By Wyndham Lewis

First, a disclaimer: the two most fun, unpredictable, dynamic, chaotic and enjoyable sets I witnessed in 2009 were courtesy of the Black Lips. So the bar was set high for Thursday night's show Downstairs at the Middle East. For the uninitiated, the Black Lips are a nuggets style garage band attitudinally reminiscent of the young, mid-eighties Beastie Boys, always ginning up a riot, but withholding the option of jumping in or running away. Punks, not in the allegiance to a particular political stance or musical dogma, but united in their shared faith in minor vandalism and snot-nosed brattiness. Basically, four guys who've just lit the bag of dog shit on fire, rung the door bell and are crouched in the bushes exploding with anticipation.


Although they occupy completely different genres, even musically they have something of the same all-in, gang mentality, executing their musical and vocal parts together, three and four deep, both because it sounds optimally trashy, and it insures that someone is there to pick up the slack should any of them get too fucked up, distracted or bored during a given song. Increasingly, lead vocal chores tend to be spread democratically and when a song ends, any of the four is likely to count off the next. On this particular evening they pulled nearly evenly the best tunes from their last two records 2007's Good Bad, Not Evil and last year's 200 Thousand Million.


As the band 'progresses', Jared Swilley appears to be emerging as the foreman, exhibiting just enough adult supervision to ensure forward progress. Armed, as always, with his violin bass, Swilley manned center stage, backed by drummer Joe Bradley and flanked by double-grilled guitarists Ian St. Pe, and Cole Alexander. All Black Lips members give full effort, but Alexander, in particular, is a dervish on stage who appears to be desperately searching for the costume that best suits his mustache, with tonight's salty seaman having pulled rank on last summer's favored bandelaro get up.


Black Lips shows have historically provided a showcase for bodily fluids: barf, piss, sweat, spit (expectorated and swapped). But for a brief make-out session between guitarists Ian St. Pe and Cole Alexander, which felt obligatory, this show was played pretty straight. Antics aside, this show was hurt significantly by aggressively bad sound. The Middle East, with its subterranean room and low ceilings, is notoriously challenging and it inevitably takes a few songs to right even the most perfection driven bands. Though not privy to any such discussion, I couldn't help thinking that there was some disagreement over sound that resulted in the band simply cranking up the volume in revolt.


There is a popular viewing area elevated and situated to the left of the stage between the bar and band. Ordinarily, this is where you'll find couples and others who, stopped competing for position and graduated from the pit. This is not to say that it is a senior center or a place for fair weather fans. There is a large, powerful wall of amps that divides this section from the ME's backstage area. This Black Lips show was the first I can remember when volume prohibited anybody from standing in this area. Ordinarily, this might be a strength, but sadly, it just sounded unintentionally crappy.


The live stand-outs are predictably the albums best songs. The Troggs/Thirteenth Floor Elevators slop of I Saw a Ghost, I'll Be With You or Drugs along with the raucous cranked doo-wop of Bad Kids and the clamorous classic Oh Katrina with its extended intro all come across more spirited in the live setting. Familiarity with the tunes was more important than usual given the sound quality, and new material was not easily judged as a result.


The bottom line is, The Black Lips have sounded better and been more entertaining than they were at the Middle East, but they remain one of the few can't miss shows on the calendar. Even plagued, the Black Lips are a better show than most.


One can't help but think, like the Beasties successfully did, the Black Lips will, for better or worse, at some point evolve. It will be interesting to see if what has been cute, for several years, in the kitten remains so in the cat.