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JULIETTE AND THE LICKS
THE RETURN OF THE SPANDEX
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What if I told you that Juliette Lewis — the very same Juliette Lewis who played an alluring Bonnie to Woody Harrelson’s Clyde in Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers — has a rock band, and that they’re motoring around the country playing weeknight club dates? Oh, and that she isn’t exactly selling out the joints, not if her gig a week ago Tuesday at Axis was any indication? Okay, so nothing’s really shocking anymore. Still, you’d have thought that someone would have sat her down in front of that one-hour special the IFC did on Gina Gershon’s embarrassing attempt to get into character as a gritty rock grrrl for the 2003 bomb Prey for Rock and Roll by playing real rock clubs. But, hell, Gershon did sound pretty good on the soundtrack. (Amazing things they can do with Pro Tools these days.) That said, it was still hard to tell whether the skintight red spandex pants and half-shirt Lewis sported at Axis were being worn in jest. Or whether she had her tongue in cheek when she used a mid-set solo break to attempt some awkward and amusing school-of-rock moves that began with something resembling a push-up and morphed into an Elaine Benes–style dance, for those of you who remember that episode of Seinfeld. Jack Black would have been proud. In any case, it’s clear that Lewis was psyched by the modest turnout (the club was barely half full) and the displays of fist-pumping support from the folks up front during a short, eight-song set (hey, she’s touring behind a five-song EP and isn’t scheduled to record her full-length till January); she jumped down into the crowd and delivered a round of hugs to some of the more active fans. As for the four-man backing band, they all looked as if they’d seen bigger crowds in better clubs but were happy to have the gig. And they sounded competent if not inspired as they worked their way through Hole-style grunge-punk material that suited Lewis’s rough-around-the-edges voice. The EP, moreover, is surprisingly good. And when Lewis and her band emerged for their one encore to play a punked-up version of Van Halen’s "Ain’t Talking ’Bout Love," I had to admit that she appears to have her head on straight and her heart in the right place as she embarks on what’s sure to be an interesting if bumpy ride.
BY MATT ASHARE
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