STRAITJACKET FITS/THE BATS/THE JEAN-PAUL SARTRE EXPERIENCE
San Francisco
Slim's, July 20, 1993

"The real alternative nation tour," is a risky slogan to use during a summer in which Lollapalooza, WOMAD, the Barbecue Mitzvah and the MTV Alternative Nation-sponsored Spin Doctors-Soul Asylum-Screaming Trees package are crisscrossing the country.
Nevertheless, the three guitar bands on the Noisyland Tour - Straitjacket Fits, the Bats and the Jean-Paul Sartre Experience - from that other Down Under country, New Zealand, more than lived up to the promotional hype during their well-attended performance at San Francisco's premier rock & roll nightclub, Slim's.
Straitjacket Fits are the goods. Like Kurt Cobain, charismatic leader Shayne Carter - brandishing a left-handed black Les Paul - writes smart, melodic and infectious pop songs that he then dirties up. In the Fits' case, primal garage-rock rhythms and a maelstrom of distorted psychedelic guitars give Carter's classic '60s-style songwriting the feel of now.
Live, the Fits trash and thrash things up gloriously. Sweat running down his face and soaking through a short-sleeve button-down shirt, Carter was a tense, angry young man slashing at his guitar and delivering lyrics in an acrid, edgy voice reminiscent of This Year's Model-period Elvis Costello.
The Noisyland Tour marks the first time the Fits have played the United States since replacing songwriter-vocalist-guitarist Andrew Brough with guitarist Mark Petersen, who utilizes a black Rickenbacker to deliver a slew of intoxicating Beatle-esque riffs. Though there were a few cries of "Where's Andrew?" from the audience ("Who?" retorted Carter), Brough's departure has only strengthened the band, placing Carter firmly in the driver's seat. At Slim's, careering through most of their latest album, Blow, the Fits created a loose, loud wall o' noise that was the perfect framework for Carter's songs of failed love, alienation and disconnection.
The night's festivities opened with the Jean-Paul Sartre Experience, a band that has clearly studied the recorded works of the Velvet Underground and England's once-glorious Buzzcocks. Songs like "Block" featured monotone vocals over a hypnotic three-chord drone. Heady, mesmerizing stuff.
Sandwiched between the Experience and the Fits were the Bats, a low-key quartet that at times sounds like a three-way collision between the Talking Heads, the Searchers and the Feelies. At first the unemotional vocals and repetitive, frantic strumming of singer/rhythm guitarist Robert Scott were irritating, but by the end of the set the group's sound had become quite addictive. And the hesitancy with which guitarist Kaye Woodward delivered solos that often consisted of just a few repeated notes was quite charming.
Still, leave it to the Fits to not only steal the show, but to endow New Zealand with some real rock & roll credibility.
Good job, mates.

Michael Goldberg