The Glenmont Popes @ the Cotton Club, Atlanta. 2/21/98
Barry Mauer
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After his performance, the Popes' bass player, Randy Rawlinson, showed me his right hand. The tips of his first two fingers were bleeding and at the center of this bloody mess was torn skin and exposed tissue. During the show, Rawlinson was plucking the strings of his bass so furiously that his hand 
s looked like tarantulas on a hot plate.
Afterwards, his right hand looked like a left-over hot dish. I doubt he felt the pain from his fingers during the show; Rawlinson's energy, concentration, and raw pleasure made him insensible to pain. You probably could have jolted him with a cattle prod and it wouldn't have compared to the jolt of energy he got from playing. When a band works this good, nothing registers but the music.
A band at the top of their form can bring an audience into their sphere, can share their thrills. The Glenmont Popes provide themselves and their audience one thrill after another. At the peak of their set, my fiance said, "I feel like I'm on a huge roller coaster ride going a hundred miles an hour." The Popes know that a raging rock and roll band is supposed to make people feel like that.
The audience felt it at this show. Although the Glenmont Popes had only middle slot in a triple billing, the audience demanded three encores from them. Their final encore was a version of Doc Pomus' "Little Sister" set to a bad-ass "Peter Gunn Theme" rhythm, which made the whole thing even more lewd than the Elvis recording. Yet "Little Sister" was probably the lowest energy point in their performance. The preceding songs were that hot and fast.
The Glenmont Popes' songs pay tribute to punk and rockabilly sources, but their songs are basically blues tunes at twice the normal speed. Rodney Henry, the Popes' vocalist (and guitarist - I'll get to that later), sings with a smoky gritty voice about the enticements and tortures of love and sex, in the most unadorned terms; in the opening lines of their new album, Henry growls, "Come here baby you're making me a mess / all that stuff wrapped up inside that dress."
Afterwards, his right hand looked like a left-over hot dish. I doubt he felt the pain from his fingers during the show; Rawlinson's energy, concentration, and raw pleasure made him insensible to pain. You probably could have jolted him with a cattle prod and it wouldn't have compared to the jolt of energy he got from playing. When a band works this good, nothing registers but the music.
A band at the top of their form can bring an audience into their sphere, can share their thrills. The Glenmont Popes provide themselves and their audience one thrill after another. At the peak of their set, my fiance said, "I feel like I'm on a huge roller coaster ride going a hundred miles an hour." The Popes know that a raging rock and roll band is supposed to make people feel like that.
The audience felt it at this show. Although the Glenmont Popes had only middle slot in a triple billing, the audience demanded three encores from them. Their final encore was a version of Doc Pomus' "Little Sister" set to a bad-ass "Peter Gunn Theme" rhythm, which made the whole thing even more lewd than the Elvis recording. Yet "Little Sister" was probably the lowest energy point in their performance. The preceding songs were that hot and fast.
The Glenmont Popes' songs pay tribute to punk and rockabilly sources, but their songs are basically blues tunes at twice the normal speed. Rodney Henry, the Popes' vocalist (and guitarist - I'll get to that later), sings with a smoky gritty voice about the enticements and tortures of love and sex, in the most unadorned terms; in the opening lines of their new album, Henry growls, "Come here baby you're making me a mess / all that stuff wrapped up inside that dress."
- Glenmont Popes - Love in Flames www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004WJI4/qid=1136