Fergus & Geronimo Leave More Questions Than Answers, Friday at Rendezvous

Julia Mullen Gordon

Friday's Fergus & Geronimo show at Rendezvous left this attendee with more questions than answers. Such as: Who is Fergus, and who is Geronimo? What did they just say? What's their favorite Zappa album, collectively? And why aren't there more people here? But for all those questions, their set of zany rock appealed on that instinctive, toe-tapping level, even if did boggle the mind at times.

The four guys who make up Fergus & Geronimo seem like the type who would make good boyfriends. Smart, obviously, and funny (their between-song banter was top-notch), and a little sarcastic. Plus, not too fashion-conscious, which connotes a certain devil-may-care confidence. In their baggy plaid button-downs and uninspiring jeans, they looked like Pavement, circa 1995. Their songs may also owe something to the great Stephen Malkmus, with their freewheeling, at times complex structures and stream-of-consciousness lyrics.

But to really get to the bottom of F&G, you'd have to look farther back, to the poppy, wacky garage of bands like the Feelies and Young Fresh Fellows, and to '60s psych, a genre which took everything that came before, mixed it together, and reflected it back on the slant. I say this because practically the only lyric I understood the whole night was from "Strange Wool," a song in the style of a '60s slow dance that was about the molestation of their poor guitarist, Bob. The first line was something like, "She walked up to him, grabbed his dick, and asked 'Hey baby, do you wanna fuck?'" which, over the sweet, slow backdrop, reminds of nothing so much as Zappa or Beefheart. They also played a bombastic cover of "Girl U Want" by Devo, tipping their hand a bit as to their influences.

After a digression about Vietnamese sandwiches--"We tried to eat banh mi today and the store was out of bread."-- they played a few more songs from Unlearn, their debut album that came out in January on Seattle's Hardly Art, then did an encore without ever leaving the stage ("Thanks for having us back"). Their set was all too brief, leading to the final question of the night: When will they be coming back?

FYI: One purpose for their visit was to film a video with Hardly Art's Ruben Mendez for their next single "Girls With English Accents."

Random notebook dump: Their stage setup was maniacally neat, each cord arranged in perfect loops like a spring.

If you missed it: Video of the night, filmed by Bender Morestax, can be found at http://www.youtube.com/user/sketchyriser. But don't make the same mistake next time!

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