White Cowbell Oklahoma @ Lee's Palace
By: Jen Reid
When I heard White Cowbell Oklahoma (WCO) was all about "ass-kickin' Southern fried boogie rock with NINE guitars, TWO drummers, TWO bassists, TWO keyboardists, sexy ladies and bizarre onstage debauchery, plus acts of filth and destruction, I couldn't wait to get to their Lee's Palace Canadian Music Week show. I figured I was going to get front-row seats to a perverse southern orgy set to music and bad clothes leading up to some kind of incest-ridden, rifle-shootin' apocalyptic showdown. I even considered showing up with my own private militia as protection.
And then I found out they were Canadian. I braced myself for what I figured was going to be, in reality, some watered-down, big-sky prairie crap. How wrong was I?
This is what country has become: the last refuge of true American music. And by that I mean heavy duty rock 'n' roll with deep, deep roots in wagon trains, barn raisings, and cattle ranches, and men on wrap-around porches with beat-up guitars and guns. WCO has been described as "Southern boogie gone punk" – and that's a fair assessment of what could be considered the resurrected sound of country rock in the 21st century.
The phrase "rip your tits off" could have been invented to describe the WCO show. In the event, there were three guitarists, a bassist, a drummer, a keyboardist, and a "cowbeller" known as Chainsaw Charlie. He looked like a psycho, S&M marshal who had just ridden out of Hell. I was so envious of his job. Not only did he get to look like the coolest MF on stage, with his highly mirrored cop shades, spurs, black leather gloves, silver belt buckle, and cowboy shirt, but he also got to whack on a – you guessed it – white cowbell for the duration of the concert while taking shots of tequila from the audience. One of the perks of his position was scorching up Lee's with sparks like a roman candle by digging into the bell with a rotary saw. Yee haw! Obviously, the bulk of the marshal's get up was fire-protective gear.
On top of Chainsaw Charlie's cowbell fireworks display, the 'Bells set featured wickedly coordinated guitar solos, rounds of tequila commanded from the audience by frontman Clem, and an ability to move back and forth from balls-out cock-rock to marching band to country and western to delicate psychedelic to low-down groove.
There was so much full-blooded personality on stage, musically and personally, that you would have to have been made of stone not to be infected by the WCO presence. The Lee's crowd was red-flagged into a stampede of frenzy. Their new album, Casa Diablo, is available now, and definitely on the recommended list – if you're into a cavalcade of hard-hitting mayhem stomping all over your headspace, that is.
