Much like Godflesh last week, The Jesus Lizard were one of those bands that for a long time I had heard of but never actually heard. I remember that they put out a split single with Nirvana that I completely failed to buy at the time; and that frontman David Yow was arrested for indecent exposure at some festival or other after playing a game of "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" with Courtney Love of Hole.
And that was about the sum total of my knowledge until an afternoon of digging around in my local second hand record den revealed a Jesus Lizard rich seam.
Not that it was an especially enlightening experience at the time. Mostly I came to the conclusion that it was all a barely listenable racket. And whilst I diligently gave the records another try every now and then, I still didn't really get it until I saw them play live at one of the ATP festivals a few years back. And with Yow crawling over the crowd towards me, malicious intent written in sweat across his writhing features as he howled "I can't swim, I CAN'T SWIM", I realised with horror that the jarring, angular, smashed melodies of the music had spun a paralysing hex on me and I was sure to die.
And in that moment, I got it.
You won't like them.
Website: nope
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/thejesuslizardpage
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Jesus-Lizard/10640406914
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jesus_Lizard
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