Centerstage, red cowboy hat, red shirt, green pants, red socks, Danny Mason is shimmying like James Brown, strutting like Mick Jagger, it’s four songs into Shit Horses debut New York performance, and the band is finally gelling. The audience, who have seemed a little reticent, relax: it was gonna be a party!
Thursday afternoon I got an email from Paul Finn of Odessa Records, telling me Shit Horse would be leaving the comforts of Chapel Hill to prove it in front of the toughest audience out there at Mercury Lounge. “The band would love to see you. ” Helen Bach immediately bet me I would never make a midnight show but I told Paul I’d be there.
If you google Shit Horse name here, you’ll see I interviewed em, reviewed em live, reviewed their “They Shit Horses, Don’t They” cassette and interviewed the impeccable lead singer Danny Mason. At Odessa Festival I thought they were a brilliant shambles, an art soaked college project gone seriously bizarre with a topless woman squirting the audience with a water pistol and the line between audience and band seriously compromised.
Still, it was a hometown audience who knew the material and who supported the band. At Mercury Lounge the audience were, by definition of them having heard of Shit Horse alone, seriously, seriously hip. Shit Horse would need to be on their game to sell the notoriously jaded New York audience at the packed out room. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” a woman says to Mason before the set. “Can’t wait to see what you can deliver”. Mason, as friendly a guy as you’d want to meet, seems unfazed by the remark. “You’re gonna see,” he replies. “You’re gonna see.”
I would like to say Shit Horse were an unqualified success but it takes a few songs for the band to get it together. Theme song “Shit Horse” (“gonna rise”) a two minute sprint based around a two chord progression is just a clearing of the throat and “12 Horses” -perhaps their single greatest song, doesn’t sustain the toned fury it requires. “Don’t Smell Too Good (But It Keeps Me Alive)”, another fave for us fans, while tight, and while the band are a hurricane, is missing something, some intensity.
But then for no reason I can see they catch fire and the hipsters begin to figure that something really great is happening. Shit Horse have grown up and it seems to be due to guitarist (he plays for Americans In France as well) Josh Lajoie tight licks and cut throat guitar playing. The bass player (who I know well and whose name I am blanking on right this moment) less holds down the middle and more plays guitar, sometimes the little licks are like a jet propelled plane.
Along with a tight, smart drummer, Shit Horse isn’t what they were in April. They are a blues based hard rock outfit fronted by one of the most charismatic band leaders you’ll ever meet. Josh, in a scruffy beard,, has lost his glammy kidness, and the bassist veneer, which is so sweet offstage, is kinda intimidating tonight.
“Floating-Drifting”, an arty blues song on the album which I kinda missed, is outstanding live . The band are superb here, the banking vocals, crisp, melodic. A highlight on what is soon becoming one highlight after another.
From there through new song “Kingdom” (which may end up one of their best) to the end of the too short half hour or so set, the audience are cheering their heart out. Nothing exemplifies this better than “Get Out Of My Face” -a sliver on the album, but Danny tears it apart and the crowd gets the idea.
By the end Danny has the audience singing along with “Long Ride”: “RIDE SHIT HORSE RIDE”. It is a great moment and a huge promise.
Finn reports on the Odessa records website they are hoping to release a new album but one thing is sure after their first New York performance at a packed out Mercury Lounge. Shit Horse have come of age, they are a tight hard rock combo and if New York got the message so should everybody else.