Murder City Devils
8:40pm, Stage 2
“I don’t know what city I’m in
But there’s nowhere I’d rather be.”
– “Ready for More,” Empty Bottles Broken Hearts
They tell us it’s time to grow up, but just for a fleeting moment, let’s get down from the balcony and shake that ass. Let’s jump and scream and buy one killer T-shirt. Six years after the Seattle garage punk creepers disbanded, the Murder City Devils resurrect for Fun Fun Fun.
“I’m really proud of what we did,” says red-bearded screamer Spencer Moody. “There are a lot of really cool kids that liked that band a lot, so I feel good about playing for the people that maybe didn’t get to see us the first time.”
When the Devils split in 2001, Moody opened a junk store, the Anne Bonny, and formed the anti-MCD, Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death. Guitarist Nate Manny and keyboardist Leslie Hardy jumped to the business world, and guitarist and former Modest Mouse member Dann Gallucci, drummer Coady Willis, and bassist and Pretty Girls Make Graves founder Derek Fudesco continue to forge the frontiers of music in A Gun Called Tension, the Melvins and Big Business, and the Cave Singers (who also play the fest on Sunday), respectively. The road from unhinged rock & roll to maturity sneaks up like black ice.
“Generally speaking, people who have musicians that they like don’t want those people to change,” Moody explains. “They’d rather those people stagnate or die of drug overdoses or suicides or something, so they can just keep them in this one spot forever.
“I’m completely okay with my Spencer Moodiness.”
Sub Pop put out only three LPs in the band’s short-lived career, but songs like “Boom Swagger Boom,” with Hardy’s eerie organ; teasing strut “Dancin’ Shoes”; and the modern classic “Idle Hands” typify the late-Nineties progenitors. It’s all sass and attitude propelled by a drunken, night-sweats live show. So, when that beat starts bouncing off the hi-hat, just before the chug comes in and Moody starts yelling, “This sounds like a riot looks,” take a second to soak it up. This feeling of invincible euphoria and beautiful imperfection doesn’t exist anymore.
“I’m not worried,” Moody laughs. “I’ve always wanted to be able to go up and just perform the songs properly and sing the right words and stuff, and every time we play, it’s an opportunity to do that. It’s just never happened.
“I don’t have much in the way of expectations. We’ll just do what we can do.”
This article appears in November 2 • 2007.