Friday night, I somehow managed to get into what was billed as the last local show ever by the world’s greatest rock n’ roll band, the Fastbacks.
The gig, at Ballard’s fab Sunset Tav, was only announced as the group’s farewell gig in the Stranger two days before; Kathleen Wilson wrote that singer-bassist Kim Warnick wanted to give up the grind (though she’ll continue with her own new band, Visqueen). Thus, apparently, ends 22 amazing years of Warnick, guitarist-songwriter Kurt Bloch, guitarist Lulu Gargiulo, 14 successive drummers, and some 160 (more or less) of the greatest happy/angry noise-pop created anywhere.
The show itself was sold out (I only managed to get in toward the end of openers Droo Church’s set). Many of the crowd had been FBX fans since the ’80s; others were young enough to have been conceived in the bathrooms during early Fastbacks shows.
It was a racous, intense, gorgeous night. Guys with middle-aged backs and knees were pogoing like the old days. Bloch, Warnick, Gargiulo, and alternating drummers Mike Musburger and Jason Finn were tight, loud, and completely Hi-NRG. Fun, sweat, and great memories were had by all, for nearly two hours.
But this is not to imply the Fastbacks are, or ever were, a nostalgia band. Their music is timeless; their basic sound has remained virtually unchanged all this time (except for becoming smarter and more professional). They never lost their classic garage-rock charm or sassiness.
The Fastbacks’ sound is built on simple, solid ingredients: Passionately belted vocals, alternately-keyed female harmonies, workhorse rhythm-section parts, deceptivel intricate guitar riffs, and, most importantly, the complementary interplay between happy music and sad/angry lyrics.
To have ever been a Fastbacks fan is to have fond recollections of having listened to, and identified with, Warnick’s spirited deliveries of Bloch’s negative messages. Typical topics include generalized loss and depression, loneliness, busted friendships, insufferable and/or uncaring authority figures, and frustration at the dysfunctional world of Reagan-Bush America (now more relevant than ever!).
On the bus over to the Sunset, I happenned to be perusing a John Gray self-help book I’d picked up at a bookstore remainder rack. In it, he talked about the need to express your angers and frustration, lest the negative energy build up inside you as a toxin to the soul. That’s the effect I’ve always gotten from the Fastbacks’ songs. They help me exorcise my depressions, and make me happy, at least for the moment.
And they always will, whether or not any more are released.
Though I’m certainly hoping more will be released, or at least “reunion” gigs will take place, or at least-least that Bloch can find a new performing outlet for his particular brand of genius.
