The Jesus Lizard return to rewreck rock

"There were times when I could get away with fucking murder," recalls David Yow "Smash some guy in the face, kiss the next guy, squeeze some girl's tit, and hit the next guy over the head with a microphone."

Dirty old men: The Jesus Lizard return to rewreck rock — by Daniel Brockman

They were heady, giddy times: black was white, up was down, and scruffy long-haired drug addicts dressed like John Fogerty were toppling pop royalty on the Billboard charts. The cultural upheavals of the early '90s rang as a signal that some had grown tired of the pompous, preening megalomaniacal myth of the pop star. This shift had unintended consequences, however, as some of the strangest music of rock's storied history wound up on a worldwide stage behind a veneer of what sure seemed normal — regular-looking guys and gals creating really, really twisted music. Exhibit A: the charmed career of Chicago-via-Austin art-noise punks the Jesus Lizard, who, reincarnated, come to the Paradise this Saturday.

Lizard mouthpiece David Yow sums up the chasm between his band's innocent appearance and the demonic demeanor of their music: "Some people did perceive us as dark, or angry, or crazy, or whatever — but we were kind of just . . . normal guys who liked to . . . enjoy stuff."

One can only imagine what lurks between those ellipses. During the band's initial run, from their 1989 debut, Pure EP (Touch and Go), to their major-label 1998 swan song, Blue (Capitol), Yow and company became internationally infamous for 1) putting on the most incendiary live shows of any band around; 2) sporting the tightest rhythm section in rock; and 3) having, in Yow, one of the genre's most perverse (and prolific) minds.