Gary Bear as Kelvin 296 & the Beat Hip demo cass. 1997
The first time I remember seeing Gary Bear was at the DPC when it had just opened (’90 or ’91?) and a great band from England, Thatcher On Acid, played. They were like a better, poppy version of the earlier English anarco-punk bands (Crass, Conflict et al.) and I listen to their records regularly to this day. In the middle of one of their songs they did this break down thing where the music got quiet and they invited anybody from the audience to come up and take the mic for a while. The stage was on the east side of the venue and for a short time had steps directly in front of it so there was easy access. The crowd was thin, but five or six people got up there and did their thing. Some sang along (with real passion, and the band reacted accordingly) others just said stupid shit. Then Gary Bear gets up and recites a poem that I don’t remember verbatim, but the basic idea behind it was that if you drink and you become an asshole when you drink, then you have no right to use alcohol in public. That simple wisdom, put so elegantly in poem form, with the great Thatcher On Acid backing him up, stuck with me over the years and occasionally pops into my head when I see drunk assholes in public. This made his face stick with me and I would recognize him performing as a solo act from then until now. Every time I’ve seen him perform live I’ve found it very annoying. It seemed like he got lost on the way to the Renaissance fair and somehow landed a spot in between two good bands I really wanted to see. This three song demo reflects that kind of freak-folk-pop stuff he does live, but here it’s not annoying. The songs are actually good. They’re still weird as fuck and very Renaissance-y as if he was scoring a very weird Willy Wonka directed by Jodorowosky set in Italy in 1525, but with love song lyrics. Listening to this makes me think about Gary Bear as that type of artist that works best in the recorded medium.
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