Small Shelly Fauna

Guitar Wolf!, originally uploaded by Pambdelurion.

AHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

That was the sound at 11:30 Sunday night, as the zombie-slaying gods of rock known as Guitar Wolf took the stage here in Chicago. For those poor souls among you who are not hip to the wolfen groove, Guitar Wolf is the premier garage punk-rockabilly group from the badlands of Tokyo. They starred in the infinitely excellent film Wild Zero and represent the single-handed saviors of rock'n'roll in the modern age. They consist of the eponymous Guitar Wolf (Seiji, see the picture I took above), Bass Wolf, and Drum Wolf, each of whom is 700% cooler than you could ever hope to be (I see you using your mom's comb, man.) As you might be able to discern from my flagrant bandying-about of superlatives in the previous few sentences, I'm a big fan. It would be safe to say that I was "especially psyched out my mind" about going to see them, especially considering how rarely they tour the U.S. (My level of psych-outedness was minimal, however, compared to some folks I know who drove seven hours in from Iowa just to catch this show. Let me add that they needed to be back for work the next morning. Now that's commitment.) Unfortunately, there was a trio of rather dire opening acts that had to be endured before the sweet, wolfy goodness could be had, but endure it I did, because I knew it would all be worth it. And worth it it was. I watched rapt, much akin to Nelson Muntz watching Andy Williams. "I didn't think they were going to play Jet Generation, but then BAM! Second encore!" Actually, they played Jet Generation in the first encore. There were three encores total, the first of which was a given, the second of which required extensive howling and screams of LOCK'N'LOLL! on the part of the crowd, and the third of which occurred long after most of the crowd had left, and Guitar Wolf just sort of strutted out solo and thrashed this insane, rambling ballad occasionally punctuated by screams of "I LOVE YOU!" Right back atcha, big guy.) Their stage presence did not disappoint, even though it lacked their trademark flaming microphones (no doubt this sort of thing has been cracked down on since the Great White debacle). Was hair combed? You bet your sweet bippy it was. And the antics, oh, the antics: from leaping into the throng, guitar in hand and playing a solo on people's shoulders to dragging some dude on stage and giving him Guitar Wolf's guitar and a hands-on lesson on how to be a "bad-assu lock'n'loll superstar", it was all pure gold. Blood exploded, blood boiled, and I think we all learned a little something about life...and a little something about love. For example, from the monologue preceding the final song in their set, I learned that "we can't change the past, the past is full of tears, but we have no time machine, so we can't change the past, but we can change the past if we change the future, but the past is full of tears, so we can change the past with a time machine of tears, in Japanese tears are "namida", so we will change the past with NAMIDA NO TIME MACHINE! AHOOOOOOOOO!"

LOVE HAS NO BOUNDARIES, NATIONALITIES, OR GENDER! DO IT!!!!!!