Concert review: Grinderman at the Riviera

It was that kind of night, with Grinderman playing the squirming, thrashing, out-of-control brat to its more expansive, more carefully articulated big brother band, the Bad Seeds. Cave has been making Bad Seeds records since the early ‘80s, and Grinderman emerged only in the last few years as a leaner, less refined offshoot. But after two albums, the quartet now clearly has its own formidable identity, and it can go toe-to-toe with any rock band for sheer ferociousness.
       
The first five songs were comparable to bare-knuckle fists landing with lethal force. Casey’s bass roamed like a rogue rhino, and Sclavunos slammed out fat, syncopated beats on his tom-toms and kick drum. Cave stabbed at his guitar, and Ellis coasted over his foot pedals making his guitar, mandocaster and fiddle shriek. There was no attempt to articulate notes. Rather this was about laying a foundation of hip-shake shimmy and noise beneath Cave’s vocals. He howled like a wolf on “Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man” and made like a libidinous Loch Ness monster on “Worm Tamer.” The humor flew as thick and nasty as the lusty come-ons.
       
It’s possible to hear Grinderman as a brutal take on mid-life crisis, that point where mortality prompts even the most rational adults to act like desperate, spoiled children. Cave has no pity for these half-century-old creatures, perhaps because he is one himself. Instead, he mocks them, goads them on, and sets their misadventures to coruscating music. 
       
In “Kitchenette,” he was the preacher as backdoor man, testifying to his undying desire with comical intensity. In the next song, he played the aging lothario sucking in his belly and petting “her revolting little Chihuahua,” only to be turned down with ruthless regularity. Even a promise of the “Palaces of Montezuma” wasn’t enough to buy a little love. At which point, Ellis stomped on a foot pedal and made his guitar sound like a trash compactor. So much for the flowers of romance.   
             
greg@gregkot.com

Grinderman set list Monday at the Riviera:

1 Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man
2 Worm Tamer
3 Get it on
4 Heathen Child
5 Evil 
6 When My Baby Comes
7 What I Know
8 Honey Bee (Let's Fly to Mars)
9 Kitchenette
10 No Pussy Blues
11 Bellringer Blues 
Encore:
12 Palaces of Montezuma
13 When My Love Comes Down
14 Man in the Moon
15 Love Bomb 
16 Grinderman