|
God shave the Queen >> Toilet Boys flush the fashion by JOHNSON CUMMINS
What the...?! I don't mean to be paranoid here, but aren't you supposed to use code or something when you're talking about high-powered explosives on a telephone? After I tell this Timothy McVey of rock that I'm not "holding," I do manage to "turn him on" to "the man" and mention that if he has "the bread" than "the man" has "the stuff." After some silence on the other line, Rocket becomes the Cheech to my Chong and asks, "Uhhhhm....we are talking about gunpowder, right?" Despite suddenly becoming overly sensitive to hearing double clicks on my phone line, I find it rather fitting that we are talking about high-powered explosives--because these boys are comin' on like musical terrorists hurtling Molotov cocktails at everything boring and mundane. Given the resurgence going on in rock 'n' roll, the Toilet Boys have found themselves on every A-list of bands to look out for. They are out to squash the garden-variety sensitive warblings that lie in indie rock's wake. Cat Power, Lou Barlow and Tortoise best be ducking, because the Toilet Boys have their number. Headed by transvestite lead singer Miss Guy, this collection of street trash plan to bring an arena-style stage show into Jailhouse Rock this Saturday. It'll be the same enormo-dome antics that got them into trouble when they almost burned down New York's Under Acme club (their flashpots went off and set alight the ceiling). "We put on a show and we're good at it," says Rocket. "We have lasers, flashpots, confetti machines, smoke machines and a bubble machine. But it's not like we totally rely on them--we use them more like exclamation points when we musically can't take the level of intensity any higher. I just saw the Kiss show in L.A. on Halloween and it was fucking incredible. Every single second was pure excitement and that's what the Toilet Boys want to be. We want to carry the torch handed down by Kiss and mix it in with Joan Jett." Speed thrills Pretty lofty ideas for a tiny club band, huh? Well, not necessarily, as Rocket and Co. are not convinced they'll be a tiny club band for much longer. With Marilyn Manson putting glam and tube tops back into suburban strip malls and the hoopla over Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine, I'd say the smart money may be on the Toilet Boys to have their day in the sun. They're already at work on a movie of their own, a cinematic fable based on a fictitious band that survives by selling speed. The movie, of course, stars our men of the hour, but the star-studded cast reads like a guest list for a Dictators show: Blondie's Deborah Harry, Willem Dafoe, Joan Jett, Exene Cervenka, the Lunachicks, RuPaul, Boy George, L7 and Joey Ramone. For the sake of law enforcement officials who might be listening in on this story of a "fictitious" band who sell drugs to celebrities, I get Rocket to talk about the legitimate jobs that the band holds down so they can afford to go out and buy stuff like bubble machines. Miss Guy is a DJ at New York's Squeezebox night, where the rest of the boys sometimes appear as go-go dancers. Meanwhile, Rocket has just come back from a Metallica video shoot where the band and their friends have appeared as extras. "It was kind of cool, I guess, because we got $150 each. Although we had to sit out in the cold all day. The funny thing, though, is that we were told that we were not allowed to talk to Metallica unless they talked to us first. As if I'd want to talk to those fucking guys. I like their music and everything, but are they ever fucking dorks." With the Bomboras and UVBC at Jailhouse on Saturday, November 28, 9pm, $5 in advance, $8 at the door
|
"Do you know anywhere in Montreal I can get some gunpowder," asks Toilet Boys guitarist Rik Rocket.