Thin, theatrical Trimble played keyboards with a Mona Lisa smile, taking occasional swigs from a Bud long neck.
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Longhaired, feminine Glaser played guitar and sang with detached sultriness, never looking directly at the audience. Cunniff, with a streak of blond in her hair, coolly laid down bass tracks and engaged the audience with between-song banter, alternately praising Chicago and the Yankees. Four (six if you count the percussionist and DJ they brought to fill out the songs) very distinct personalities were up there working together as a band. And maybe because they are women, their confidence seemed like just that–not arrogance or bravado. Everything was more polished, from the set list, which was choreographed with a near-perfect mix of slow and fast and new and old, to the overall sound. Live, Luscious Jackson was more confident than ever. Instead they emphasize personal responsibility, as on the hooky, undulating “Mood Swing” (“My eyes are open wide / And I will rise to fight you / My delight won’t be denied / Mood swing I can’t let you win”). The sound is fuller, with fewer samples and even more live playing (the group says that’s because they’re more comfortable playing as a group), and the lyrics are more introspective–everything’s not the boys’ fault this time around. The new Daniel Lanois-produced Fever In Fever Out is a departure. Even the best of these songs–like “Strong Man” (“It takes a strong man to stand behind a strong woman”) and “Energy Sucker” (“Hey energy sucker / I’m a goddess / Not your mother”)–which decently document the difficulty assertive women can face in male-female relationships, tend to blame the boy. Most rock songs are about relationships, and Lord knows there’s nothing wrong with a good I-am-woman tune, but if you’ve ever spent time with a group of women who want to talk about nothing but men, you understand the problem here. If there’s anything that gets boring about Luscious Jackson’s earlier work, it’s that the view of relationships with men is consistently contentious. Like Beck or Schellenbach’s first band, the Beastie Boys, Luscious Jackson has a knack for making the old new again by recombining its parts. The 1994 follow-up, Natural Ingredients (so named because no men fiddled with it), has more live playing and includes more contributions from drummer Kate Schellenbach and keyboardist Vivian Trimble.
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Mostly the work of Cunniff and guitarist Gabby Glaser, the debut In Search of Manny (1992) is an inventive mix of sampling, hip-hop beats, soulful hooks, and even a few Ennio Morricone-esque guitar riffs. “We really can’t survive in a world where people only like one kind of music,” bassist-vocalist Jill Cunniff has said. Luscious Jackson’s musical tricks aren’t exactly unique, but tired they’re definitely not. Female musicians (and I mean those that play their own instruments) are about the only ones who can get me to force my way up to the stage anymore, even when they’re borrowing from the same tired rock conventions as men. It can be applied to rock bands, especially in a live setting. The lawn-mower theory can apply to just about anything we associate with one gender–who hasn’t been mesmerized watching a man comfort a child in public? Traditional gender roles haven’t been eroded so far that you see that every day.