The beauty of rock and roll is that it's anybody's game. Throughout its history, there are those who have taken up the gauntlet of rock with little or no background or preparation. The Sex Pistols are one of the biggest, most influential bands of all time, and it's hard to imagine that any of them could read sheet music, or were familiar with the definition of the term "fugue." Even a band like Radiohead, who are known (especially recently) for being avant-garde experimentalists, are fronted by a man who admits to not knowing (or needing) any degree of music theory to operate.
This is the challenge that we as fans and purveyors of rock music must constantly struggle with. Is the music we listen to legitimate on an artistic level, or is it just pleasant noise created (and enjoyed) with a childlike naivete?
If I asked the members of Durban Poison this question, I imagine they would probably laugh. This is a band that seems to exude the kind of youthful enthusiasm that makes rock such a compelling musical medium for so many. They have taken up the DIY ethos of garage rock with an almost effortless, carefree mentality, and the result is the sonic equivalent of improvised, free-verse poetry.
My band played a show with DP way back in the fall of 2009. I believe it was a battle of the bands at the Cambie, a run-down dive of a place in one of Victoria's less-glamorous neighbourhoods. DP's lead singer Matti Corvette came prancing onto the dilapidated, makeshift Cambie stage in what could only be described as a gender-bending glam rock outfit, a strange anachronism that was at odds with the balls-out, punk rock assault on the ears that shortly proceeded it. Still, it was clear that he really didn't give a shit what the anthropoligists might say about his attire: he was having fun, and giving precisely 100% of his effort into what was an enthusiastic, if not technically proficient performance.
So, when I got my hands on their most recent 7", I was prepared for more of the same: enthusiasm, a degree of intentional sloppiness, and a band not overly concerned with conforming to any particular trope. What I found was not entirely within the realm of my expectations. The record, containing their original "Wanna Hear About Dancin'," a hooky, danceable little mid-tempo number in the vein of early Iggy Pop on the A-side and a cover of Rocky Horror Picture Show's "Timewarp" on the B-side, was a tightly-produced, surprisingly taut recording that featured a band coming of age and maturing nicely. The ethic of their image was now distilled into a focused representation of a band intentionally throwing back to a bygone era of fuzzed-out guitars and loose arrangements: the kind of thing that a lot of bands brag about "being about," but don't always really achieve in any meaningful way.
In all honesty, I could see these guys rocking a stage in Detroit circa 1978 and killing the place. There's a fun, honest expressiveness to their music that defies you to sit still and listen to it. It's meant to be enjoyed amidst a throng of like-minded music fans, as if the sound waves were destined to be absorbed by a messy moshpit of sweaty aberrants.
The music itself does nothing to open new doors, or innovate, or experiment, or any of those delightful little ideals that are usually seen as essential to music being considered 'good.' But sometimes, we just want to hear a band embracing a well-defined genre and doing it well. If there's anything that Durban Poison brings to the table that is refreshing and "new," it is that they honestly do want to send you back to the seventies, when music was a little more innocent, and when enjoying it wasn't so much goddamn work.
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