The Mad Love for Mad Anthony benefit on July 26, organized by the ever-wonderful Kelly Thomas, was a rousing success by any reputable yardstick. The Southgate House Revival was packed to the rafters with friends, fans and family turning out to support Mad Anthony, whose late June van accident had destroyed their touring conveyance, a good deal of their equipment and forced them off the road for an indeterminate amount of time while they heal.
There was plenty to see that night, and I was only able to sample a bit of it, but Smoke Signals rattled the rafters in the Lounge, and Martin Luther & the Kings tested the structural integrity of the Revival Room with an intensity and fury that rivaled most upper class hurricanes. Ryan Malott brought the Lounge back to a slow simmer with a nice acoustic set, The Black Owls, fresh from their triumphant Bunbury gig two weeks previous, filled the Sanctuary with the glorious Glam/Punk hybrid that they've perfected over the past five years and The Sundresses closed things out with a fabulous nutkick of a set featuring their brand new permanent drummer Dave Reid.
Between the money collected at the door, the merch sales and the proceeds from the silent auction, Mad Anthony collected a tidy sum to help defray their medical and related expenses and assist them in getting through the next few weeks of convalescence (and part time gigs for guitarists Ringo Jones and Adam Flaig, who are doing acoustic dates while drummer Marc Sherlock recuperates from a fractured neck vertebrae). The band wrote online that around $5,000 was raised.
For all that was accomplished, there is still more to be done. It will be impossible to erase all of the bills that resulted from Mad Anthony's accident, which came just weeks after the trio had quit their jobs and given up their apartments to devote their full attention to music and touring.
There will be another Mad Anthony benefit, this time at downtown's Mainstay Rock Bar, tomorrow (Friday), featuring music from Mangrenade, Knife the Symphony, Mala in Se, Thee Makeshifts, Alone at 3 AM and others It will be yet another opportunity to show your love for the boys.
Right now, though, I need to tell you why I hate Mad Anthony.
I hate Mad Anthony because they're so good. I hate that they've made me love them as a band, appreciate them as friends and care for them as if they were my own sons. How shitty is that?
I hate that I love their albums so much that I often play them when I should be listening to something that I'm supposed to be writing about, something that's likely twice as long and half as good. And so I listen to Mad Anthony twice. I hate that.
I hate Ringo. He's like a big dopey Labrador who loves his owners unconditionally no matter how badly they treat him, and his abusive owners are the harsh realities of life and the cruel indifference of the music
industry. And no matter how much they beat him, he just comes back for more, wagging his ass and smiling like he's won the lottery. Then he straps on a guitar, hits a chord, opens his mouth, shrieks a lyric and the whole thing sounds like a tornado tearing through a ball bearing factory, and somehow that makes him smile even more. I hate that.
I hate Adam. He's got that smirk permanently tattooed on his face, which makes it seem as though he knows something that you don't. And dammit, he probably does. I suspect his secret knowledge is that he would throttle his guitar and scream songs with the unbridled fury of a charging wildebeest whether his audience was no more than you and me and the waitstaff in some stinky little club or an entire arena filled with debauched pirates, and he would play with the same authenticity and passion in either event. I hate that, too.
And I hate Marc. He's thin enough to be mistaken for one of his drumsticks (you'd think a good stiff wind would blow him into the next county) and then he sits on the stool and hits the kit with subtlety and invention and musicality and the big hairy power of at least one of John Bonham's arms. And he does it all with the joy of a kid on Christmas morning. I really hate that.
So here we stand, charged with the moral duty of raising funds for Mad Anthony while they recuperate from the accident that destroyed their van, busted up their equipment and nearly killed them. I really would have hated them for that. Marc got bounced around with the gear in the back of the van like a pebble in a rock polisher and wound up snapping something relatively important in his neck, and both he and Ringo collected a Frankenstein's monster-like number of staples and stitches. Adam was mildly bruised and cut, because his secret knowledge that night was apparently, "Wear your fucking seat belt."
At any rate, tomorrow we'll gather with the intention of dropping a few semolians into the collection plate for the purpose of getting Mad Anthony back on its feet. And it seems to me that, since we're the ones raising the cash, we should have some say in how the funds are directed. So here are a few suggestions:
• Against all odds, the boys may have come out of the accident even prettier than before. I think maybe we should send them to a cut-rate, unlicensed plastic surgeon who takes buy-one-get-one-free coupons who will sort of ugly them up a little. Not on purpose, of course. That would be unethical. But it could be a good career move to come away from this experience with the kind of scars that can be seen from across a city block.
• The fact that there was an accident at all could possibly call the band's driving skills into question. On the one hand, maybe it was skill that saved them all. On the other hand, it may well have gone like this: "Look, shiny
thing..." Water, crash, roll, blood, hospital. So unless we want to be here every few months shelling out contributions to the Mad Anthony School of Sideways Driving, maybe we should insist that their next tour vehicle is an armored troop carrier with an interior made entirely of memory foam mattresses.
• Ringo and Adam are currently out on the road making up their dates by playing acoustic sets, but it might be a good idea for the foreseeable future to replace their whole rig with banjos and mandolins, at least until they prove that they can haul around big boy equipment and not wrestle with it in mid-air. Plus it would just be interesting to see if Mad Anthony could go full-metal-porch Tillers for awhile.
• There is at least one conspiracy theory (which I started) that states Mad Anthony got into this accident with deliberate certainty because they were afraid to get back in the studio to follow up their last album. I think we should make them use part of tonight's proceeds to record a triple album, Mad Anthony's version of All Things Must Pass or Wings Over America. Of course, a Mad Anthony triple album wouldn't be much longer than one side of a Grateful Dead bootleg jam, but it would still be a lot of work. Triple album, bitches.
• And finally, I think they should get a jaunty bow tie for Marc's neck brace. Because nothing on earth is going to make that neck brace look remotely cool other than a sporty bow tie. Even a drawing of a bow tie would be a step in the right direction. Or an ascot. Look what Hugh Hefner's done for the ascot. Of course, he has a billion dollars to back up the ascot. Let's stick with the jaunty bow tie for Marc.
Now let me tell you what I love about Mad Anthony. I love that they are louder than God's righteous rage and as indestructible as fucking cockroaches. I love that Ringo and Adam are actually doing the aforementioned acoustic thing until Marc is healthy, and I love that it's probably just as intense as when they plug in. I love that they didn't ask for help and when people offered, they said, basically, "Buy our music, and if you've already got it, buy another local band's music." That speaks volumes to their character, as a band and as people. Give them your money, give them your love, give them your respect, because Mad Anthony deserves all of it.
If you can't make it to the Mainstay show, there are a number of additional ways to get in on MadAid. You can purchase the band's music and merch, either through Phratry Records (phratryrecords.com) or from the band directly (madanthonyband.com or madanthony.bandcamp.com). If you're more inclined to give directly to the band, you can send your donation to them through their Paypal account ([email protected]).
Do all you can for them, because every time Mad Anthony hits the stage, they go to the end of the chain for you.
