Boss Hog

Christina, in full CBGB's regalia: leather pants, boots, black feathers and that killer stare that made Jon Spencer lose his head at that famous concert by the Jesus & Mary Chain, nearly twenty years ago now. Boss Hog show up a few pounds heavier, but with the same music as ever: garage-rock as abrasive as sandpaper, broken up and enriched with deep rock-blues inserts à-la Jon Spencer (naturally), a guy who seems to have been born with a Stratocaster in his hand.

Despite a somewhat patchy discography (Boss Hog have always remained a side project for Spencer), they've got plenty of ammunition, and it's heavy stuff: "Ski Bunny", "Winn Coma", "Gerard" are shards of madness and noise, with Christina screaming those totally punk choruses into the mic, then pacing back and forth across the stage like a caged panther, backing herself up with that low, sexy voice of hers. The rule is zero pauses, and even if "Get It While You Wait" and "Whiteout" sound a bit softer, Boss Hog are still assaulting our eardrums.

It's wonderfully reactionary music, American, primitive, out of fashion. Few effects on the instruments and a drummer who's the spitting image of a former colleague of mine who works at Roche (though I suspect this one works at Roche too, as a guinea pig). We're a grown-up crowd, we make mistakes like professionals, they feel like our own Creedence, and while all the kids are off watching Andrew Bird play the violin (thank god), we get to enjoy a real old school garage show, musicians pounding away, and the more they pound the more they enjoy it, and the more they enjoy it the more they move, and the more they move the more they sweat, and the more they sweat the more they pound, and so on and so forth. 

Every now and then Christina winks at the others, then looks down at us smiling, as if to say: "Jump into the well", and while I feel the urge to do it, I realize I don't want to be like PJ Harvey (too ugly), I don't want to be like Fiona Apple (too much of a loser), I don't want to be like Joanna Newsom (too snobby), I don't want to be like Patti Smith (too old), I don't want to be like the singer of Yeah Yeah Yeahs (too fashion), I don't want to be like all the pale indie-folk-rock female figures of the last 10 years. I want to be like Christina Martinez: raven hair tangled with sweat, a touch of makeup, clothes that seem about to melt off at any moment, arm tangled in the mic cable, forty years old and not feeling it, screaming: "One. Two. Fuck. You!".

The chilly rock'n'roll of Micragirls, a modest but gutsy opening act, simply vanishes in front of these American monsters.