Crystal Stilts hails from Brooklyn, N.Y., and specializes in the sort of shoegaze-indebted garage rock that's so dangerously laid back it's just short of comatose. I've never caught 'em live, but my guess is that their shows are rapturous, daze-inducing events - religious drone-pop experiences, one suspects.
Aside from the Zombies, Clinic, or maybe the Velvet Underground, it's tough to imagine what artists and groups singer Brad Hargett, guitarist J.B. Townsend, keyboardist Kyle Forrester, bassist Andy Adler and drummer Frankie Rose might opt to cover. But Rocks Off - reasoning that at least a few of you will probably attend the quintet's pre-SXSW show tonight at Rudyard's - and that some of you likely harbor heckling tendencies - dreamed up a shortlist of requests we think you really oughta beg the band to take on.
Outkast, "Hey Ya": Because the prospect of hearing spacey-voiced Hargett drop his usual abstract conceptualizing to moan guffaw-bombs like "Now, I wanna see y'all on y'all baddest behavior/ Lend me some sugar, I am your neighbor!" is priceless. Crystal Stilts' arrangement would likely be less manic than the original, but that would only add to the overall deliciousness and surreality of such a performance.
Weird Al Yankovic, "The White Stuff": For those too young to know or too old to remember, "The White Stuff" was Weird Al Yankovic's spoof of New Kids On The Block's early-'90s hit single "The Right Stuff." Because NKOTB - the N'Sync of their day, only without a Justin Timberlake figure to justify their brief but intense status as pre-teen girl magnets - were already so inherently ridiculous, the parody wasn't completely effective.
See also: Weird Al's transformation of the Presidents of the United States of America's "Lump" into "Gump." "White" was more or less about how much Yankovic loved oreos; if Crystal Stilts could pull this one off with stony poker faces, they'd deserve awards - or at least a friendly round of backstage blowjobs.
The Misfits, "Ghouls' Night Out": This punchy pop-punk pogo can best be described as "irrepressible." Glenn Danzig and whoever was backing him up at the time must've ripped off a candy store and stuffed themselves full of M&Ms and candy corn before hitting the studio.
"Ghouls Night Out" flicks by in a hair under two minutes but seems to be over in just 10 seconds. I can't even begin to picture the Crystal Stilts consenting to touch this with a 10-foot pole, and while I've never heard anything about these guys going in for audience attacks, there's always a first time.
With the Women and Chase Hamblin, 9 p.m. tonight at Rudyard's, 2010 Waugh, 713-521-0521 or rudyards.s425.sureserver.com.
