In San Francisco’s gritty industrial DNA Lounge Sunday night (January 13), in front of flashing well-known corporate logos projected on the screen behind them, Paul Robb, James Cassidy and Kurt Harland Larson took the stage for one of their first full shows together in nearly 15 years. The trio, who are Information Society, is making a handful of stops, having played in Philadelphia and Seattle, and continuing on to Austin, TX (January 18).
Touring behind their most recently released 2007 disc Synthesizer, Information Society received a hearty welcome from the San Francisco crowd, who was eager to cheer from the very first thumping beat of the set. Kicking things off with “Peace & Love, Inc.” (from the 1992 album of the same name) Harland Larson, in pigtails and a leather jacket, waved a magic wand-type instrument, striking a synth pad as images of various members of the Bush administration blinked behind him.
Playing songs from their new album, including the haunting electro groove “The Seeds of Pain” and the stellar “Baby Just Wants,” whose background track is reminiscent of that used on the Bloodhound Gang’s ode to the Discovery Channel “The Bad Touch,” InSoc’s hypnotic beats inspired the crowd to issue robotic dance moves.
InSoc also performed some rarities, including 1982’s dark and danceable “Wrongful Death,” a song they hadn’t played since they’d first formed, and which they noted has never appeared on any album. Throughout the set, at a song’s completion, vocalist Harland Larson would shout, “Another song finished on time and under budget!” InSoc was playing to the devoted crowd, but clearly, also mindful of being economical.
As underwear and red bras found their way to the stage, the crowd bumped and jumped, and by the time the band began playing “Burning Bridges,” the show had turned into a full-on dance party. But it hadn’t necessarily started out that way. Spellbound, a tribute to Siouxie and the Banshees, opened at the top of the night—their heavily tattooed drummer pounding rhythms while the deep-voiced Elvira-looking lead singer issued guttural “huh!”s and smoothed her close-cropped Joan Jett black hair. She claimed it wasn’t a wig, but the crowd knew better.
When the sounds of Spellbound’s surf guitars faded, hard-edged Bay Area rockers the Tell-Tale Heartbreakers took over, filling the stage with smoke as lead singer Traci Lee strutted in high-heeled red boots. With a vocal sound that rests somewhere between Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O and The Donnas’ Brett Anderson, Lee led the quartet through the anti-stalking anthem “Haunted” and the thrash track “Tragedy,” both featured on the band’s recently released self-titled album. Heartbreak never rocked this much.
But the crowd had clearly come for Information Society. When the dance floor finally filled out after 11pm, DNA’s diverse patrons—young guys in collared shirts, girls in tube tops, corsets and striped t-shirts, a man dressed as a police officer and another in a Santa cap—all readied themselves for InSoc. And by the time the group asked “What’s On Your Mind?” there was only one thing on everyone’s mind: Information Society is pure energy.
More on Information Society here: www.myspace.com/informationsociety or www.informationsociety.us
