berwager just doesn’t “get it”!
May 30th, 2008 at 8:15 am
For further reference, I invite our reviewer to read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Absolution” or James Joyce’s “Araby”. In other words, if you don’t feel the heat of the passion, then you really can’t make sense of the excitement of human desire. If you’re clutching your PBR in fear, then you’re probably not going to do too well navigating through the modern world.
Getting it means coming out of your comfort zone, coming out of that gated community of the mind and getting a little closer to action. With the inspiration of Pitchfork Media, music writers feel more than ever that they are the ones creating the music itself. And with a few choice metaphors the musician is easily banished to a rhetorical Elba. But the kids don’t need a damn weatherperson to tell them which way the wind is blowing!
If you take the stage, you have to expect loads of negative reactions. Some of it is part of the learning process. And there are always going to be people who don’t like what you do. But there is a bitterness that sometimes fills Atlanta criticism, whether it’s on the part of journalists or fans or those actually in the music business. The worse part of it is that it literally prevents the majority of the people from deciding on their own. When a reviewer adopts the tone that she is going to authoritatively take on local music icon and his inflated reputation, it is a continuation of that same attitude.
This is a lot like sending the Sinatra critic to watch an Elvis show. It’s simply not the same
language. When a band calls itself Mack Messiah it’s a clue that there’s something entirely ironic about the presentation. That theater is a key element of the performance. Really, how could a mack be a messiah? And when Kenny Crucial is singing the song “Mack Messiah” and , tells the audience to “bow to me”, maybe he’s making fun of messianic complexes. He’s bringing a critical eye to all those situations where we willingly bow down to some golden idol of the marketplace. That’s why fans who’ve gone to punk shows get it. They’re already used to the ritual as a tonic against the blandness of their workaday lives!
This has all the absurdity of trying to use a microscope to make sense of a Jackson Pollock. You can cherry-pick the elements of a musical performance to reduce it to its component parts, but if there’s no grasp of context, then you’re not really seeing the show. Put in the frame of the other bands, The Mammals, Baby Dinosaur, and The Viet Kings, the picture is much clearer. That’s why member of the other bands were grooving up front. The reviewer did grasp part of the picture. This is about making good music. At times, it grooves. And it’s a little bit of hip hop, a dash of funk, some punk, some rock, some glam, some experimental. There’s hooks. Things to remember. And like such classic bands as The Stooges or The Butthole Surfers, there’s a crazy stage show. Hey Virginia, this ain’t American Idol
May 30th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Less twit, more wit: Abi Berwager’s write-up ruins the (we) fun of it.
I guess it was a good thing I was “high” and/or “extremely intoxicated”
May 30th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Kenny is a bad ass. YOU bitch ain’t got nothing on life. do something origial. i liked how you were into the 18-yr old girl.
thats really street cred of you.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Chuck E. Cheese??? Maybe the reviewer should look in the suburbs for more acceptable entertainment.
Besides, Kenny would never be the mole…he IS Chuck E. Cheese. That’s the whole point.
May 31st, 2008 at 11:19 am
At first, I didn’t get it. Now I do! Abi dropped acid and flashed back to her 8 year old birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. And then this mole came after her. She was afraid. Then the mole turned into the devil. And then the devil became Kenny Crucial. That’s some heavy stuff, Abi. You gotta pass it around!
“I am the Mack Messiah. Bow to me!”
May 31st, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Wow,
Kenny Crucial’s fans are even more unbearable than he is…Who knew?
Good review.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:32 am
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