VIVA: It's amazing to me that you brought
Andre back from the grave. We called Silky the album of the year last
year. Lots of Portland strippers have been dancing to it. It's sexy music!
Margaret: Well, the music is really sexy,
but the words I'm not into at all. He degrades women.
VIVA: But you may not know that unless you
know Andre like you do.
Margaret: Take "Pussy Stank"
[song off Silky]. Pussy doesn't stink if you take care of it!
The Demolition Doll Rods are fast and nasty, dangerous and delightful. Every time they come to town, Portland's dress-up crowd shows up en masse to be run over by DDR's absolutely exuberant, skin-friendly RAWK. The formula is so simple and so potent that their garage-trash Cramps-like aesthetique has caught on like wildfire across the land. Because they're an all-girl band, Danny Doll (also ex- of the super-fab Gories) does drag and is a truly dreamy chica. He also plays the most smokin' lead guitar that side of the Mississippi. Margaret Doll sings, songwrites and plays rhythm guitar, and her little sister, Thumper, keeps their savage beat on a minimalist drum kit.
The Doll Rods are perhaps most famous for their teensy weensy outfits. Stage wear generally includes a thong paired with any imaginable junk somehow affixed to their nipples. Past pasties have included: dog biscuits, cat food lids, hub caps, plungers, tail lights, dog poop, rubber eyeballs, 8-track tapes, and, of course, little fluffy cars. On this particular engagement, they had plastic doll faces taped to their nipples. Ooh la la!
The music is heavenly--manna for the rock-starved. It is garage-y and Detroit-influenced (their hometown), white-trash and Warhol. One of their biggest crowd-pleasers was a call-and-response romp with lyrics: "I wanna be just like Lupe Velez.... and drown in a toilet bowl! I wanna be just like Edie....Ciao Manhattan! I wanna be just like Janis....speedball! I wanna be just like Jimi Morrison...drown in the tub!" [My instincts tell me this was "I Wanna O.D." off the Jon Spencer/Mick Collins-produced Tasty. Their new record, T.L.A., is out now on Matador.] The Doll Rods threw in two raunchy, guitar-heavy covers, too, "Hot Child in the City" and "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing." By then the minions were totally blissed out, turned on, and rockin' in the free world. But back to Andre Williams....
VIVA: So, you hung out with Andre WIlliams
quite a bit last year--he said that that was your butt on the cover of
Silky [Williams'1998 release].
Margaret: Yup. I designed that album cover.
That was all me.
VIVA: How'd you meet up with Andre?
Margaret: It was all my goof up. I always
liked listening to his Fortune stuff. We played with him and he loved
us and was dancing the whole show.
Dan: Well, he loved our music, but he especially loved you.
Margaret: He was ALL over me. My girlfriend put her arm around me and
she's like, "Cheap suit. Stay away." And whenever I think about
it to myself now I think, man, I should've listened!
VIVA: Why?
Margaret: Some people you meet and you're
really excited you got to meet them, but with some people it would've
been better had they just remained a mystery. Some of his stories are
great, but the stories are stories, and that's all they are. Stories.
And with me he was never a nice person.
VIVA: Really?!?
Dan: Well, he can be really charming....
Margaret: "I've got a Mercedes that you can drive... I've got a mansion
in New Orleans..." He'll do whatever it takes to get attention. He's
like a chameleon, whatever you want, he'll put that hat on.
VIVA: A showman. So you're responsible for
resurrecting Andre Williams.
Margaret: Oh yeah! I got up the WHOLE thing.
He had no money! He stayed in my house!!
Dan: Me and Mick from the Gories wrote all the songs and laid down the
basic tracks, just guitar and drums, and Andre came up with the words.
Margaret: He read somewhere that he was the king of lascivious lyrics.
He asked me what lascivious meant.
VIVA: He told us that someone once told him
he had a cult following, and he thought that meant the KKK!
Margaret: Cult following!! He never would've
known about that if he hadn't met us!
Margaret: Oh, no. If you hear him talk about it he doesn't talk about pussy smells nice. Pussy is not nice.
Dan: Well, anyways.
VIVA: Alright, alright. Enough of ol' Andre.
How 'bout your pick for the sexiest song of all time?
Thumper: I like "Sexual Healing."
Dan: Anything Hendrix....or Iggy.
Margaret: Eartha Kitt's really sexy.
Dan: Yeah! And Tina Turner. Tina Turner's
the queen! Tina Turner is the king and queen!
VIVA: Sexiest guitar sound?
Dan: Well, I've heard some Wayne Kramer
stuff that's...
Margaret: There's NOTHING sexy about Wayne
Kramer!!
Dan: Shut up! He's got the moves.
Margaret: He's a giant dildo!
VIVA: Sexiest stage wear?
Margaret: Flesh.
Dan: FLESH! And boots.
VIVA: The first time I saw the Demolition
Doll Rods, you were playing with the Cramps.
Margaret: The Cramps are the nicest people
in the world. We had Thanksgiving dinner with them.
VIVA: Really?! What was Thanksgiving with
the Cramps like?
Margaret: They had orange juice, and we
ate before we went because we're all vegans.
VIVA: You three or the Cramps, too?
Margaret: Lux and Ivy are vegan, too.
VIVA: Was that the sexiest Thanksgiving EVER?
Margaret: It was the cutest! Those two
are so cute. I've never had a sexy Thanksgiving.
Thumper: Actually, Ivy did the Scorpion [yoga] for us. That was pretty
hot.
VIVA: Sexiest place to play in the world?
Thumper: The bathtub!
VIVA: Maybe if you're the drummer!
Margaret: There's this club in Philadelphia.
It was an old burlesque theater and it is really beautiful.
Dan: The Trocadero.
VIVA: Sexiest drink?
Margaret: We don't drink.
Thumper: Odwalla Superfood!
Margaret: We're really sexy, aren't we?
Dan: I've never really equated alcohol with sexiness.
Margaret: To me, it's the complete opposite of sexy. Most people that
you meet up with who've been drinking are not very sexy. They're like
spitting in your face and they waver back and forth. And if you've been
hoping that something's gonna happen with this person, and then of course
the obvious: too many drinks. It's like, "Helloooo down there!"
Dan: To me what's sexy is seeing fine little kids dance. Hot little girls and hot little boys shakin' their stuff. That's sexy!
After the tape shut off, Margaret and Dan ranted for a good fifteen minutes on Andre WIlliams. Dan said he always was and always will be a pimp, and Margaret related how she'd come home from work and Andre would be at her house demanding his "cut," money for chicken, rum, and lotto tickets. Horrific tales of their European tour with Mr. Williams had my jaw on the floor of their van [leopard sheets in the loft!]. But I still love Andre, even if he is a coked-out cheap-suited pimp! I'm just not gonna let him crash at my pad should the occasion arise.
Margaret: Don't get us wrong....we don't dislike Andre....It's just that...it's different.