"If you don't like this, blame the rappers," said Nick Diamonds three quarters into the second public performance of Th' Corn Gangg - the new hip-hop project from the floppy haired guy and the older guy in the Unicorns. The loose performance (do these dudes do it any other way?) went down over the weekend at The Echo in LA, and while the pink outfits were gone, the smart aleck attitude wasn't. When someone in the crowd asked where "the other guy" was, Diamonds told them to get their P-fork on for the story. Then he tossed off something about them "not getting along" anymore.
Diamonds handled the keyboards and the guitar (at separate times) and J'aime Tambour played drums while local MCs Subtitle, Busdriver and one of the cats from MERL freestyled over new tracks and reinterpretations of "Tuff Ghost", "Ghost Mountain" and "Ready To Die" from Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone. (Wow, that was a lot of information to convey in one sentence.) The bouts of abstract lyricism were broken up when the duo was joined by other musicians - including Steve McDonald from Redd Kross - for a four song rock set of new ish that was decidedly tougher than the quirk pop that the Unicorns got known for.
It's unclear if the crowd was totally convinced to start sippin' on Corn syrup, but the white girl who got onstage and danced like a Jewish grandmother hearing "Hey Ya" at a wedding (finger in the air, mouth agape "ain't I funky" look on her face) seemed to be enjoying it. But the guys getting paid to play maybe weren't as convinced. Diamonds final words before he left the stage were: "Thank you, I hope we didn't disappoint you too much."