by LORRAINE CARPENTER

From the far reaches of Southern space (with a pied à terre in Toronto), White Cowbell Oklahoma has fed the rock-starved masses since 2003 with their chicken-fried, sexified, electrified show and their CD Cencerro Blanco, which guitarist Clem describes as, "A little bit o' ZZ Top, a little bit o' Kiss, a little bit o' Humble Pie, a little bit o' Grand Funk Railroad." The collective is about to record a follow-up, tentatively titled Marauders on the Sea of Fuck, but first, fresh from the band's European tour zeppelin, Clem took time to entertain the Mirror with tour stories and sales pitches.

Mirror: What's new in the White Cowbell camp?

Clem: Well, White Cowbell Oklahoma's got underground laboratories making clones of ourselves to make our lives easier, and also copying our favourite pornographic actresses, and we been travelling the interstellar spaceways looking for new plateaus of rock 'n' roll excellence to inhabit. Where we been? I know we got some aeroplanes and we went some places. Oh God...

M: I read that you were in Europe.

C: Yeah! White Cowbell Oklahoma rocked the European masses, the thousands, the scores. But in Europe, White Cowbell Oklahoma's music actually precedes our reputation, so people was listenin' to our compact disc on their little tonky-box hi-fi systems and they was flattened like a cabana in New Orleans! And they just got a little taste, but when they saw the extravaganza that is the White Cowbell Oklahoma show, when they muscled the whole pie down their gullets, man, they was rockacized, they was rollacized, jumpin' out of their shoes and the rest of their adornments in an intoxicated dance of bliss. Perhaps they was thinkin' we were just gonna stand there nailed to the stage like many modern rock acts do, but we just couldn't do it. The medication alone makes us kinda twitchy, and when you come to a White Cowbell Oklahoma show, we're gonna give it all, blood, sweat, tears and any other bodily fluid we can summon up, so you walk out of there - or get carried out of there - a happy, saved person.

M: Saved?

C: You know, White Cowbell Oklahoma is a church, it's a cult, nationwide, worldwide. There's thousands of members on the peripheral side of things, there's about 572 people who've actually played with this band, and there's nine of us in the inner star chamber. We're the puppet masters, we're the ones pulling the strings. Y'all should come down to the big party we throw every year in California, Bohemian Grove. It's us giving back to all the world leaders, capitalists and industrialists, and we don't discriminate. If you wanna run through the woods naked, dress like a donkey or have some kinda mock human sacrifice - and get to see George Bush wearin' diapers and cryin' like a baby with a couple Thai prostitutes wrapped around him - that's fine. It's a good time.

M: I'll check my schedule. It's been a while since you played Montreal.

C: We've actually been back with every intent of playing a show and then we end up drunk in a brothel at 4 a.m. goin', "Damn! We missed the gig! I thought it was after the crystal meth and prostitutes! Shit..."

With Trole at le Swimming on Friday, Sept. 9, 9 p.m., $8

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