In-store: Heavy Trash

Heavy Trash

Sonic Boom Records, Saturday, April 24, 2010.

A Saturday afternoon matinée down in the Sonic Boom basement, with Heavy Trash following up from a gig at the 'Shoe the night before. The band had been on the fringes of my perception for awhile, mostly for the presence of John Spencer (formerly of the John Spencer Blues Explosion, and before that with punk-noize rockers Pussy Galore). JSBX had, admittedly, drifted out of my focus 'round the turn of the millennium, and I'd not really paid close attention to this new partnership with Matt Verta-Ray.

Now touring on their third album Midnight Soul Serenade as a four-piece, for the in-store the band was rocking a semi-unplugged setup, with Verta-Ray stage right spitting out licks, and Spencer stage left with an unplugged, unmic'ed acoustic. Spencer could not be bound by the stage, however, and after a song or so moved his microphone down onto the floor, ranging about quite widely, and, as the set went on, more deeply amongst the crowd.

One could simply dismiss this as being Spencer's take on rockabilly in the way that JSBX was his take on blues. But it was much more complicated than that with his last band and there was certainly more going on here¹ — consider the covers that the band sprinkled around their originals, leading off with Lavern Baker's "Bumble Bee" and later slowing down to tackle some soulful James Brown. It's also more than just a vehicle for Spencer, with Verta-Ray's licks being key to the sound — he also took lead vocals on "Good Man".

And, a bit later on, while Verta-Ray changed a broken string, Spencer tossed it over to stand-up bassist Simon Chardiet², who tackled "The Glory Of Love" (an old R&B hit for The Five Keys, amongst others). Taking a step forward with his bass, he knocked its microphone over, and, soon after, pushed his vocal mic away as well, making it a delicately quiet number with drummer Sam Baker's brushed drums and Spencer's unplugged guitar out in front of the stage. When Chardiet called out for the solo, Spencer was honestly perplexed, asking, "what am I going to do?" but deciding, without missing a bar, to throw in some whistling. A totally off-the-cuff delight in the midst of the rockin'.

The rest of the set had more unplanned moments like that. A kid, maybe about eight or so, was with his mom watching from close up, and Spencer leaned in dramatically to let him take a cellphone picture. And then — mid-song — he chatted with the kid a bit, getting his name, and planning on some call-and response vocals, asked, "do you want to do me a favour"? Shy, the kid blurted out a no to general laughter. Spencer was nonplussed. "A man who knows what he wants! That's all right — that's more than okay". The band segued into what I think was a couple verses from The Bobby Peterson Quartet's obscurity "Mama Get Your Hammer (There's A Fly On Baby's Head)", a song more notable for its title than any chart success.

Moving farther away from the stage, Spencer was pulling his microphone stand along with him. I'd managed to snag a spot in the front row of people watching, and for the last two or three songs, Spencer was several feet behind me. Ending with the shout-along "Yeah Baby", Spencer even managed to get a "yeah" from Dallas Good³. We got more than a dozen songs in an almost forty-minute set — it was definitely one of those occasions where the in-store made me say "damn!" and regret I'd missed their full gig the night before.⁴

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ For all the musical differences, it was still satisfying to note that at the same places that Spencer used to shout "Explosion!" back in the JSBX days, he'd now shout "Heavy Trash!" to punctuate a song.

² Chardiet, known in psychobilly/roots circles for his own band Simon and the Bar Sinisters, also goes way back in the NYC punk scene, including stints with Joey Miserable and The Worms as well as playing guitar alongside Ivan Julian in his post-Voidoids band The Outsets.

³ Co-frontman, natch, of The Sadies, who had all guested on 2007's Going Way Out with Heavy Trash.

⁴ And in that spirit of being reminded of how much I used to dig John Spencer, I decided not to miss out again, and grabbed a ticket for their upcoming reunion show, July 31st at Lee's.