“We Do Not Sound As Good As We Look”

Last night I went to see this new band called The Panic Channel, which is three members of the most recent incarnation of Jane’s Addiction, minus Perry Farrell, plus a new singer who’s a former VJ from MTV back when MTV still showed videos. Can you even remember that far back? It seems like a million lifetimes ago.

Anyway, there were Stephen Perkins, Dave “Nipple Rings” Navarro, Chris Chaney and Steve Issacs (!) on the stage of Avalon – which used to be The Limelight – and they were all rocking “the look” and obviously trying to be less than a total mortifying horrorshow of lameness, but all I kept thinking was, “Gee wiz, what a fucking waste of Stephen Perkins drumming talents!”

Because The Panic Channel is not a good band.

I can’t quite put my finger on why three awesome musicians and a pretty boy don’t add up to some kind of kick ass force of nature…but it just wasn’t happening. They reminded me of Stone Temple Pilots right about the time Scott Weiland got busted for smack for the third of fourth go-round and the other three members formed the band Talk Show so they could forget about their pain. If The Panic Channel were even a fraction as awesome sounding as their website would lead us to believe, they would sound like Led Zeppelin plus The Beatles plus the original Alice Cooper band or something. But no.

Another thing that made me sad was seeing how the new owners of Avalon have completely destroyed all the dark charm and wild spirit of the former Limelight, a righteous dance club built in an old gothic church on Sixth Avenue, where I spent many Sunday nights dancing my cares away to the songs of Siouxsie and The Banshees, LA Guns and Soundgarden, and feeling like some kind of god. Good times. Now the former “Rock & Roll Church” looks like a bowling alley or a free clinic or god knows what. How very very tragic. At least I got in for free.