All Over Albany

A tribute to tributes

St. Rose professor -- and general man of letters -- Daniel Nester at The Morning News today about tribute bands, after seeing a Judas Priestess show recently at Bogie's:

"We f-----' rocked, didn't we?" Mercedes asks, giving me a light. "It took about four songs tonight, but we won 'em over."

We are standing outside Bogie's rock club in Albany, NY, where among the crowd were a tall dude in a Beavis and Butthead "Breaking the Law" t-shirt; two lipstick-ed grad students in cocktail dresses who sang every word; a Nikki Sixx lookalike taking cover in the back; and the band's drummer's parents, who drove up from Lawrenceville, NJ, in their tan Chevy Suburban.

Mercedes can tell I agree because I am smiling, but I go ahead and tell her Yes, you all did f------- rock.

And:

I could be wrong, but there is probably at least one performance-studies Ph.D. thesis to be written on the implications of a biracial Catholic school girl from Columbia, Maryland who reverse-engineers the power relationship of a male gaze by performing anthems written for pimply boys that were originally sung by a closeted gay man who wore motorcycle leathers onstage.

Also in the mix: the value of derivative work, Harold Bloom, Wilco, and surviving "yet another epoch of twee."

JP photo: Judas Priestess | Nester photo: Joe Putrock