The other night, Mr. Royale and I went to see Pavement at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. As we were waiting during that lag time between the opening band and Pavement, a disheveled, rheumy, older man wearing a black sock, a white sock, and pathetically patched pants approached us. He stood in front of our group and stared at us. Eventually, he pointed to Mr. Royale’s equally ripped jeans and slowly drew a sewing kit out of his pocket. He offered it to us, telling us that he was the drummer for Pavement. He asked if we believed him, and we replied that we did not. Instead, I was thinking, this is Berkeley and all that, but how did the homeless dude get in to the show? Later, during the encores, Gary Young scampers up on stage, and we recognize our man. Could he keep the beat? Negotiable. Did he drop the sticks regularly? Certainly. But there was no doubting that the anti-sartorial gentleman was indeed playing drums with Malkmus et. al.
In turning the tables on the theme of The Look, what happens when there is a band member who does not “match” and does not reflect the signifiers of the rest of the band? What are some other examples of this? As many Hall members are also musicians, did you choose or throw out members due to their Look? From previous RTH discussions, it appears that nose hair, clothing, and other visual symbols make or break band cohesiveness, so I welcome your comments and observations.
Novoselic doesn’t really match Grohl and Cobain in the looks dept. does he? Probably he kept them from being TOO pretty to accept seriously.
i saw The Stone Roses at te Trocadero on their Second Coming tour. Instead of Alan “Reni” Wren, on droms, they had a black guy who was wearing one of those fuzzy jester’s hats with bells on the ends. He played just fine, but ugh that look!
Ian Stewart, the “Sixth Rolling Stone,” comes to mind. From what I’ve read, Stewart was as much an original member of the Stones as the other guys, but he wasn’t allowed to be in the band because he didn’t look cool. Instead he was their roadie who tickled the ivories from the shadows.
Also, i had a goth punk band that had a gorgeous go go dancer as the singer. her look was perfect. We kicked her out in favor of an overweight puerto rican chick who was the worst dresser EVER.
she could sing though.
we became a ska punk band.
we were great.
When it comes to band mates’ Looks, I have taken a more control-freakish, less aggressive tactic than throwing people out of a band. I insist on a uniform of some sort. This ensures that no one will show up for the gig in shorts and Birkenstocks. It also helps out with the visual mach shau of the band.
In the Donuts, we wear matching suits (usually black suit and tie with a red shirt but on special occasions, we break these out: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4073683&id=51858388165).
In the ukulele orchestra, most of the guys wear either smoking jackets or black suits with fezzes. Why smoking jackets and fezzes? I don’t know except it just has the vibe of people in a unspecified earlier era trying to “class it up” and not necessarily hitting the mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuLjUuk5PFc
I saw Pere Ubu maybe a half dozen times with more or less the “classic” reunion lineup of David Thomas, Tony Maimone, Scott Kraus (with second drummer Chris Cutler for a show or two), Allen Ravenstine (and later Eric Drew Feldman), and Jim Jones. Pere Ubu was never a Look-dependant band, but then I saw them in NYC with a new rhythm section – a young, skinny, shirtless, long-haired drummer and a young woman bassist. The newcomers’ more rockin’ Look threatened to spoil the show, but it turned out to be a surprisingly majestic show thanks, in large part, to another new member, appropriately middle-aged and Look-less cellist Garo Yellin.
To apply the Rhythm Beard concept to this thread, Young’s patched pants sound like they would be a great idea if Malkmus started wearing a top hat with a flapped open lid, or if Spiral Stairs had a guitar shaped and designed like a bindle. Maybe Young’s just pulling a Dr. Fink on them.
Come to think of it, if nobody out there has a guitar designed to look like a bindle, someone should get on that right away, because I think Axl Rose would hire you for the next GNR line-up almost immediately.
You know what? Screw it, I’m starting a Hobo Band and I’ll stab any of you who steals my idea.
HVB and I had an album called Bindlestiff, so those clowns are bums for appropriating the idea – not hoboes. If you look at it from the right angle, doesn’t a Vox Teardrop look like a bindle on a stick? I always think of a kid running away from home when I think of that image, rather than a hobo.
That was some fine rhythmology before, incidentally. I was trying to categorize the geek look in the Cars, with the keyboard dude being so geeky, he almost offsets Ocasek’s natural house of mirrors face. Ben Orr is a pretty boy, and the Easton and the drummer only seem new wavey in that transient sense.
Once again, I’m laughing like an idiot in my office. Thanks, alexmagic.
Let me know when your getting that hobo band together. My wife said I can be in one band per kid that we have. I’ll consider knocking her up again if I have a shot at playing in a hobo band.
So for my personal take on the Look issue, as noted before, a few of us in our band have long advocated uniforms while a few others have taken a stance against it. We have agreed on certain rules, such as a ban on the wearing of shorts on stage. (This rule has very rarely been waived for outdoor summer party shows.) Not being too cool myself, a trait I believe I share with my longtime bandmates, we’ve never rejected anyone for Look violations, but we did have some talks with one of our old guitarists to discourage him from using a silver Strat that we thought was objectionable in terms of Look. Our current other guitarist (other than me, that is) has the good sense to self-police his guitar selections, avoiding “pointy” guitars on stage and asking for clearance for any of his Gibson/Fender guitars that may be a little fancier than what the rest of us use. He’s long had a great sense of what works in our weird little world. Because our members have always been pretty unassuming when it comes to Look, it’s pretty easy to stay within our guidelines.
When I look back at old photos of us, when we were young and everyone’s hair was working at full strength, I thought we had a pretty good collective Look. What I mean is, we complimented each other and gave off a vibe that probably didn’t contradict our music. Nobody was dog ugly either, which never hurts. We were never COOL enough to justify band photos on album covers, though, and I don’t think that’s changed. Now that we’re squarely in our middle ages, I wish we could develop a Look that would better unite us and graciously smooth out the wrinkles, tuck tummies, and cover thinning spots atop our heads.
Whether my bandmates ever follow me or not, I’m also getting real close to going to a tailor to make me some stage shirts with huge collars. I miss the days when it was easy to fing big-ass collared shirts in thrift stores, and now than I’m an adult I’d like to have some new, clean shirts tailored in the late-’60s/early-’70s collar style and fabrics that I grew up loving. My hippie uncle, the one who turned me onto music, had a wine-colored shirt with velvet patterns on it (think cheesy Chinese restaurant wallpaper) with collar tips that practically came down to his nipples. THAT’S the kind of shirt I need to have tailored.
The ukulele folks shouldn’t be wearing fezzes, but smoking caps look a lot like fezzes, and were designed so that your hair wouldn’t end up smelling like smoke, just like the smoking jacket saved you from burning holes in your dinner jacket. I’m guessing they’re thinking of smoking caps and just blew it.
Smoking cap/fez
http://www.lockhatters.co.uk/Smoking_Caps__amp__Fez-c32.aspx
Man, that smoking cap is deluxe!
Mr. Mod, I’ll be combing this Salvation Armys and Goodwills for your shirts…
Thank you, ladymiss! I take size XL (or 17 neck/37 sleeve).
I guess the sitar is technically the most bindle-esque musical instrument, but you’d need a really huge sitar player to make the look work.
mockcarr, you’re probably right that the Vox Teardrop is the most functional bindle-esque instrument. If you could get a bass player with Hendrix-like skills who could play a bass slung upside down off his shoulder, this act would have some real traction.
cdm, just to clarify, I’m not planning on playing in the hobo band myself. I’ll just be managing the act, writing some of the songs and dressing as a deranged railroad cop to storm the stage and chase the band off every night as part of the second encore.
I’ve seen Eric Drew Feldman play live with Beefheart and Snakefinger and on TV with PJ Harvey, and his look always seems out of place.
I don’t mind the Pixies being older, but the guitarist being chrome-domes just seems wrong.
Bindle? (I had to look it up.)
You weren’t alone, BigSteve! I guess we can’t qualify for Gary Young’s All-Star Hobo Band.
I had an idea for a band called “Coach”. They would all dress like various coaches from major sports. There would be the “Pat Riley” guy, the Ditka guy, The hockey coach with the bad tie…First single is “Look alive out There!”
I’m digging Coach, northvancoveman! Can I be the baseball coach who reminds people how stupid it is to make old, fat guys who no longer play the game dress up in baseball uniforms?
We’ll play the songs one at a time.
I’m in, but only if we don’t play “The Hustle”.
Sure Mod, but you have to rock the Don Zimmer, Tommy Lasorda look…
What would you have baseball managers wear, Mod? None of the other major sports coaching looks seems appropriate for a dugout, and I don’t think many Major League managers today could pull off the Connie Mack suit.
I think the ideal compromise would be to have them wear uniforms, but in the throwback style with the collars that Christy Mathewson used to wear that functioned somewhere between a dress shirt and a baseball uniform. Some MLB team needs to try to make that work again, it was a criminally underrated look.
That said, I think that every member of a baseball team’s coaching staff in uniform should be eligible to enter the game once you cross the 14 inning barrier.
I like the Coach band theme idea. Who plays which instrument? I could see the Pat Riley guy as either a frontman or the bass player, while the Ditka guy could be a front man or drummer. Hockey Coach guy is off to the side in any configuration. If you need a keyboard player, I say get a tracksuit wearing guy with an Eastern European moustache to represent gymnastics coaches.
Coach would be a great band for old, fat guys to be in. The Eastern European gymnastics coach would have to be fat and hairy with a big gold chain….
Baseball coaches could wear a seer-sucker suit version of their team’s uniform.
Who’s the last player-coach? Rose did it in the 80s. Baseball has a longer history of that sort of thing, I doubt we could adjust it without it being unrecognizable or even sillier. I suppose we could call them little league managers, where they’re not allowed to wear a uniform, just the cap.
I think it is Pete Rose, no? Before Rose would it have been Jim Fregosi? Or Frank Robinson?
Robert Quine. I saw him once with Lou Reed and once with Lloyd Cole and both times he had a navy blue blazer and I think a white button down shirt. It looked like the band’s accountant was filling in (no offense to my fellow townsfolks who are accountants).
I don’t think Peter Gabriel’s look in Genesis could match ANY band, unless it was that one Massimo was in where they dressed as puppets or something.
The last player-coach I can remember is Tree Rollins in the NBA, who played while also serving as an assistant coach in the mid ’90s. He should have been forced to wear a sports coat and dickey in place of his warm-ups the whole time.
cdm, I disagree: to me almost no Look was cooler than Quine’s cardigan and white button-down shirt! The day I show up onstage in that Look I’ll see if I can’t change your mind.
BTW, I’m pretty sure Quine was trained as a lawyer.
But Quine’s Look definitely stood apart from the rest of the bands that he was in, whether or not is was cool.
RE: “BTW, I’m pretty sure Quine was trained as a lawyer.”
I say (sarcastically): yeah, and we all know how much those guys rock…
True, cdm. In fact, Quine’s Look even stood apart from his own playing style.