Better Than Nevermind -- No. 5 : Jesus Lizard - Goat

Jesus Lizard – Goat (Touch & Go)

By Zeus almighty the rivers of ink and pixels I could write just on that album, let alone the band… I won’t go into the details of how they were discovered but let me at least say that Jesus Lizard is one of the best live bands I have seen in my life. The tightness the efficiency of the rhythm section, the downright craziness of the vocalist; everything is batshit insane with JL live. The follow-up might also be their masterpiece but, after hearing the second song, Mouthbreather, for the millionth time, what is a slightly weird person hearing insane music to do? From that point on to the very last second of side two (yes, I still have the LP, in much better condition than the CD mind you), I just wanted to climb the walls, chew my right converse, punch my neighbor in the groin, tear out Celine Dion’s hair and… well you get the idea. Then Comes Dudley opens with throbbing bass and incisive guitar lines, enough to make you wide-eyed, but when David Yow starts hollerin’ like a mad preacher, you keep wanting for more. Nub slashes your ear with slide guitar then more demented vocals and a rhythm section that pounds relentlessly your heart and guts, while the ‘melody’ slithers like a cottonmouth in a fetid swamp you’ve just now realized are standing in, right up to your nostrils. Speaking of which, the following track, Seasick, has Yow increasing the doses of melismatic insanity, repeating “I can’t swim” over and over while the nauseating interplay of guitar and bass gets you dizzy. Flip over (hey I said I had the LP) and Monkey Trick starts like side A with a throbbing bass and brooding drums until the cutting of the guitar are caught up with a scream by Yow after some mumbling. There is no real climax but rather a bubbling of high pitch shredding that serves adequately as a guitar solo after the song veers to near quiescence and the last intelligible lyrics (An Irish bloke/A child is choked) are uttered before the other solo, a series of madman shouts. Karpis lets Mac McNeilly shine a bit more throughout the song, this time as if the drums and the vocals are a call and response. JL goes dangerously close to voodoobilly with South Mouth, and a doubling of the vocals creates the creepy effect of having not one but two demented preachers trying to eat the mike while mumbling stuff about acting sometimes like animals and sometimes like little girls (a predication on republican politicians?) and the song refuses to end throughout the starts and stops that are surgery precise. For me, the record should have ended with track 4 of side B, Ladyshoes with its low key guitar and bass, and unhinged vocals, pounding drums, with an interlude of mumbling and jagged guitar lines. However, it is Rodeo in Joliet that really ends the ordeal with a disjointed bacchanal of high pitched squeals (both guitar and vocals) and superb drumming until Yow exhales the last sounds as if exhausted. So am I, but I want to go back again. And so will you.