INSECTS OF ROCK: FRANKLIN BRUNO, COBRA VERDE, PRISONSHAKE, GUIDED BY VOICES
Opening act Franklin Bruno was the evening’s odd man out. He was the only solo performer in a night of rock bands and the only Californian on a bill full of Ohioans, but the real difference lay in what he does with his influences. Bruno plays complicated, multisegmented songs, and his wordplay recalls that of dedicated pop craftsmen like Elvis Costello and the Go-Betweens. The medium suited the messenger; Bruno looks like the community-college instructor he is, and he sang about frustrating relationships with multisyllabic angst. No matter how often he stomped on his distortion pedal, his songs went for the head and not the gut. In other words, they did not rock.
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Onstage Guided by Voices’ low-tech recording ambience was replaced by a full-on roar. Pollard’s stage presence betrays the attention he paid to other great rock frontmen: he’s copped Roger Daltrey’s microphone twirl, Joey Ramone’s curt song introductions, Iggy Pop’s athletic kicks and leaps, and Robin Zander’s giddy enthusiasm. He claims their moves with relish, proving the maxim that great composers don’t borrow, they steal. The band matched his energy. Guitarists Tobin Sprout and Mitch Mitchell surefootedly navigated the songs at ear-splitting volume. Bassist Greg Demos frantically charged back and forth behind Pollard, guitar quit neck first, looking like he wanted to joust with it. Mitchell was even more energetic; when he wasn’t staggering back and forth wrestling with his guitar, he turned in frantic circles like a dog chasing its tail and bopped up and down. On “Gold Star for Robot Boy” he bounced so hard that his cigarette dissolved into a shower of cinders.
