The Beautiful Bodies
Date: May 10, 2008
Venue: The Nowhere Bar at the Uptown Theater
Better Than: An underage hottie flirting for a Heineken.
Download: MP3 "Touch Me (But Only If You Know How), feat. Venus Starr and David Wayne Reed" from the Beautiful Bodies brand-new debut, Touch Me.
By JASON HARPER
One of the more persistent personalities on the scene, Alicia Solombrino ("Alicia Solo" if you're nasty) led her Beautiful Bodies through a short bash of an album release this past Saturday night at the Uptown Theater's smoking room, called the Nowhere Bar. Click on the photo below for a slideshow by Michael Forester. Review after the jump.
The Nowhere Bar, a place hitherto frequented exclusively by cigarette smokers during large concerts at the Uptown Theater, was Cinderella-ed up to host a rare concert.
I'd only seen one other band in the Uptown: Lights & Siren, following an Interpol concert in the main auditorium. Both bands (BBs and L&S) are fronted by Uptown employees (Solo and Anna Cole, respectively), so I guess the thinking on the bands' parts was ... why not? I could give two reasons why not: 1. Expensive drinks. 2. Poor sight lines. It is called the Nowhere Bar for a reason. But neither of those perfunctory gripes nor the shitty weather (50 mph winds, rain) stopped the scenesters from piling in for this early evening show.
Drinks flowed from the crowded bar, and un-self-conscious types climbed up on tables and chairs to see over the thick band of Alicia fans (Solophiles, we'll call 'em) gathered at the front of the foot-high stage, perilously close to both Alicia's flailing microphone stand and sometimes-snarling, sometimes-pouty mouth.
Almost as big news in the BB camp as the new album being finished is the fairly recent (as of February) addition of lead guitarist Brodie Rush, karaoke jockey and tenacious leader/only original member of Be/Non all these years. Replacing original, noisier, more-dissonance-loving guitarist Michael Corte, Rush brings a more refined approach, swinging between rhythm and lead on his Les Paul -- shattering power chords and squealing, high-on-the-neck solos -- like a true student of Page. Coupled with the crackingly distorted, hammering Faint-like bass of Luis Arana (who, for this particular show, had been replaced by his brother, Jorge, due to a wrist injury) and four-on-the-floor drums of Brian K. Jewell (also a newish member), the BBs are getting a lot leaner and tighter these days.
Alicia is still the main attraction, of course, working an act that's about 40 percent singing, 60 percent stage antics -- though some would argue there's an even greater percentage of the latter. She squealed, bellowed, purred and shook through "Heart Attack," "Touch Me," "Osculator" and (I'm guessing), six of the other nine songs off Touch, plus a new one. The set was short, low-slung and naughty like shoplifted lipstick. Love 'em or hate 'em, the confidence, coolness and swagger of Alicia and her crew is definitely comendable. They know how to bring it.
But then again, that's at home, where the band is totally held up by the scene. The next step for the Beautiful Bodies is to hit the road, tour like rock slaves and see what it's like elsewhere. Are there Solophiles waiting to be discovered in Iowa? California? NEW YARK CITY?? Only one way to find out.
Critics Notebook
Personal Bias: I was just back from vacation and not really in the mood for a see-be-seen/scene-bein'-scene kinda deal.
Random Detail: A screen hanging on the wall of the bar was showing footage from Nascar races.
By the way: Jorge, who plays guitar in Pixel Panda, had only two days to learn all his bro-on-bass' parts. I couldn'ta done that.
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