I have a question for those of you who, as teenagers, may have been called brats from time to time: Did it ever come across as the insult it was meant to be? Did you ever just think to yourself, "Yeah, so?" What about when people called you "stuck-up," or, when you got older, "bitchy"? "Bitch" means nothing to me now, though people still attempt to deliver it with sting--but I want to make clear that I mean no disrespect when I describe a band as sounding "stuck-up." Let me get all old on you for a second, just to qualify that remark: I attended high school with Go-Go's guitarist Charlotte Caffey's younger siblings (there were something like 20 kids in that family, and their sweet mom was tiny) the year that Beauty and the Beat came out and the Pretenders' "Precious" was requisitely rewound and replayed (cassettes, remember) before one got on with the rest of the band's eponymous debut. Though the Go-Go's and Chrissie Hynde sounded stuck-up, they sounded nothing alike. Which is why I cringed along with the members of the Catch last Friday night when some guy in the audience hollered out "Belinda Carlisle!" Yes, I noted the similarities between drummer Alissa Newton's playing style and that of Gina Schock; Newton also calls to mind Patty Schemel. I know keyboard player Amy Rockwell to be a sweet yet sassy woman who once complimented me on my cigarette lighter, then kiped it when I got up to use the restroom. Cheers! (Last spring we ran into each other at a club--showing off identical shoes, bought the day they first appeared on Nordstrom's main floor. We had to call a draw on exactly who was the first to make her purchase, because both of us swore we bought the inaugural pair. My kinda gal.) Despite the Catch's twinkling pop songs, singer Carly Nicklaus (who, some remark, sounds like the teenaged Björk) and the band's attitude are definitely stuck-up--and I mean that as a huge compliment, because in my opinion there isn't enough of that going around these days: bravura, pride in one's position and image, impertinence that doesn't express ill will toward the audience. Later on that night in the ladies' room at Graceland, the fact that Nicklaus and the group's bassist ignored me when I asked a non-music-related question made me giggle to myself as I looked down and took note of some pretty swank slingbacks on the singer (slingbacks being the sassiest and most alluring style of women's shoes, a style of which I own several pair). I know I should have seen this band many months ago, and the Catch has been playing out a lot recently. If you're running late like me, see them ASAP, because I said so.
I heard that on the same night the Catch played at Graceland, down the road at the Lobo Saloon people were acting like they'd been gassed with nitrous. Grown men jumped around like apes and women ran around with their figurative skirts over their heads as New Luck Toy and Watery Graves played sinfully short sets (thanks to an opening band who hogged the stage for nearly an hour and a half). If I could have been in two places at once I would've loved to be swinging by my arms with the rest of them, skirt flapping in the breeze.
