Nervous Eaters / Jeremy & The Harlequins / Justine & The Unclean
Middle East (Up), Cambridge, MA 8/4/18
I’m standing outside on Mass Ave, the one Willie Alexander wrote about, conversing with Nick, the bass player for the Nervous Eaters. When I spot two of TNB’s arch enemies, our competition- namely, Boston Groupie News’, Blowfish and Miss Lyn, sauntering in a lascivious manner towards the club.
I quickly duck behind Nick and exhort him to, “Just keep talking. Maybe they won’t notice me.”
Unfortunately, they do. So I portray my surprise and apparent glee- “How wonderful it is to see you once again,” I say with my “teeth biting my tongue” smile.
I tell them, “Oh, it’s a pity, don’t you know, that the show’s sold out today?”
But they’re not buying it.
“Oh, yeah,” I stammer, “There was such a demand for tickets that they moved it to Spit on Landsdown Street.”
(There actually was a club with that name there in the eighties, I’m banking on them not remembering it doesn’t exist anymore.)
They rudely, brush me aside and make their way into the club. And I, in a forlorn manner, decide to follow after them.
Justine & The Unclean are up first and they are a bit dirty. No, not in personal hygiene but in playing some gritty, dirty rock’n’roll.
They play in the kind of place where punk meets garage and pop meets rock’n’roll. And thankfully, all genres shake hands and come out fightin’ and all land a knock out punch.
Led by Justine with high-pitched vocals and guitar, backed up by Janet on bass and vocals, while Charles lends some superb and supportive guitar- they also have some drummer named, Jim Janota- I believe this might be his first band and but does very well for a beginner.
Just jokin’ about Jim, as he is one of Andy & Slimedog’s favorite all-time local drummers, first experiencing him in the eighties in the great metal/punk band The Bags. (During one song he twirls his sticks while throwing the other one up into the air!)
Some of this bands material is too conventional for a young, cutting edge, lad like myself- but when they tare into the Ramones-like “Passive Aggressive Baby,” I’m sold. Great opening set.
Before the next band plays there’s a tape of some theatrical, keyboard music playing over the PA while the band members face each other onstage as if getting geared toward enacting a knife fight!
It’s Jeremy & The Harlequins and what follows is a total surprise! As it is music obviously, very influenced by fifties music and early sixties pop.
Describing them as Frankie Valli fronting Blondie might not be exact but it’s really not too off the mark!
A lead singer who can actually sing, a rhythm section that plays exceptionally tight- these guys combine the spirit of rock’n’roll with the innocence of early pop and play some great, original songs.
It’s always nice to see a band ignore all present styles and strike out on their own.
But this New York band doesn’t strike out with their great performance today, not like their Yankees who are striking out at Fenway Park not far from here. (Hey, the Red Sox swept them and I’m not even a fan!)
This band hits a grand slam and wins the crowd over easily.
They’re playing a lot of oldies in between sets, over the PA, which is cool. But when they play “Nights In White Satin,” by The Moody Blues- (Oh, horrors! The long version with the “poem” in it- only causes me to long for the much better version done by The Dickies.
Nervous Eaters were the first band I ever saw at a punk club. That would be at The Rat in ’77 opening up for The Cars, and if they are the last punk band I see in my life, I’d be okay with that.
They have two original members, Steve Cataldo, singer/songwriter/lead guitar along with Alan Hebditch on rhythm guitar along with David McClean, from another great, early Boston punk band- Willie Alexander’s Boom Boom Band. And now Alan’s son, Nick, who is very active in the vibrant, Cape Cod punk/hardcore/metal scene, is their fairly new bassist. He adds a lot of “fresh blood” into the band and today’s show is the most lively and energetic and yes, best set I’ve seen by them in recent years.
And they’re working on a new release! And I notice several, new potent songs in their set.
But the best is towards the end of their set when they kick into their classic songs. Sparked by the beautiful and haunting “Last Chance,” which I don’t recall from the early time, probably because I was too fucked up at that time, into the more punkish “Shit For Brains,” and “Just Head.” And the crowd reacts wildly.
They encore with their best known tune, “Loretta,” kind of like a song that Iggy Pop might’ve performed if he had ever collaborated with the New York Dolls.
I see this band tonight as a mixture of garage, pop and rock’n’roll that was the original ingredients of punk. I see them taking a band like The Rolling Stones and Chuck Berry- one step further. I see a band that had great songs with an urban, city feel that was bit too honest and a bit, too real in it’s lyrics, for it’s time and a little too rough and tough in its’ music, for its’ time.
I see a band who’s music and art reaches a level that far, few bands will meet or exceed. And those bands need not to feel sorry for that.
I see a band that takes all the human emotions of life and portrays them honestly and real, wrapped up in a music that sounds like barbed wire set on fire, that scorches hard and deep into your soul, leaving a branded impression, at least it does in mine…
Still.
(Slimedog)
