To be honest the music isn't as limp-dicked as I originally feared, and they definitely have some cred. After each early song she swills beer from a generic brown bottle, but loses points for spewing it on the crowd, á la Karen O, but as unoriginal as that might've been, it still took balls. I look around periodically at Nealsie and Jen for a reaction, but the band has their undivided attention. I don't give Nealsie enough credit sometimes, asshole he may be, he knows his music history, and with the look in his eyes I can at least tell he's into the spectacle of the thing, the "performance value" he's always hankering about. Jen, she looks shocked but trying not to show it, making it all the more apparent; God only knows what she thinks about me now, adding onto whatever crap her friend told her about my clumsy come-on.
There are four other band members onstage, two guitarists, a bassist and a drummer, but it's safe to say no one's paying much attention to them. How could they, with the beautiful terror shrieking in front of them?
You're all gonna pay!
You're all gonna pay!
You're all gonna pay with your liiiiivvveeesss!
Deborah's screaming like a woman scorned, going hog wild on the chorus when she suddenly picks up an empty bottle and smashes it over her head, horrifying the women in the audience and amazing the men. She twirls around like she's gonna fall, then regroups her stance, and is just as suddenly back on track.
You're all gonna pay!
You're all gonna pay!
You're all gonna pay with your liiiiivvveeesss!
And the bitch means it.
The band doesn't even pause, mock-mimicking Dee Dee and 1-2-3-4 they're off again, and I'm looking hard at her skull, hoping the bottle didn't cut her but it's soon apparent it did, as a trickle of blood arises in the bamboo, running down the uneven forest of her head, using the shoots as stopgaps. And soon it reaches her face and she wipes it away and, in a gesture I'm sure would horn out any modern-day vampire, licks it all showy and gross; she repeats this trick several times. At the song's messy crescendo, she again wipes at her head, this time, more sensibly, with her scarf, deflowering it with her inner crimson, and holds it there. At the end of the song she stomps around, scowling, appearing very annoyed at the insubordination of her skull. There is muttering onstage between the players, seemingly as to the fact they have a lead singer who needs medical attention.
"No, no, we're gonna finish first!" the crowd hears her caustic bravado and a primitive roar shakes the house, literally, the throng squealing with delight, knowing they're bearing witness to something extraordinary, crazy even, and they want more: They want Deborah's blood as much as she wants theirs. And so it goes, after the next song, a contrapuntal mess somewhere between the sincerity of Rage Against the Machine, the nihilism of the best Jane's Addiction and the irony of Ween, Deborah takes a beer from some smallish dude with long unkempt hair and takes a huge swig, then sits it down next to her for further imbibing. For his part, the guy seems delighted, receiving congrats from those around him, lucky to be part of the performance. The artist was out of juice, though I stand there hoping the Heineken won't meet the same fate as the previous brew. And like a pro, the dynamo finishes the set with blood leaking down her face, annoyed she even has to wipe it away with that stained scarf, stopping between songs to press it to her wound and take a few swigs from her beer, once in awhile issuing scattershot comments like, "Looking good out there!"; "Who wants my ahhassss?!"; "Hey mama's boy, you with the glasses, take them off and join the rest of us!"; "Fucking D.C. sucks ass, no?! Huh motherfuckers?! Let's hear it for Mayor Anthony Williams and these piss-ass punk-ass meter maids, fucking fat black cunts!"; the last of which makes the crowd giggle nervously. The danger and awkwardness of her performance art makes us all feel unsafe, unsure of ourselves and how we should react to her, and Deborah knows this and bathes in the reality.
At the end of the Spaztastics' set she hurls herself into the crowd, pushing them and they push her right back, and she spits on them and they again return suit, and she even bitchslaps one startled dude with a bald head, pretty big too, hard core looking, and he swings and she ducks, then gets her ass back onstage. He follows her there and the lead guitarist grabs him and she smacks him again, this time hard enough for the crowd to hear it. The rest of the band subdues the guy, but it's a struggle as he's huge, and finally some bouncer from the club, assisted by two of the bigger guys in the crowd, most likely regulars, haul him offstage and probably out of the club, though he didn't deserve it. The crowd gets quite a show from the Spaztastics, and prudence aside, make no mistake: A star is born.
