If you haven’t figured it out by now, you might as well dance. I mean, you can try to avoid it if you want, but for your own sake I suggest you get down. As the overused meme states, do it like no one is watching. Might I also suggest you do so to the retro rampage sounds of The Hillary Watts Riot. With equal parts Prince, Blondie, and Devo, the band’s own sultry brand of freak pop is sure to get your hips moving.
Straight out of some sort of half-swank/half-skank dive bar of late ’20s Chicago, the only thing A/S/L is missing is a 16-piece big band and an untimely bust by the prohibition police. Couple that with the tendency to thematically slip toward R-rated cheekiness. I bet Quentin Tarantino would love to take a stab at writing an accompanying movie for these songs. It could be the tale of the slightly nerdy girl from high school, the one with mussed stockings; her thick-rimmed, cat-eyed glasses always buried in a romance novel. Later, you’ll find out online that she eventually made it big on the East Coast as a burlesque dancer. I think balcony tickets for her show are still available.
The songs are most certainly driven by the siren wailing of Hillary Watts. Though purposefully goofy sometimes, her performance is bold, brazen, and oozes with sensuality, at times bordering on humor porn. If you can take your attention off her long enough—a totally intended circumstance, I believe—you’ll find tasteful instrumentation painting the floor sticky with yesterday’s Maker’s Mark. The band does its part to perfection, keeping the groove alive and spunky for Watts to perform upon. The musical interludes and solo sections provide a nice, contrasting energy to her almost-paroxysmal vocal performance.
Although Morris Day and the mutha fuckin’ Time might want their “Jungle Love” riff back from the middle of “Killer Kind,” I see this as an appropriate homage to an often too forgotten legendary funk and dance outfit.
If you get a chance, check out these cats, especially Asia the ragdoll, live. Their high-energy performances pack in just as much bombastic sensuality as the record. This seems like the kind of music that is best listened to bouncing off your body at just a hair too many decibels.
The latest single from A/S/L, "Slap Slap," is available for download today. Check it out below.
Shake your hips on Friday, July 27 at The Brick. Hillary and her jumpsuited Drones will be playing with The Sexy Accident and Howard Iceberg & The Titanics.
–-Zach Hodson
| Zach is a lifetime Kansas City resident who plays multiple instruments and sings in Dolls on Fire, as well as contributing to many other Kansas City music, art, and comedy projects. He is very fond of edamame, treats his cat Wiley better than he treats himself, and doesn’t want to see pictures of your newborn child (seriously, it looks like a potato). |