Rick Blaze & The Ballbusters, The Strippers Midway Cafe 12.02.00

Personally, I wouldn't play the Midway, with it's clientele of toy collectors, blue collar drunks, and short haired girls if you paid me in blow jobs, but it's all about paying the dues, baby. Mr. Blaze knows all about that scene. Not that it helps much. These cats are big in Australia, where they dress their boys in shorts until they're 14, and in France, where they can't get enough of the Downtown needles and pills Thunders death cult razor rock that the Ballbusters grind out like aging hipsters waiting for the medicine train. But around here, thy're just the coolest band in Worcester. Sorta like the prettiest girl in the leper colony. Foxy tattooed Apache dropout notwithstanding, the 'Busters reek of suburban bar band. And I don't even drink.

But I'm here to see the Strippers, anyway. Now, these boys know how to handle the rock and the roll. In fact, they hijack the Rock, tattoo lesbian devils on it's arm, fuck it ragged in the backseat of a taxicab, and leave it there to dry off while they wander off to the smoke shop. American Hard Raunch that owes more to drunken bikers than to sweaty junkies, the Strippers are 400 pounds and 3 car crashes away from the Hookers, one flame thrower and $600 worth of silicone away from Nashville Pussy, and 2 hours away from Rock city. But don't let their trousers fool you, these are gutter rats true and through. Halfway through the first song they had destroyed the Midway's flimsy stage; by the second, the bass player had wandered off to retrieve drinks. By the time I got the Hell out of JP, they were spitting at the audience. All without missing a beat. Goddamn. All I can say is, grab the nearest greased pole and keep the dollar bills handy, because the Strippers are Down To Kill.

-sleazegrinder , The Noise , Boston

-- The Strippers strip