A couple weeks ago I saw the Black Lips live.

The first time I wrote about the Black Lips about a year ago, it was because I had missed one of their concerts. At the time, the Atlanta band had just released “Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo,” an energetic live album recorded, according to the band, at a bar in Tijuana. The bar had built a reputation for rowdy, debauched shows that frequently involved nudity and the discharging of bodily fluids and fireworks.

When I saw the Black Lips, the band itself was somewhat tame in comparison to the crowd, not that the crowd wasn’t feeding off the band. The show took place in the memorial union at the University of Wisconsin in a relatively small space surrounded by tables. The University of Wisconsin has a wet campus and the 50 or so people crowded around the band appeared to have taken full advantage of this policy.

Only seconds into the Black Lips set the crowd was throbbing with people jumping up and down while those in the back were sent stumbling backwards into tables.

The crowd was probably less than 10 feet deep, but that didn’t deter people from crowd surfing. As plastic pitchers began being tossed about, hitting heads and the chandelier, some poor girl obviously in charge of keeping the peace came up to a mike and held a hand in the air to try and quiet the crowd. At this point, one of the guys in the Black Lips began chanting “hail Hitler, hail Hitler, hail Hitler!”

As she tried to calm the crowd down, the Black Lips kept on cracking jokes, but with a streak of bemused irony similar to the shtick of the Beastie Boys early in their career. At one point, one of the Black Lips said, “Whatever you do, don’t listen to anything she says.” The crowd obeyed him.

I stood near the back, and I could only see the band intermittently through the gaps between shoulders or when I stood on a chair. By the end, the band was pretty much indistinguishable from the sweaty throng surrounding it.

The music was good. The Black Lips are now grizzled veterans of the road, and they attack their catchy garage punk with a loose but feverish spirit. Live, the Black Lips sounded a lot like the psychedelic garage rock found on the “Nuggets” compilations, and a few times during the show I wondered if this is what fraternity parties were like in the ’60s.

But the Black Lips are not just a good live band; they also put out good studio albums. Before the show began, I bought “Good Bad Not Evil” — a nod to the Shangri-Las’ “Give Him a Great Big Kiss” — on vinyl at the band’s merch table. Released last year, it’s full of scruffy, irreverent rock ’n’ roll and is the band’s most accomplished release to date.



‘Sound Opinions’

I recently began listening to the long-running rock ’n’ roll radio show “Sound Opinions.” Available as a podcast free through iTunes or on its Web site (www.soundopinions.org), “Sound Opinions” broadcasts out of Chicago on Chicago Public Radio and is hosted by Chicago Sun-Times music critic Jim DeRogatis and Chicago Tribune music critic Gregg Kot.

I rarely agree 100 percent with their opinions, DeRogatis’ anyway, but it’s always an entertaining show. And they normally have good guests ranging from legends such as Bob Mould and Mavis Staples to newer bands I like such as the Fiery Furnaces and the New Pornographers. While they tend to skew a little rockist, I also appreciate that they are as likely to seriously discuss the new album from Janet Jackson as they are indie albums from Beach House and The Raveonettes.

However, my favorite aspect of the show is also its most cringe-inducing — their earnestness. From the show’s opening that includes quotes from movies about the power of music, to DeRogatis’ tendency to quote his favorite passages from a song they just played with rapturous glee — my favorite being the time he quoted Chris Brown’s “Hold Up” — there is nothing remotely hip about these two. And in an age of music criticism dominated by sneering blogs and niche online magazines, I find that refreshing.



Jeremiah Tucker writes for The Joplin (Mo.) Globe.