IfIHadAHiFi at High Noon Saloon
IfIHadAHiFi drummer Dr. Awkward jumps up as bandmate Yale Delay works on his next loogie.
After the Mad Rollin’ Dolls’ season kick-off, the High Noon Saloon hosted a claustrophobic roller-derby after-party stuffed with fun garage rock, justified heckling, and enough confrontational nerd-spit to drown a mule. Opening the show, Madison trash-punk duo The Hussy took the stage in matching, zebra-striped T-shirts. A refreshingly attentive audience pumped its fists as lanky, mop-topped guitarist Bobby Wegner swung his jangled, spiked-bat riffing in to the blasting power-pop rhythms of drummer Heather Sawyer. The Hussy also boasted a dual-vocal delivery, which resembled two siblings trying to compete for their mother’s attention over the sound of a running chainsaw.
After the duo thrashed its way through the high-octane blues-punk of set-closer “Social Critique,” a schlock-a-billy train-wreck arrived in the form of Kansas City’s Them Damned Young Livers. It isn’t often that even a few people at a Madison show actively heckle a band or raise up their middle fingers (one guy, not far from the stage, did this over and over again during the Livers’ set), but unfortunately, this band’s sloppy country-rock tested the crowd’s Midwestern hospitality. Perhaps it was the lack of energy and precision in the music, or the fact that singer Jody Hendrix, who sounded like a mix of Rob Zombie and George Thorogood, dedicated one song to the “submissive womens” in the audience. A series of covers, including The Misfits’ “Hollywood Babylon” and Hank Williams’ “I Saw The Light,” were met with slapped foreheads, and one audience member screamed, “Get Billy Bob off your vocals, Jesus Christ!”
Apparently there’s no greater faux-pas than ruining a Hank Williams number, because even when IfiHadAHiFi guitarist Yale Delay (literally) spat into the audience during the Milwaukee band’s headlining set, nobody bothered to flip him the bird. Opening with the face-kicking noise punk of “(The Hi-Fi Vs.) Potential Energy,” the HiFi both energized and antagonized the audience with its cartoonish stage demeanor. Drummer Dr. Awkward and bassist Mr. Alarm bled through keyboardist-guitarist Rev Ever’s sonic noise blanket with an understated pop sensibility. The provocative weirdos shared vocal duties, and their set dipped into 2008’s Fame By Proxy and 2004’s No More Music, and delivered a crusty rendition of The Go-Gos’ “We Got The Beat.”
As he windmill-picked his dirty noise riffs with mock-grandiosity, Delay spent the show screaming and aiming impressive gobs of saliva at the crowd. As the band ripped through the second-to-last number, “No More Music,” Delay jumped into the crowd with his guitar, waving the headstock at the audience like the tip of a spear. Then, after he chucked his guitar back to the stage, knocking a mic stand over in the process, he took lead vocals for set set-closer and Mission Of Burma cover “That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate.” Delay ran through the audience, squeezing faces, shoving bodies, sticking his huge head up some guy's T-shirt, and cementing IfIHadAHiFi's place as one of the Midwest's most engaging live bands.
