"It's Not a Bald Spot--It's a Solar Panel for a Sex Machine!"
It takes a brave woman to name herself Ida No. Glass Candy's frontwoman has a narcotic, warbling vibrato that you'd imagine being emitted from from some concert hall where David Bowie's conducting a choir of one thousand freshly-hatched Debbie Harry clones, all bleached up and ready to wail. This is a woman who could crack coke mirrors with her Shamu vocal chords--she knows exactly what she's doing. Yet if someone wanted to scream her name, mid-show, it would sound like I Dunno. Which all sounds a little too Top Secret to me.
I know this because I considered doing so when I saw Glass Candy perform at the Church last weekend--a show that was a little more tame than I'd expected. The Chicago Reader had promised nudity, the Portland Mercury had promised vampires, the OC Weekly had promised Night Flight flashbacks. Instead, two of the skinniest men I've ever seen played an explosive post-punk bassline and jagged, basement-band-practice guitar lines, a really nice drummer (who chatted with people before the show) seemed to audition for the Meg White School of Rhythm, and Ms. No swayed out of sync with the music. It was the kind of performance that makes you think that if they're not quite all there now, in a year or so, this band is going to be really big. But you wonder--is that because they're a fantastic glam rock take on post-punk, or because their singer is known to cover herself in electrical tape and remove it all before the curtain falls? Just once, I'd like so see some guy who hasn't had a haircut in years and wears a (non-ironic) Kmart sweatshirt every day get up there on stage and rock everyone's world.
And then I remembered: Ice-Rod, who opened for Glass Candy, was standing there next to me in a "It's not a bald spot, it's a solar panel for a sex machine" t-shirt, and dancing his ass off. The guy is like a panic rock Har Mar Superstar. My friend Matt tells me that he's known for making routine visits to karaoke bars and accosting anyone who grabs the mic. My other friend Peter tells me he thinks he was a judge when Icerod performed at a local gong show--and Peter quickly grabbed the mallet. I say that the next time I catch someone belting out the words to some Neil Diamond song at Stardust Lanes, I'm hoping Icerod will be there with his fists up. "Love on the Rocks," anyone?
5:29:24 PM 
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