Piss on me once, shame on you. Piss on me twice...

Black Lips live at the WOW Hall, 2.06.08

The standard congregation, moist with sweat and fervently sparking Parliament Lights, stands outside the Wow Hall excitedly discussing puke and piss. Or more appropriately, the lack of puke and piss. Despite the trace of endorphins lingering after a mosh-friendly show, most attendees can’t disguise a bit of disappointment at having missed a four-man sword fight.

My friend Jeremy takes a stab at the mechanics of pissing in one’s own mouth. “Morning wood is the only way to get that kind of arch,” he proposes.

The Black Lips aren’t about piss, really. An unrivaled reputation for rowdiness helped catapult the Atlanta foursome to notoriety, but the Black Lips aren’t going to be your monkey. And they certainly won’t piss just because you want to see them do it.

The Black Lips and their brand of [insert adjective] punk are refreshingly legitimate. Charming, even. Their latest album, Good Bad Not Evil (VICE Records), features genre melding at its finest. Garage punk is layered skillfully with elements of country and psychedlica, Motown and surf rock, even a touch of Southern voodoo.

Standing at the base of the stage, I watch the small crowd come unhinged as the band rips through rambunctious tracks, bouncing in systematic unison. They launch into the spooky “Off the Block” and someone’s entire face is blindly planted in the small of my back. Within the sweaty crowd, masses of skin and sweatshirt heave backward and forward in waves both erratic and systemized, sometimes with the unified goal of knocking a microphone loose or launching a skinny kid onstage. Devil horns are emphatically thrust toward the heavens, and occasionally someone loses control of a beverage, sending its contents spilling across the stage.

Mid-set the lights are cut and the stage backdrop becomes a magnified psychedelic Petri dish. Singer/bassist/mustache cultivator Jared Swilley raises his fingers above his head, palms forward, and prompts the audience to wiggle jazz hands at the sky. It looks as if a Grease II rehearsal is being conducted in a crack alley.

People who come to watch the Black Lips have come to partake in a chaotic free-for-all, even if they have to create one for themselves. The crowd shares a persistent sense of urgency: a need to digest everything about the band and their music immediately, because soon it will be over and they will be gone.

Weirdly enough, I walk out of the venue clean and dry. If piss lingers on me somewhere, it’s from having to hover behind a plastic shower curtain in the tiny venue’s bathroom.

-Written by Kate Nacy