August 13th, 2007
1. Venom's Cronos
The 10-minute recording of Venom singer Cronos ranting between songs in New Jersey in 1986 is perhaps the most widely circulated stage banter in history, and for good reason: The quips are insane and unintentionally hilarious. The show was recorded by Black Flag roadie Joe Cole (Black Flag was on the bill, inexplicably), who edited out all of the music and left only lunatic ravings. Thurston Moore released it as a single on his Ecstatic Peace label, and the Beastie Boys would later sample "You're wild, man, wiiiiiiiiild" on Check Your Head. Whether Cronos does this shtick at every show is immaterial: He became the king in just one night.
"Stage Banter" by Venom
2. David Lee Roth
Ironically, the same propensity for non sequiturs and bizarre one-liners that killed David Lee Roth's Howard Stern-replacing radio show made him one of the most entertaining frontmen in rock history. And though much of DLR's banter during Van Halen's classic early period stemmed from his innate hyperactivity, his good friend Jack Daniel's probably helped. Roth routinely gave props to the bottle during concerts, often using the same line ("I wanna take this time to say that this is real whiskey here!") to drive home the point. But in one infamous ad-lib from the attendance-record-setting 1983 US Festival (for which Van Halen received a record $1 million to play, hammered out of their tits, for 90 minutes), Roth used his muse for a higher purpose, taking down the previous day's headliners and tarnishing punk's street cred by announcing, "The only people who put iced tea in Jack Daniel's bottles is The Clash, baby!"
3. Paul Stanley
A CD-length file of Paul Stanley's onstage yelling made the Internet rounds starting in 2005, and the Kiss guitarist's effeminate, positive-power ("You people are dynamite!") insanity made him sound like a hyperactive motivational speaker. The 86-megabyte file sounds pristine, too; if Steve Albini ever recorded between-song banter, it would sound like this. Named People, Let Me Get This Off My Chest, the 70-track collection features every rock 'n' roll cliché known to man. Stanley screams dedications to "young" women ("We got any little girls out there tonight?"), temperature (via the endless ways that "Hotter Than Hell" and "Firehouse" can be introduced), and booze (simply "ALLCOOOHAAALL!!!!"). Also: "How many of you gals out there like to get licked?! Okay, how many of you guys out there like to get licked?" And that's just the first 10 minutes.
"Stage Banter" by Paul Stanley
4. Robert Pollard
Where other stage ranters have to suffer the indignity of their antics being released via underground cassettes and MP3s, former Guided By Voices frontman Robert Pollard has sanctioned the release of two vinyl-only compilations of his drunken stage banter. Relaxation Of The Asshole gathers quips like "To anyone who says we have a drinking problem, we say fuck you" and stories about Bob's mom beating up his next-door neighbor. Asshole 2: Meet The King covers Pollard's thoughts on Alien Ant Farm, as well as… drinking.
5. Bruce Springsteen
When Bruce Springsteen reconvened The E Street Band for his 1999-2000 world tour, one of the nightly highlights was an epic-length performance of "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," during which Springsteen delivered a rock 'n' roll altar call, exhorting the audience to follow him on the path to righteousness. It was an electrifying throwback to Springsteen's 1975-85 heyday, when he'd pepper his three-hour concerts with long, well-rehearsed monologues about growing up in New Jersey, squabbling with his parents, and seeking refuge in rock. He may have told those stories a hundred times, but he made them as new and spellbinding as each nightly run through "Thunder Road."
"Stage Banter" by Bruce Springsteen
6. Lou Reed
Lou Reed makes this list for one reason only: Take No Prisoners, the 1978 live album which finds Reed bantering with hecklers and dishing for minutes on end about the ins and outs of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle, while his band vamps behind him. Adopting his best New York street-punk accent, Reed bitches about Barbra Streisand, baits critic Robert Christgau, makes fun of Patti Smith, recites poetry, repeats conversations he's had with overeager disciples, and mocks people with plug-in fireplaces. Some of it's purposeful, and some purely stream-of-consciousness. One minute, he's asking the audience, "You ever put a quarter in one of those machines, man? Like, the bear that plays basketball?" Then, when no one responds, he moves on to another topic, griping, "What, do I look like Henny Youngman up here, man?"
"Stage Banter" by Lou Reed
7. Queens Of The Stone Age's Josh Homme
You have been warned, Queens Of The Stone Age fans—don't throw stuff at Josh Homme. On the 2005 live album Over The Years And Through The Woods, Homme calls out a troublemaking fan at the conclusion of "Monsters In The Parasol" for being a "a total cocksmoker" and "throwing shit at me." He even describes the guy's white long-sleeved shirt and has the crew turn the lights on him, so "it's not just me and you that knows you're a fucking asshole, it's everybody." Homme caps his characteristically laidback rant with some advice for the total cocksmoker's fellow audience members: "When you see Mr. Cocksmoker later, just walk by and go 'Hey cocksmoker, eat a bag of dicks.'" Rock star 1, fan 0.
"Stage Banter" by Josh Homme
8. Robyn Hitchcock
Though he came to the fore with The Soft Boys during the rise of English punk in the 1970s, Robyn Hitchcock's sensibilities always leaned more toward quirky and psychedelic, influenced by the whimsical humor of Syd Barrett, Bob Dylan, and Monty Python's Flying Circus, not to mention his own novelist father. That comes out in his songs via surreal lyrics about humanity evolving into birds and jokey warnings about the Freudian implications of uncorrected childhood personality traits. Live, Hitchcock often pauses between songs to spin bizarre, off-the-cuff stories, including goofy tales about knights who keep forgetting what they're supposed to be questing for ("Seek ye the one known as… Leo? Jeff? Dennis?"), macabre imagery ("I don't know what kind of church you imagine, but I like to imagine a church full of carcasses"), and dreamlike descriptions of workmen in the desert howling as giant glass cathedrals float past them high above.
- Comments