One look at the cover art of Gravy Train!!!!’s full-length debut Hello Doctor and you know that this is a “band” with a schtick. What could that schtick be? Well let’s look at some of their song titles: “Titties Bounce”, “Kottonmouth BJ”, “You Made Me Gay”, and “Pussy Thrusts”. The schtick is sex and lots of it — oral sex, gay sex, straight sex, it doesn’t matter.
The only problem is that the music is catchy as hell and I had “Hella Nervous” stuck in my head for weeks leading up to Gravy Train!!!!’s performance at Chop Suey in Seattle. There’s no way in hell I would’ve paid $8 to see only Gravy Train!!!!, but also on the bill were Paper Lions and I Am The World Trade Center — two Kindercore (well, when it existed) bands that I want to show support for whenever possible, especially after the Kindercore showcase at Colgate that started with only four of us there.
Driving to the venue, Yaeka and I were stuck at a stoplight and this group of kids crossing the street were wearing the most ridiculous 80s shit possible. I made sure to point the kids out and then we continued on our way. Well it turns out that these kids were going to the show…and everyone else there was dressed like them. Let me tell you, the 80s are apparently in in a very extreme way. Legwarmers? Give me a fucking break!
The show started early, 5:45 PM to be exact, so I wasn’t surprised there were only about 10-15 people as the Paper Lions took the stage to get their rock on. If we could make Cecelie’s look sort of more full with 4 people standing in a wall right in front of the band, couldn’t be that hard with 10-15 people right? Wrong, so in addition to having bad fashion, these kids also have bad manners and only one of them was willing to stand up in front with me and Yaeka. Boo kids! Boo! By the end of the set that girl had decided to go back with her friends so it was just the two oldest, most regularly dressed folks standing.
Up next was I am the World Trade Center. I thought that this cute pair would have better potential at getting the crowd up in front. They are catchy and dancy and I spotted the couple from the Mates of State show in the audience with that looked the same and liked to dance. Surely they would be dancing to some IATWTC action! Wrong! Totally fucking wrong! But no fear, out of leftfield comes a mid-late twenties looking woman, also dressed normal, but with huge sunglasses and dancing like she doing jazzercise! Whoa, you better watch out or you’ll get slugged in the head! I think the standing crowd peaked out at about 8 or so for IATWTC, dissappointing, but the duo was still into it, dancing cutely.
Anna Oxygen was up third and I was definitely curious because I’d heard the name around a lot and thought maybe it’d be some band kind of emo or who knows, maybe hardcore? Wrong! A single woman from Olympia in spandex is anna oxygen. A single performance-artsy woman. By this time more people were there, and some of the young ladies in the crowd were apparently big fans, singing along and following along to Miss Oxygen’s dance moves introduced prior to the different song. I took no part in dancing because I don’t know how to shake my rump and have no desire to.
Most intriguing about her performance was actually a secondary dancer. This other young lady (probably college age or so) had asked Anna if there was anything she could do to help during the show to which Anna responded “you can dance.” And dance she did! While she looked like she’d be a candidate to do the “Hippy Tornado” the girl sort of bounced around, maybe monkey-ish would be a good description. Sort of hopping and being tribal.
Okay, so the dancing wasn’t the intriguing part, it is trying to figure out the relationship between the dancer and Anna. I think Yaeka is right in suggesting that she was simply an obsessed fan that had gone to every AO show in existence making a point of saying hello every time because the body language was awkward and such. I denied this being the case due to their conversation before the show and the fact that she gave Anna a kiss (on the lips!) as she departed, but if they were friends she would’ve stuck around to hang out and watch…Gravy Train!!!!
Okay, so remember GT’s schtick. Okay, good. Now I was impressed to see that they actually played the keyboard parts on their songs live, however, there are four group members and just one person playing keyboards and one singing so what do the other two do during songs? Well new member, Lance Johnson, a very gay black man, simply strips down to whitey tighties and dance around rubbing his crotch in audience faces, making out with young men (definitly under 18 “that’s so statch lance!”), and bending over a lot.
There was a lot of talk about how the singer just got laid, etc. Yaeka and I hung out in back to avoid any crotch rubbing and took off immediately following the set as we were tired, I mean we had just gone to a show and it was like 9 PM we were tired! I’ll post some pictures of the show later so you can see what I’m talking about.