Dick Says: This Band Ruled: The Locust

Synthesizer-powerviolence legends The Locust used to be my absolute goddamned jam. This is not to say my tastes have “matured” and that now all I listen to is twee post-rock, but I can objectively infer that their influence in my everyday life has waned since my tender teenage days. If watching a throng of gangly schmoes dressed in bug suits play spastic tunes in cramped rock clubs won't transform a boy into a man, what will anymore?

My first time experiencing The Locust was circa 2005 in a now-defunct Detroit venue (then again, to call it such might be a disservice, the establishment is still operating today but under a renovated booty-club format. Such a format, for all intents and purposes, may very well be considered non-functional when in the context of edifices which benefit society). In all honesty, I arrived at the show with the most humble of expectations for the band. I had listened through a few of their albums, found them enjoyable, but didn't expect any truly groundbreaking musical performance feats to be had that evening. Being the naive child that I was, however, caused the forthcoming onslaught of spot-on musicianship and wall of inorganic noise to outright implode my arrested, adolescent cerebrum.

The band played like an array of malfunctioning androids (à la Ash's meltdown in Alien) and never missed a beat when it came to odd time-changes and borderline unpredictable stop-go instrumental sections. I recall describing it somewhere along the lines of "watching a fireworks factory catch fire... in musical form".

It smelled really bad at the venue that night, too. The sea of unwashed proto-hipsters eventually caused a near-visible haze of body odor which, approximately one third the way through the set, began to resemble some unholy combination of supreme nachos, barbeque and budget-priced body spray. All in all, I am doubtful if so many of my senses will ever be violated like they were on that fateful eve. Never before had a live performance so severely changed my opinion of a band.

At this point I'd like to shift gears. One interesting note that many fans of The Locust frontman Justin Pearson (also in Swing Kids, Some Girls, Holy Molar, and many more) may or may not know about, is his staged appearance on The Jerry Springer Show several years back. Why this whole ordeal was not chronicled to great lengths and heralded as the greatest pseudo-celebrity appearance on daytime television is beyond me. The premise in which Justin and his cohorts initially appeared on the show was about standard fare for the program; a delicate love polygon sans gender-imposed borders amongst the seemingly vapid and uneducated. As usual per the show, the situation rapidly escalates beyond reason. Excessively scrawny appendages along with inexpensive furniture are flailed sans any shred of regret, and, inevitably, some sort of half-assed resolution comes about. Truly amazing.

Don't take my word for it - why, have a gander the timeless episode here:

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There also is a fascinating first-hand account of this fiasco written by Scott Beibin (the handsome young fella who ends up *SPOILER ALERT* sharing a kiss with Mr. Pearson *END SPOILER ALERT*): READ HERE.

Dick's Closing Thoughts™: Forever changing a young man's perception of the arts is indeed a noble accomplishment and worthy of mention. With this being said, does it mean one has truly ascended to levels of infallible rockstardom when they are featured on a daytime talkshow? In a case such as this one, the answer is a resounding “absolutely”.