I've been a fan of Queens Of The Stone Age since 1998 when my prematurely geriatric Irish-Italian tattooiste', Sparky, put their classic self-titled first cd on repeat as he sleeved me @ Steve's Tattoo in Madison, Wisconsin. Four hours is a long time to be exposed to 11 songs that on the average clock in at four and a half minutes, and what I noticed about the band as I lay prone in Sparky's chair, oozing ozone and endorphines, is that for all the crunchy chords & swagger, here is a metal band that pretty much caters to a sensibility that falls somewhere around 5 or 6 on the Kinsey Scale. I wasn't exactly sure why, maybe it's the final track ('I Was A Teenage Hand Model') or maybe it's all the keening dude-falsetto that frontman/frat-stud Josh Homme manages so effortlessly...Homme (built like a surfer and sporting a tufty $50+ haircut) must get lots and lots of Trimme...but I definitely don't hate myself for loving them. Also I think their variety of horny glambastic stomp fills a hole, now more than ever. Modest Mouse is all John Prine-y, warbly, swaddled in flannel (yet they still manage to chart high), Interpol is plucked and shaved, aloof and vaguely gothish, privately educated and not afraid to remind us that they're fundamentally pricks, but The Queens are accessible fuck-happy, reasonably intelligent dipshits: Douchebag Lite for Burning Men and Womyn.
Here's a live version of my favorite track off of 'Era Vulgaris': "Turnin' On The Screw".
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