Eli | Mike | Mary - click for individual bio

December 9, 2003

The show at the Silverlake Lounge on Monday went very well; I think it was the biggest crowd we’ve had for one of our shows in more than a year, so we went home happy. We also moved about 40 of the “Santa Claus Versus Dave Matthews” discs, which is a great thing (if for no other reason than there’s going to be a bunch of people who listen to Hugo Armstrong do his robot monologue on track #2 and think “what the hell is this?”), and I want to thank everyone who came out to see us. Extra special thanks go to Circus Minor for hosting us so kindly and to lovely ladies Arlene and Lisa for singing backup on “Santa Claus…” and wearing fancy sparkly dresses.

But what I really wanted to tell you about today is a band I saw two weekends ago at Zen Sushi over in Silverlake: the Automatics. You might have seen that I cite them as a favorite band in my little “bio” section here on the site; I can pretty much say that they, along with the early Talking Heads and the very very early Modern Lovers, are the biggest influence on the Monolators “sound,” if you care about that sort of thing. I have an old 45 rpm copy of the Automatics’ “When the Tanks Roll Over Poland (again)” that I listened to obsessively for quite a while, especially around the time when Mary and I got married—sort of an odd choice for the occasion, I admit, but there we are. “When the Tanks…” (which, by the way, is NOT an ode to fascism, title notwithstanding) was a late-70’s UK pop hit, and the Automatics were a genuine ‘77-era punk band from London, along the lines of the Clash and all those guys—although I suppose I’d call their music more of a cross between the Ramones and the Buzzcocks than the typical Sex Pistols sound. A punk label based in Japan (where the Automatics are very big) recently re-issued “Walking With the Radio On,” the one and only album that the band managed to record before breaking up, and it’s fantastic—I especially love “Like A Moth Into A Flame” (with Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls on lead guitar!), and I believe we Monolators are going to try to cover it at some point, if I can figure out what the lyrics are for the chorus. Sounds to me a bit like “Wadda wadda wadda waaahhhh,” but I’m not sure.

So initially I wasn’t really sure what to think when I found out that not only was Automatics lead singer David Phillip not dead, but living right here in Los Angeles and playing with a new version of his band! My first thought was: “damn straight,” but then I also thought: “this has the potential to be really great or really, really awful.” But then I also thought, well, this is my chance to hear “Tanks” done live, so Mary and I decided to head out to Zen Sushi and take a look.

And, thank god, they were great. Yes, David’s the only original member of the band (I think the others are all studio players), but his energy and voice and wit are all there and he still knows how to wear leather trousers quite well! He’s put out a new Automatics album (called “2”), and his set drew mostly from it rather than his ‘70’s material, but it’s in the same vein as the old stuff and has some very fine songs (I especially like “A Mighty Long Way From Memphis”). The band ended their set with manic versions of “Walking with the Radio On” and “Like a Moth Into a Flame,” but then their bass player broke a string and they didn’t end up playing “Tanks” after all. Damn.

I got to chatting with David after the show, and he’s not only very cool but a very, very nice man. He told me a bit about the band’s history (there’s more about that on their website: www.theautomatics.com) and about their recent tours of Japan, where, as he put it, “the kids just go apeshit.” He told me he spends more time playing there than he does here in the States, and that he’ll be heading over there again soon—so I encourage everyone reading this to get to an Automatics show here in LA before they head overseas! Come on, this guy’s a legend! And he wears leather pants! It’s great stuff!

You can hear clips of all the songs mentioned above on the “media” section of David’s website (http://www.theautomatics.com/media.shtml), along with some new tracks with guitar by none other than Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols! Yah! There’s also a very good audio interview with Ira Glass (of “This American Life” fame) posted there where David talks about playing live music again at the age of 45 after a 23-year hiatus. This gives me hope.

Eli