The Jesus Lizard
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Show marked the beginning of the end of the Jesus Lizard's salad days as poster boys of the indie rock scene, for reasons that have little to do with the record itself. In 1993, the New York rock club CBGB celebrated its 20th anniversary by staging a series of shows featuring many of the great bands that had played there in the past, as well as leading bands from the (then) current alternative scene; the two-week festival was recorded for a proposed live album. The Jesus Lizard played the festival and delivered one of the strongest performances of the fortnight. Plans for the album fell through, but Collision Arts, the Warner Brothers-distributed label that financed the project, realized they had taped a live show from one of the hottest bands in alternative rock and opted to release the Jesus Lizard's set as a separate album. With Collision Arts demanding no further commitments, the band agreed to cooperate, and suddenly word spread through the rock underground that the Jesus Lizard had signed with an ideologically incorrect major label. In retrospect, Show hardly seems to merit much controversy; it's an admirably accurate recording of the Jesus Lizard's powerhouse live show, and captures David Yow's fascinatingly unclean dementia on tape in all its glory, while Duane Denison, David Sims, and Mac McNeilly deliver the tight, feral assault that made them famous. But the Jesus Lizard were hardly the first band whose charisma was a matter of more than just sound, and while Show proves they sounded really good, it doesn't quite communicate what made them great. In short, it's just another live album, albeit from an excellent live band, but nothing that should have seriously effected anyone's credibility. But the record itself was hardly the point of anyone's argument. Mark Deming, All Music Guide Tracks:
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