Last Thursday, Significant Other burned down the Record Archive’s Backroom barn with its funkified drive. People were on their feet, people were on each other’s feet, people were on the tables, guzzling beer and wine and jumping for Joy, but she wouldn’t come down off the chandelier.
There were more hijinks and lo-jinks Friday night, thanks to The Isotopes at Three Heads Brewing. They rocked out the first set all alone before playing a wild karaoke set, in which a gaggle of hell-raisin’ hopefuls and wannabe warblers took to the stage, a la carte, and proceeded to wail. The showstopper was clearly Geoff Dale, one of the Three Heads, paying tribute to The Go-Go’s. It was so boss that I stayed for the whole goddamn show.
Like I was telling Iron Smoke Whiskey’s Tommy Brunett, “pour it and they will come.” And they did by the hundreds to witness 28 bands on four stages for the Fairport Steel Rail Revival. The ratio of cover bands to original bands was a bit askew in favor of the cover outfits. But God bless ‘em, they love their cover bands here in Rochester, and they piled up by the stages — in a flash of flesh and faded tattoos yet to be kissed by the hot Juneuary sun — to dig them.
Later that night, me and the Emmy Award winner I call the Tin Man slipped over to Montage Music Hall to see Nita Strauss
chugga-chugga squeal and head-bang ferociously to the point of giving her golden tresses split ends. Since she was Alice Cooper’s guitar player, I thought we might catch a couple of Coop nuggets. Strauss graced us with “Eighteen,” and that was it. She stayed original and instrumental for the most of her hour-long set. The volume was cranked to the max, so much so that some of Strauss’ fleet-fingered guitar work got steam-rolled into incoherence. I wore earplugs and my ears were still ringing when I left. They’re ringing now. Somebody get the phone.
Opening the show was Kore Rozzik, a creepy, theatrical, and heavy outfit from New York City. Band leader, Kore Rozzik, possessed a dash of the Coop bubbling below the surface and even some Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Cleary borne of dark metal, the music was pleasantly melodic. And though the mix wasn’t as ear-splitting he still managed to inflict pain as he blessed us all in holy water. It burned, It burned.