Everybody loves the Orphans anyway

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY

“The Orphans are all soft and gentle as fresh blooming flowers.”
—Mike McHugh, Orphans producer and engineer, as told to Kat Jetson, 2003

If you saw the Orphans, you saw the Orphans do something and from the live shows I’m sure we all got stories if not persistent scorch marks and stains—they were shy on barfspotting before the first (and only) LP came out (on Unity Squad) but it’s not like those kinds of things weren’t happening, and I’m bound to report at least a little of it. Like somebody’s birthday (?) at Que Sera with Jenny (sings) in a COCAINE HIGH T-shirt and Jenny flipped-out tipping into monitors and Wade (bass) clubbing his bass like it just jumped out of the water to bite him, and slowly the tide began to rise, and soon his baser nature began to dribble out in bubbly strings between his teeth—people love to claim stories like that, but it remains one of the few times I actually saw an involuntary emission of any serious bodily substance (not blood and spit) during the performance of a song. But apparently it happened in San Francisco, too, and other places besides. Brandon (drums) was and is a ferocious drummer—him on the same bill with Street Trash counts as technical instruction as much as entertainment—and he and Dan (guitar) didn’t show up in Orphans war stories as much because they confined their ferocity to the little space around their instruments, and Jenny and Wade did because—let’s call it ‘charisma,’ and let someone else sweep up the glass. As they said a long time ago—“If you can’t stand the heat . . . ” (says Jenny) “Don’t stand in front of the bass player!” (says Wade).

But you know, I been to the zoo and I saw a rhino fight a big old pole and I didn’t review that, so it’s not like we’re trading on nothing but fearless physicality here. Orphans were fearlessly cheerful live (duck, you sucker) but they recorded, too, and then nerds as one intoned solemnly: “Daaaaangerhouse.” Which was a legit comparison, particularly if they meant the Bags, and only half-so for Avengers, who didn’t play as fast and who weren’t ever as funny, and probably more for Deadbeats (“Let’s Shoot Maria” would have been a great Orphans cover) and Black Randy (“Step into the garden, it’s time to light the tiki!”) and now this is suddenly too nerdy so I’ll stop. (But also Damned for the laffs—“Fish” would have been a good Orphans cover—and the velocity and I feel like if you slowed the songs halfway, Alice Cooper would post a summons from the golf course.)

So klassick ponk: fast, a little loose (but well-played—Brandon could cram a fill into any tiny pocket) and ridiculous and funny (live tapes of Jenny giggling into the mic on 4-beat breaks, or messing with her own songs—“I made your girlfriend mad—sorry!”) and if I don’t remember all the shows, it’s just because they were so damn reliable so I felt no need to take notes. I’m probably the first human to put those particular words together for the Orphans but if something broke or barfed or toppled over, it just made the flow go faster. As the man once said: “If Niagara Falls was rock & roll, they’d be lying under it, and me too.” Or as the band once said to lucky reporter Kat Jetson about how they put poked-open condoms in the very first copies of their very first 45: “Surprised you didn’t get a wet one!” So this Sunday will be their reunion for a real last show—goodbye wasn’t sloppy enough the last time.

THE ORPHANS WITH GEHENNA, STREET TRASH AND PACT OF ASHLAR  SUCKA FREE SUNDAYS AT QUE SERA | 1723 E SEVENTH ST | LONG BEACH 90804 | SUN 9PM | CONTACT VENUE FOR COVER | 21+ | MYSPACE.COM/SUCKASUCKASUCKAFREE

Tags: mp3, que sera, sucka free sundays, the orphans