The Deal: Lizard clips from the 1990s reveal the band in all their spitting, gritty glory.
The Good: If you never saw Iggy and the Stooges, David Yow and the Jesus Lizard would be the next best thing. Both were over-the-top exhibitions for frontmen who were interactive before the term became popular, stage divers who would body surf over the crowd while performing. “Singer” David Yow took rock lyric incomprehensibility to a level that’s never been equaled. It’s not punk. “I don’t think that has anything to do with the music we do,” he tells an interviewer who asks if after the success of Green Day the Lizard will be more accepted by the mainstream. It’s part performance art, part noise. Duane Denison’s guitar churns out industrial sludge for Yow to yowl over. “Want to know the similarity between me and a Shetland pony?” he asks the post-show interviewer. “We’re both a little hoarse.” To Lizard fans, that says it all.
The Bad: Needs subtitles for Yow’s yowls so you can appreciate lyrics like these from “If You Had Lips”: “Hey shitmouth / a number of years have passed between our legs / I love you / will you bury me?”
The Verdict: Good time capsule fodder.
This article appears in Jul 4-10, 2007.
