The good people over at Tiny Team Concerts were kind enough to host a kick ass garage rock revival at Savannah Smiles on Sunday featuring underground rock icons The Fleshtones alongside SAV super-group Superhorse and ATL's Tiger! Tiger!. If you were in Savannah and missed this show for any reason other than being stuck at work (shout out to everyone in the service industry), then you slept on a great show, and a fairly rare opportunity (it's been 15 years since the Fleshtones last stepped foot in Savannah).
For those unfamiliar with the Fleshtones, they came out of the same late-70's/early 80's NYC rock scene that produced The Ramones, The Cramps (who they used to share rehearsal space with back in the day), The Talking Heads and so many more amazing groups. The difference with the Fleshtones is that they were never graced with the rock legend status of so many groups they came up with, and they never broke up. This hard rocking trio has never stopped touring in 30+ years. That's pretty amazing in and of itself.
They have recently started to gain a little bit of credence in the eyes of history: they had a biography (Sweat) published in 2007 and there is also a documentary (Pardon Us For Living But the Graveyard is Full) about to drop, if it hasn't already...
Despite being somewhere in the ballpark of 60 years old, these guys still put on a great show. They know how to have fun and work a crowd. Guitarist Keith Streng ventured into the audience several times during their set (thanks to a wireless connection to his amp), and at one point handed off his guitar to Tiger Tiger's lead guitarist in order challenge Tim O. to a push up competition (I'm really sorry that I didn't get a photo of that).
However, while Streng kept the show interesting, lead singer Peter Zaremba seemed to be in a pretty shitty mood and was taking it out on those in attendance. Granted, they had a little feedback, which was weird considering Superhorse had their usual 4-guitarist-wall-of-sound play without a hitch, but regardless, it doesn't seem like an excuse to not act like a professional, or to drag a whole set down by the short hairs. Besides that, those fellas have probably played at venues with worse sound at some point considering how long they've been around. Harden the fuck up.
I was pretty surprised actually. I had the opportunity to interview Zaremba earlier in the week for a piece that ran in Connect, and he seemed like a nice guy. We didn't have any sound problems though...
I don't know what the final head count was, but a decent crowd had built up by the middle of Superhorse's set. However, there was an underwhelming crowd when Tiger! Tiger! shredded through a high-powered set to start the night off. Regardless, people need to show Tiny Team more love when they put shows on. They present shows oriented toward music aficianados (Daniel Johnston, Jonathan Richman, Frank Black, etc), but even if you've never heard of whoever they're bringing to town, you can always count on it to be a good show.
Also, if for some reason you live in Savannah and have never seen Superhorse, shame on you. They are constantly awe-inspiring live and lead singer Keith Kozel could be in top 10-20 great rock n roll frontmen ever. Seriously. I have never seen a show where he didn't climb up onto the speaker stack, jump into the crowd, change costumes, wear an animal head mask or set something on fire...
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