Jimi Michael
Thurs Nov 8
Hurricane Cafe

I was told by a Hurricane staffer that last Thursday night's show was scheduled to begin at 9:30 p.m. One-Night Stand is nothing if not punctual. We arrived dutifully at 9:20, only to be told that opener Jimi Michael had already been playing for 20 minutes. I was immediately bummed out, but photographer Annie Marie Musselman was all over it: Possessed, she ran up to the stage and began shooting. I took her cue and opened my notebook, promising myself that my concentration would be like a laser beam; that somehow, in the 15 minutes I figured remained in the set, I would manage to find Jimi Michael's essence, and that my review would be thoughtful and definitive.

Michael made it easy for me. The first thing I noticed was the loosely strung tank top he wore, upon which I assume Michael himself had written the words "I'm with stupid." Beneath the inscription was an arrow, pointed downward, presumably at Michael's thingy. I liked him already. His hair was frizzy and long, he was armed with an acoustic guitar, and he sang like a real rocker. (A colleague had tried to describe that voice to me a couple days prior: that sort of head-voiced Eddie Vedder mimicry people use when singing along to Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, and even Creed. Many boy-rockers have that voice. It's a good voice: You have to at least be able to sing in order to pull it off. And I liked Michael's version of "the voice," because he wasn't locked into it, the way other singers tend to get. Michael was consistently loose. He often growled, sputtered, and shrieked. There was a happy sort of Iggy Pop energy about him.)

Michael danced a lot, jumping up and down wildly, jerking his head around. His feet were stockinged and mismatched: one black sock, one white. He played Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn," delivering it like a strained Ed Kowalczyk from the band Live. I admired the fact that he was willing to play whatever pleased him--a sort of insane, happy anti-hipster, a human jukebox of his own favorite jams, willing to do whatever it took to make himself (and us) feel good.

And I felt good watching and listening to him. I laughed a lot. Michael laughed a lot as well. As Annie Marie got up in his face with her camera, he giggled wildly, high-pitched and reckless. Her flash made a spectacular sort of impromptu light show against his weathered complexion. Perhaps for Annie alone, Michael busted into an enthusiastic version of Stone Temple Pilots' "Plush." It was a fine coincidence, given that I had just been thinking of Scott Weiland. Michael strained at the high notes, and laughed spritedly at his own vocal limitations. He even added the lyric "I can't sing that high, ha ha ha."

And then, when "Plush" had come to an end, Michael transitioned into David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust." A Bowie/STP medley! I was hooked. He strained again at the high notes. His guitar playing was percussive and excellent. The final lyric ("Ziggy played... guiiitaaaaaaaaarrrrrr...") was delivered with remarkable enthusiasm, and the entire song was done in a tawdry English accent.

I apologized to Michael afterward for missing the start of his show. He informed me that there had been several originals in his set. "I've been writing for 25 years," he said. "[My] songs cover a lot. It depends on my mood. The best is the slow stuff. The squishy things from hell. I've got a lot of pretty songs."

I truly wish I could have seen them.