Screeching Weasel for those that don’t know hate Led Zeppelin. They abhor dingbats. They think drug use is kewl as long as you use your own needle. They’re not fond of people named Jughead. They watch The Brady Bunch and listen to The Cranberries. They like to let people know when it’s the first day of summer. And they don’t care that your shitty band dropped off Weaselfest 2011 cause Chris Brown and the ghosts of Ike Turner and GG Allin took your opening slots.

Lead singer Ben Weasel? How to describe him? Well he’s an asshole. He’s a jerk. He don’t like Nirvana or Prong. He’s Ben Weasel… he’s so cool.

You might think I’m taking the piss here. Maybe I am a little but in all earnestness I’m telling you with Joe Queer as my witness the FSS was at the show. Here’s my account.

As we filter into the club I turn to P. “Man I’m so pumped! I can’t believe were finally seeing these guys after all these years. How long you think these guys have been around? I know they started before The Ramones so its gotta be like 50 years at least.”

Some time passes. Weasel takes the stage and Ben starts ranting and raving. P turns to me, “Jeez Ben’s really pissed he’s only getting paid the standard $250 SXSW pays all their bands. Exposure? You don’t need exposure when you have as many platinum records as this dude. Wait. They have a new LP out? You don’t say.”

Ben says “From the new one” and kicks into a killer track. “Man P, they still got it. Ben’s so smart too. He writes songs that sound like all his others because he knows that’s what gets the kids going. Artistic development? Pssshaw.”

A dude with a Screeching Weasel tatt sidles up next to us with a big ol glass of Bud Light. I turn back to P. “That’s it, when this show is over were both getting weasel tatted.” P nods in obvious agreement.

“Be right back man I gotta take a duker”, I say as I head for the restrooms. Halfway there I’m already jealous that I’m missing some of the weasel magic being perpetrated on stage. “Fuck me. This line is about 80 people deep. Hey bro. Yeah you. How long you been waiting on the kamode?”. The man ahead of me went on to explain that lines at weasel gigs take longer than lines at other punk shows because weasel music makes yee constipated. I later looked this up when me and p got back to our room at the luxurious Four Seasons and according to Wikipedia “weasel constipation” as it’s commonly known was first discovered by renowned scientist and fellow weasel fan Dr. Cornelius Krunkus. So yah FSSers, I waited a half hour to use the shitter and couldn’t even pinch one out when I finally had my turn. Defeated I headed back to find P.

The dance floor and stage looked like a ghost town. A couple people were still milling about. “Hey, where’d everyone go? Did I miss the encore? Did they play anything off “Emo”? Why are those two chicks crying? Why’s weasel tatt dude crying? P? Why are you crying…Exactly what happened here?”

Now I’ll let P fill ya in on what I failed to catch. But I trust him and so should you.

P’s Take: So yah as Uncle T said, the Almighty FSS took a field trip to SXSW this year, a much needed break from nagging wives and mouthy daughters. Personally, I’ve been wanting to get to Austin for awhile and it did not disappoint; good food, excellent overpriced facilities and plentiful black frame glasses and beardwork. On one point though SXSW and Austin generally needs some correction, and Ben Weasel was there thankfully to provide it. I think you know the point I mean: Bitches.

Uppity, uppity women straight walking around, proudly, heads up, mamaries a’joggle, meeting my gaze, not letting me go ahead in line, speaking when I haven’t spoken to them and generally acting like they got the vote before the 20th century. What the fuck IS this shit? But, whatever, Austin is close to the equator and God knows what heat does to the female of the species.

Anyway, we were taking in a truly groundbreaking set by Screaching Weasel, discussing our tats when Uncle Diablo T had to grump. I took my leave to the bar to get me my 3rd SXSW trademark beverage, a Blue Barlow, half Jaeger, half Zima when it all jumped off. The bar offered me a good view of the stage and as I’m sipping my drink I notice a she-beast giving Ben the business. Never one to back down from any hag, Ben used his rapier wit to try and silence her. This lagoon crotch then had the audacity to launch a very dangerous bit of ice at my main man Weasel. Thankfully the projectile bounced harmlessly off Ben’s massively muscled torso and they were about to launch into another number when it happened.

Aforementioned pussrag then proceeded to spit high-quality bud all over Mr. Ben. Fuck, fuck fuck. The pure cunttastedness. I immediately sprouted a raging hard-on and Ben Weasel went directly into XY correction mode. With a grace that belies his 68 years, he planted his lead foot, pivoted his back and laid a right haymaker into that miserable she-devils left tit. I could feel the jelly quake from where I stood. He followed it up with a flurry that hit mostly Manic Panicked hair and air, but his left cross hit the chick squarely in the uterus. The crowd groaned. I cheered while weeping.

I thought that the night was over, that justice had been done, but from nowhere lept a crazed Amazon to the first tarts defense. I put down my drink and attempted to get to the stage to aid my comrade-in-testicles, but it wasn’t necessary. Like a bullfighter, Ben olayed his second attacker and turning, cracked her a good one. Right in the vaginerus. Two women, one Weasel. One hero.

All in all SXSW was a victory, for music, for Blue Barlow’s and for men’s rights.

Happy St. April Fools Day FSSers!!!!

So it follows that there should be bands whose main following, their core audience, consist of douchebags, likely because the members of these bands are themselves huge douches. We have named a few here at the FSS already; King Crimson, Phish, Polvo (fuck you, Polvo) etc. None of this should come as a surprise, I’m sure everybody involved with the aforementioned bands realizes their levels of douchebaggery.

There are probably bands who display all or most of the signs of being a douchebag group, intense noodliness, annoyingly pretentious song titles (Court of the Crimson King, your mothers ass.), being way too good at your instruments and so on, without actually falling all the way into douchebag territory. I can actually only think of one group, though I’m pretty sure it was down to one man in the band. I’m talking about The Mothers of Invention and Frank Zappa.

Lemme explain something right off. I am not a Mothers or Zappa expert by a longshot. Growing up I used to throw on “Weasels Ripped My Flesh” to freak out and then crack up my sisters and brother. And 20 years later I haven’t really gotten any further into Zappa’s library. What attracted me first was the cover, the cartoonish takeoff of a razor ad showing a button down 1950’s cat holding an electric weasel tearing into his face. And he’s saying “RZZZ”. The guy, not the weasel. I’m sorry but that is comedy. Now the music. The whole first side I just don’t understand. I’d like to comment, I’m just not qualified. There is some bleatings and goings on, but, really, I can’t make head nor tail of it. Then there is side 2. More craziness that I don’t understand, then comes My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama, which broke me up something fierce when I was 9 and still does. Then Oh No, which I don’t know how to feel about. Then the album gets inexplicable again, then kinda pretty , then ends. Yup.

According to Wikipedia, Weasels is the live bookend to “Burnt Weeny Sandwich” and the both of them were comprised of old Mothers of Invention stuff released after they had broken up. Yeah, so that’s some informative shit right there, that makes this article worth it as far as actual, you know facts or whatever. But getting back to my original point about, you know, douchebags and such, is that really The Mothers, and Zappa in particular are the exception that proves the rule. Zappa made music that defied classification and most peoples taste. He experimented with weird time signatures, complicated orchestration and only, ONLY worked with the best musicians he could get. But, he did all this with a fuckin’ grin on. And with cartoon weasels. So suck it, Polvo.

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