RIFF MARKET

Spacehog Wrote More Than One Good Song, True Story

With some concern did I read this article about the rock band Wolfmother, in which the frontman Andrew Stockdale complains:

"Too many guys come to our shows, because it's loud and aggressive. Girls come to our shows and they get crushed. By the end of the show, you've got some overweight, balding middle-aged dude cornering us in the back being like, 'I love your band!' Maybe we need to write some more power ballads. Or get some electro/'80s/new-wave thing happening and get some asymmetrical haircuts. And then we'll get heaps of chicks coming to our shows."

Has Stockdale actually ever been to a Wolfmother show? The first time I saw these guys at Tonic, I was trying to go up to Stockdale because I thought he was Steve Bays from Hot Hot Heat. I figured, hey, if it was Bays, I was being nice, saying hi, checking in on the man behind "Bandages" and "Le Le Low." If it wasn't, and it was just this random guy who looked like Steve Bays, then I could recant pretty easily, effortlessly really, with something like, "You're not Steve Bays? Really? Well your face looks like him." Obviously this way is better than just saying the guy looks like Steve Bays because I'd be providing him with the evidence.



Thing was: I couldn't get to Stockdale/Bays because he was surrounded by heaps of chicks! So I don't know what Stockdale's talking about. Every time I've seen Wolfmother, I've never seen any balding middle-aged dude corner Stockdale/Bays and say how much they like his band. Balding middle-aged dudes know better. Instead, I've always imagined extremely hot chicks forming some manner of chick battalion, marching up to Stockdale/Bays three-star hotel room after the show, demanding child support checks for kids they haven't even had yet.

Is it possible Stockdale has no idea Steve Bays thinks he's in Wolfmother? I present to you the latest Rock and Roll Swindle. Steve Bays, the man behind "Cairo" and the b-side to "Middle of Nowhere," buys tickets to every Wolfmother show he can get his hands on. He goes to the show and hides in the bathroom for the entirety of the performance--maybe he has a book he's reading, maybe he has one of those SpyTec microphones to listen in on conversations in the girls' bathroom. This is Steve Bays we're talking about here. Both options seem entirely plausible.



So the show's almost over--one more encore to go, but Bays is already working the crowd. Everybody's so psyched Bays is in town--especially the heaps of chicks. "I'm something like the Wolfmother shaman," Bays tells one heap. They think that's pretty awesome Bays is in Hot Hot Heat and Wolfmother. "I know, it's crazy. It's like I'm working two part-time jobs." More heaps hear this and also want to sleep with Old Shaman Bays.

"Ladies, ladies, please!" Bays protests. He takes his sunglasses off and puts them on again five times in a row. "You should probably share yourselves with my bandmates too. They're stars too you know." The show is all over, so these heaps have to think fast. They don't want the rest of the band to be angry, but they're not thinking fast enough either. Bays is getting antsy. "Tell you what," he says. "Lemme call Stockdale and see what he thinks. Let's be democratic about this. Everybody deserves a vote." Bays puts his right hand in the shape of a telephone and pretends to call Stockdale. From the look on Bays' face, it seems like Stockdale's pretty amenable. "OK chicks, here's the deal. I talked to Stockdale. He said I should take all the chicks home tonight." Bays wipes a tear from one chick's cheek. "He said it's better that way for everybody."