Music That Goes Beyond The Ears
What does a punk band do when those same three chords become overwrought?
It either quits and goes on to something else or it switches its focus to the lyrics or message.
Take the Vampire Lezbos, for example. The 10-year-old former Spokane band, which plays the Big Dipper with the Flies on Sunday, has focused on current affairs, heated political issues and government coverups.
The band still baits with those poppy, energetic chords on its latest album, “Roswell 1947” (named for the New Mexico city and the year of an alleged UFO crash).
But the quartet also bombards the listeners with a motherlode of disturbing information.
Members of the Vampire Lezbos spend most of their time not in their Portland, Maine, practice space, but rather in the library or on the computer fishing for information, for which they have an insatiable thirst.
Some of the popular topics that spring up in the band’s music are UFO coverups and government conspiracies, such as the belief that the government manufactured the AIDS virus as a tool for population control.
All of which makes for an interesting album.
“The more we research everything, it’s real tough to find anything that isn’t a conspiracy,” said the Vampire Lezbos’ lone original member, Dave Whiting, in a recent phone interview.
“We cross-reference pretty much everything we sing about, especially the alien stuff.”
The CD booklet for “Roswell 1947” is laid out like a newspaper. There are various articles with headlines like “Medical Mafia” and “FEMA Invites Disaster.”
Even the band’s songs are printed similar to actual news stories.
So what does Whiting think of the recent surfacing of a film allegedly showing an alien autopsy conducted by the military following the Roswell crash? (The film aired on Fox in September.)
“They (the government) put that out. Or, they allowed it to come out, if it is, in fact, real,” said the singer, who holds a degree in anthropology.
“They are about to divulge the Roswell incident. They’ve been aggressively disseminating stuff over the last few years, moreso than they have in the last decade. They’re preparing the public for something. You can bet they’re not going to give us the whole story, though.”
How do the Vampire Lezbos react to someone calling their ideas far-fetched?
“That’s typical; that’s evolution,” said Whiting. “When anything new comes out, whether it was a thousand years ago or just recent, it’s first ridiculed. It’s then violently opposed. And then it’s accepted finally as being self-evident.
“We’re still going through the ridicule phase. I couldn’t care less if I’m ridiculed. I know what I’ve researched.”
Thought-provoking noise at 9:30 p.m. The cover’s $3.
Elsewhere in the night
Singer/songwriter Dave Mallet, whose songs have been recorded over the years by dozens of artists including Emmylou Harris, Pete Seeger, John Denver, Kathy Mattea and Peter, Paul and Mary, performs Sunday at the Combine in Pullman.
His latest album “…In The Falling Dark,” an edgy folk effort, will likely make him a star without the help of other artists.
Portland favorite Sweaty Nipples plays Outback Jack’s on Saturday. Skin Picnic opens. Music starts at 9:30 p.m. Get there early; Sweaty Nipples has a history of selling out shows in Spokane.
Seattle acoustic duo Bananafish, which began its career entertaining shoppers at Pike Street Market, will appear at the Fall Festival at Spokane Community College on Thursday and at Morris Street Cafe on the Eastern Washington University campus in Cheney on Oct. 27.