Whether or not punk is dead, The Black Lips rose up from the suburbs of Atlanta in 2000 to clearly say punk is alive and thrashing.
“What do you do when you’re 16 and in deep shit?” said the band in their bio on Vice Records’ Web site. “You’re looking out at the world from the strip-mall and the detention hall, from the basement and the cul-de-sac, and it just looks like there is a wall around you.
Everybody tells you and your friends that you’re going nowhere, that your lives are already ruined.”
Their answer?
“You hang around and smash stuff and get high and try to be a badass — that’s what you do.”
Since their debut, the band has released five albums, which have steadily amassed morepopularity over time. “Bad Kids,” a track from their 2007 album Good Bad Not Evil, was even featured in “(500) Days Of Summer.” But their latest release, 200 Million Thousand, met less enthusiasm. While The Onion’s A.V. Club gave it an A-, Rolling Stone gave it a mediocre 3-out-of-5 stars.
Overall, their sound is an enthralling combination of Bob Dylan’s vocals with The Sex Pistol’s style. While most alternative rock bands in early 2000 claimed to be punk, this band was truly anti-establishment. Their stripped-down, no-frills arrangement of guitar, bass, drums and vocals perfectly recreates the classic old-school punk of short songs, feral vocals and uncomplicated rhythms. Most of their music videos even use Super 8 cameras to contrast their contemporaries.
The band’s real infamy, though, comes from their wild stage performances featuring urination, vomiting and nudity, among other things. Those deterred by this should note the vomiting is allegedly the result of guitarist Cole Alexander’s medical condition.
The Black Lips also made headlines earlier this year after a performance in Chennai, India when two male band members kissed on stage while another stripped and played the guitar with his penis. The band fled from Tamil authorities who charged them with indecency and consequently canceled the rest of their Indian tour.
“Apparently, the jail in Chennai is no joke,” they later said in an interview with U.K. newspaper The Guardian. “Word on the street said that it was teeming with tuberculosis, violence and live maggots. So instead of risking going there, we fled the scene.”
Nevertheless, the band tries to remain anti-heroes to their fans.
“Through the eyes of one whom, like them, was a go-nowhere from the get-go,” the band continues on their bio. “The Black Lips represent the faith that it takes to reject that world of sterile, futile, servile, silliness and forge your own world based on bravery and bad-ass-ness.”
What: The Black Lips
When: Friday, 8 p.m.
Where: The Mohawk, 912 Red River St.
Tickets: $10
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