Nodding at the She-Mob

What a pleasure to be at the release party for She-Mob's new album, Not in My World, this past Saturday at the Starry Plough in Berkeley. Mostly, I just love the idea that I, a middle-aged mother of two, am friends with a punk-rocker: Suki O'Kane.

Of course, not completely coincidentally, it turns out that She-Mob is populated by, specializes in and thrives on middle-aged women. How many punk rock bands can say the same?

Watching them play their "album" "cuts" backwards first the "second side" of the disk then the "first side" was often not unlike life itself in that there were, especially in the last (hence played first) slower more esoteric songs, long stretches in which one kept waiting for whatever was going to happen to happen. And then one would realize (and this is the life part): oh! this IS what's happening. It's never going to be more than this. This is it. And then one relaxed and really loved it.

But the most surreal moments came towards the end when they got to their most head-banging thrashy pieces and were really tearing up the stage. Cut to an audience that could have been downloaded from a jazz club and superimposed on this punk scene. Polite nodding, slight tapping of feet, and nursing of drinks was the order of the day.

To hell with that thought Lisa Mennet and I. We'll change the order of the day. We get up, virtually stepping on mellow Berkeley-esque types sprawled on the floor and begin wildly dancing, thrashing ourselves around--the music demanded it. The music wasn't happy without us doing that. We had no choice.

The audience responded. Oh, not the way we had hoped, by leaping to their feet and thrashing with us. No, they responded by nodding, smiling, enjoying the show. Obviously we, painfully overdressed middle-aged women (well, I was, Lisa was understated), were part of the she-mob. Obviously, we were part of the show. Yay, She-Mob! Good show.

Yes. Yay, She-Mob! The songs were clever, fun and well-done. The music, particularly Suki's inspired rhythms, was great. These girls have been written up in the Village Voice. They're the real thing. Buy the disk. Have a listen at their website: http://shemob.com/.