King Missile reunited! The 13th Floor’s Jeff Neems and Chris Zwaagdyk were there to record the event for posterity!
Now here’s a band I never expected to see perform live.
King Missile (Dog Fly Religion) entered my consciousness in the very early 1990s, through some older and cooler friends who had a couple of their records, and also the now-defunct Waikato University radio station Contact FM. Their music was championed by student radio, which at that point was prominent in its promotion of Mark Kramer’s Shimmy Disc label through which King Missile albums were released.
The Dog Fly Religion part is important, because that’s the original iteration of the group – vocalist John S Hall and guitarist Stephen “Dogbowl” Tunney. The duo did two albums in the late ’80s, before Dogbowl left and Hall continued the stop-start career of King Missile with a number of other musicians.
Last night’s show at Whammy Bar was the final stop of a tour which included several Australian dates and stops in some unusual NZ locations – namely Masterton and Whitianga (of all places).
It would have been interesting to see how King Missile’s brand of avant garde art rock-come-folk-come-comedy went down in provincial NZ, and Hall himself noted the 50-odd punters in Whammy Bar represented the largest crowd of the tour.
What sets King Missile apart from all their ’80s/’90s college rock acts is the fact it all feels like a massive self-deprecating satirical piss-take. They’re making fun of themselves with songs about either their lives, the sex lives of other people and other bizarre and niche topics most acts generally shy away from.
Hall is in fact a prolific poet, and that informs a vocal style which veers between spoken word, singing, and a sort of rhythmic storytelling.
It’s all very clever, very amusing, and could only emerge from New York, where Hall still lives.
The reunion of the duo means there’s new King Missile music coming, and across an hour-long set – Hall only on vocals, Dogbowl on a peculiar rectangular guitar and hidden drum machine – they bounced between new material and an assortment of classics.
Tunes like Jesus Was Way Cool, Cheesecake Truck, Take Stuff From Work and Gary and Melissa (about a couple with a very vigorous sex life) all got a run, and the timeless Sensitive Artist proved a huge crowd pleaser, with the audience singing along as Hall posted a video of it to his Instagram page.
Very few acts can do songs about drugs, dildoes and assorted sexual weirdness, but King Missile pull it off with ease. Hall even joked about the sticky stuff on the microphone and it being the result of him self-pleasuring.
Admittedly, King Missile is an acquired taste: a lot of people would consider it self-indulgent or stupid rubbish, or be offended by lyrics like “The last time she peed on me” being sung over and over again in front of a laughing crowd partially singing along.
Not me. I thought it was genuinely hilarious and musically very good. The pair have a great on-stage chemistry and excellent banter. The simplicity of the songs makes them terrifically charming and very engaging. I’d have liked a bit more, but it’s a couple of blokes in their 60s so an hour is a decent dose, especially on a Sunday night. And, well, it was a fairly old crowd too – bar a few people in their 20s, everyone was past 50.
Support act A Constant Hum were also a duo – drums and guitar/vocals – and they produced a wall of sound from just two instruments. They were reminiscent of Bailter Space and The Hasselhoff Experiment, raucous and intense and just a tad too loud for an old man with no ear plugs.
Nonetheless, their sonic assault was quite impressive and made for an interesting juxtaposition to the headline act.
A good night out, and one you would not anticipate happening again any time soon.
Jeff Neems
Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Chris Zwaagdyk:
