September 6, 1996

Wild life of Jesus Lizard

By MIKE ROSS Edmonton Sun
If you're looking for a little excitement - perhaps a wee chaser after Def Leppard's concert tomorrow night - check out the bill at the Rev on Sunday.

Opening the show is Six Finger Satellite, a band so strange, so crazed and so jaded toward what it constitutes "normal" music that it defies belief. If the Cars were run through an electric meat grinder and filtered through all the old synthesizers Rick Wakeman abandoned after he left Yes, it might sound something like Six Finger Satellite. Then again, it might not. And closing the show is a band considered so dangerous that it's actually been banned in Seattle: The Jesus Lizard.

TRUE TALES OF THE ROAD, PART 2: "We played with Ministry a couple of months ago," recalls bassist David Wm. Sims. "And (singer David Yow) jumps over the barricade into the crowd, as he is wont to do. And I guess because he had jumped over the heads of the security guards, the fire marshal came back and said that we couldn't play there any more, which he apparently can do, because whenever you book a show in Seattle, you have to apply for an event permit, which the fire marshal issues. "The fire marshal said he considers David Yow as `dangerous as a man walking into a bar with a loaded gun.' "

Sims says the lawyers are trying to work it out and, aside from one girl breaking her arm diving from the stage a few years ago, no one has been seriously injured at a Jesus Lizard show. Yow, who, when in the mood has also been known to take off all his clothes, is described by Sims as "an exhibitionist kind of guy, very extroverted, but he's a very well-centred young man." So not to worry. After eight years and eight releases, Sims says the Jesus Lizard has finally made "the record we wanted to make" with Shot - an aggressive, eclectic and disturbing effort free of hit singles. Of course, the band is no longer "underground" (as much as any band whose name appears in a daily newspaper could be underground) since it was signed to Capitol Records this year.

Sims sounds tired of explaining it again. "I live in the same apartment," he sighs. "I drive the same car. I've never thought of myself as an underground guy. It's not an underground apartment. It's not an underground car." Sounds like a good song lyric.

JESUS LIZARD Jenn: What do you think of chatting on the Internet, interacting with fans? JesusLizard: This is a little strange, but I like it. We have done this once before, this summer, but it was a failure. No one showed up and everything they said was stupid. It was like being at your first drunk party. -- SonicNet, 13 September 1996