There’s something to be said for the effect that loving your job can have on your performance, and judging from the recent Psychedelic Furs show at the Showbox, Furs frontman Richard Butler clearly loves his “job.” The man with the most gorgeous rasp and honk in popular music history was positively ecstatic to be in the house that night, and his constant smile lit the room brighter than all the stage lights combined. Not for one minute did the stink of a quickie tax tour (Nick Cave) or an unwitting self-parody born of desperation (Dave Wakeling) pervade the set. There were no dated theatrics or gimmicks, embarrassingly young hipsters filling out the band, nor a singer stuffing himself into an era gone by. Butler was gloriously lanky and authentic, and aside from singing slightly behind the music during “Love My Way,” the show was wholly energizing. Clearly, we should all want at least a little of what that guy’s got in spades.
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Now, on to the rumor mill. I smell a tell-all book in the air, and it seems as if one very famous former Seattle resident, who’s been contributing to another soon-to-be published tell-all written by a current resident, ain’t too happy about it. Unhappiness and fear is at a level so high, in fact, that a certain well-oiled legal team is rumored to be standing by should the new author get too ballsy. Write on! I predict the published manuscript will be a bestseller, and not just in the local market.
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Shoppers checking out the culinary gadgets at City Kitchens near Westlake Center perhaps overheard Mrs. Angus Young asking the staff whether they had any of those tiny chef hats that go on the ends of racks of lamb. They did, and the rock wife, whose husband’s band AC/DC played the Tacoma Dome on April 20, ordered a shitload of the things, enough for each kitchen of her five homes.
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Faithful readers will no doubt remember The Stranger‘s wildly popular column “What the Fuck? by Peter Buck,” a response to his R.E.M. bandmate’s weekly column “What’s My Gripe? by Michael Stipe,” wherein the celebrity called bullshit on various cultural phenomena. Last weekend, it was the police who were asking “What the fuck?” of Peter Buck, as he sat in a London jail on Saturday, April 21 following the fit of air rage thrown by the guitarist on a flight from Seattle to Heathrow. According to London media reports, the charges against him include causing criminal damage to a plane, being drunk on an aircraft, and two counts of assaulting members of the cabin crew. R.E.M. is scheduled to play a benefit concert for South Africa in Trafalgar Square next weekend. Traveling in true rock-star fashion, Buck threw his hissy fit in the first-class section of the airplane, no doubt causing much eye-rolling to commence in the coach section, where the unwashed suffered their flight indignities with grace and acceptance. Meanwhile, Michael Stipe was causing a ruckus in the band’s hometown of Athens, Georgia. In true un-rock-star fashion, Stipe was hanging signs on the side of his house, which called the speed bumps installed on his street “idiotic, selfish, and inappropriate,” enraging his neighbors who erected their own signs in retaliation, accusing the singer of ignoring speeders terrorizing the neighborhood. At press time, The Stranger was unable to reach Stipe to find out whether or not he called bullshit on that.