Jose el Retardo

On January 14^th, the incomparable Katie Dooley and I traveled to Terminal 5 on Manhattan’s west side and saw one hell of a sight: The Mars Volta baby, shaking their shit in a profoundly exuberant way. I have included some video I recorded from the event, which shows off the Volta’s tremendous stage presence and overall cool.  (More below…)

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I have been listening to the musical exploits of Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (guitarist, composer) and Cedric Bixler-Zavala (singer, lyricist) since their days with At the Drive In, the punk outfit from Texas that blew the roof off the David Letterman show back in 2001. Letterman never knew what hit him (I have so thoughtfully included this video as well; I am so good to you). I think my admiration for these boys stems from their ability to expand their musical horizons compositionally with the Volta while not losing a drop of the ass-blasted fire that made them such a roof-raising punk outfit back in the day.

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The show at Terminal 5 underlines this notion. No opening act performed. The Mars Volta hit the stage at about a quarter after 8 PM, and never slowed down for the next two and a half hours. The rhythm section, comprising of drummer Thomas Pridgen – playing as though he keeps the beat on fills alone – and bassist Juan Alderete remained locked into a grove that was simply unrelenting. Truly, I’ve never seen guys work this hard (well, except for me and the last time I ate two blocks of cheese with a whole box of Chicken in a Biscuit crackers and washed it all down with a glass of Chipotle Tabasco and a ball of twine; I worked DAMN hard the next day, I can tell you that). The boys out front were twitching and jumping like a box of laboratory rats, and keyboardist Isaiah Ikey Owens looked like he was having more fun than a whore in a honey jar. They just made the rock seem like something that was palpable and electric, something that forced them to move uncontrollably, a spiritual happening infused into music that seems to evolve so seldom in the ‘music scene’ these days. And that’s probably why their fans love them so.

Not to mention the fact that seasoned concert vet Katie Dooley turned to me half-way through the show and proclaimed, “I think this is the loudest show I’ve ever been to.”

The Volta is not for everybody; they are not for the weak at heart; they are not for the musically unadventurous. To enjoy the Mars Volta means checking one’s notions about any previous definition of rock music at the door. Are you into the 3 minute pop song and nothing else will satisfy? Well, the Mars Volta is not your Snickers Bar. To listen to a Volta record is to traverse a punk-prog, subterranean, deliciousness factory intent on gorging its listeners with every musical note possible at any given moment. Then they back the whole operation over your head, flip it, and use it to scoop out your brains into a crispy waffle cone, where it is served back to you with some of the most over-indulgent toppings you could imagine. And then they repeat this for another 12 minutes. And then Cedric starts singing in Spanish. Cue the trumpet.

Lately I’ve been listening to the last offering, Amputechture, frequently. It was hard to put aside the previous album, 2005’s Frances the Mute, an addictive rock opera that reveals more to me every time I listen, but it’s been worth it. The problem with any Mars Volta album is that it takes patience. It takes faith that something good is going to come out of this seemingly perilous sonic landscape. The initial fear, I think, is this: but what will happen to me if I give in to this insanity? Will I go insane? Will I throw my loafers and Arrow shirts into the garbage and stop going to work? Will I let my hair get greasy and long, stop shaving, put on dirty, torn cargo pants with combat boots and go screaming into the lawless night? Will I give up on democracy? Will I give up on CAPITALISM??

No. But its fun for a few minutes to think that you might.

The show at Terminal 5 was great enough to make you forget you were watching a show at Terminal 5, a venue that seems hell-bent on keeping any of the patrons inside from seeing anything at all that’s going on on-stage. I can’t wait for the chance to catch these crazy bastards in the act again at a better club. I can’t wait for another chance to let the Mars Volta show me how rock has still not faded; that it’s only splintered into so many sub-genres that it can be hard to find what you love.

The new Mars Volta album, The Bedlam in Goliath, comes out on January 29th. SPIN Magazine gave it a crap review. It isn’t surprising. Those fucking sissies need to let their hair down and quit their fucking jobs.