MODEY LEMON 0wnZ you

Park Slope Brooklyn just got its first live music venue for rock n roll, called South Paw. It's a good one - they share a booker with Maxwell's. And it's two blocks from my house! Anyhow last night I went there for the first time to hang out with my friend Mike, who'd gone to see a band called the Witnesses that his band's going to share a bill with in a week or two. The venue is kind of typical lounge/low upholstered chairs/stage thingie, moodily lit. Our waitress was stylish - black button-up shirt and a necktie and a shock of black hair falling in her face. Everyone was halfway between indie and professional. The Witnesses were okay, a kind of MC5/Rolling Stones combo, groove-oriented guitar rock w/many classic fillips and familiar breaks for solos etc. They finished and our group was about to head out but we figured we'd give whatever band was up next a shot. We forgot about it, everyone did, the whole joint sort of talking and planning what to do next with their evenings, and the rickety amateurish curtain on stage gets pulled jerkily back just as these two people on stage begin the first song of what was to be an utter abolition of all plans, all conversation, all sense. All talk stopped. Beers were paused mid-sip. Punchlines remained unuttered. They started at level 10 and they stayed there for about the same number of songs. As the curtain tugged sporadically shut all in the room shouted it down, and it reversed course, opening again for one more song. We all felt very bad for whoever was about to follow them. The Black Sabbath that the sound guy played during the intervals suddenly sounded limp and vacuous. Any rumble between these guys and take-your-pick of the retro-rocker garage outfits dominating the headlines could only end one way. They were certainly a throwback, to something, but you simply had no time or inclination to draw schematics in your head of "influences" and whatnot. A drummer, who was incredibly fast and tight for someone who gave every impression of "Animal" off the Muppet Show, fast fast wrists that looked honed on swing jazz at some point in his formative years; a guitar player and singer who would have 0wNed us whatever he looked like, just happened to be the hunkiest most beautiful androgyne in the room. And that was the whole band. They'd brought their own PA.

I borrowed Mike's cellphone and immediately called my roommate 2 blocks away. 'Get here immediately." When Modey Lemon were done the room was flustered, like they'd just seen a really good play, or like they'd just finished at the log flume. Everyone kind of giddy and weirded out, not wanting to leave for awhile, just to preserve this feeling.