Review: The Mighty M.O.D.

Two facts need to be known about Billy Milano, lead singer of M.O.D.:

1. He is a big dude
2. He is a fucking bad ass

Number one was obvious the minute he hefted his mass onto the stage at Big V’s in St. Paul yesterday night. The dude has some size to him. For the benefit of those in the audience who may have been blind, he continuously made reference to this fact. “I weigh 300 fucking pounds!” Actually, he never used the word fat, nor did he mention that he’s only somewhere in the five and a half foot range, so perhaps the blindies had a picture of a tall muscular guy. That image may be a better match to his hardcore thrash vocal stylings, but is definitely not the case.

Strangely, he didn’t seem to see any conflict of interest as he peppered the set of M.O.D. and S.O.D. classics with multiple versions of the song “Bubble Butt,” about chicks with fat butts. Now, it’s possible that he was hiding a chiseled granite ass under his track pants, but I kind of doubt it.

When it comes to fact number two, I’m not talking about bad ass as in he plays bad ass thrash metal, but that’s true too. The guy knows how to put together a set list. Despite the fact that, between M.O.D. and S.O.D., he has put out ten albums and two EPs in the last 20 or so years, the vast majority of the songs were pulled from only two: U.S.A. for M.O.D. and Speak English or Die. These are the two albums that everyone knows and loves and he knows it. In fact, only two songs were played that did not appear on one of those two albums: “Alphabet City Stomp,” off the new disc, Red, White & Screwed (which is actually really awesome) and Fear’s “I Love Living in the City,” which they did on the Gross Misconduct album.

Despite the fact that these tunes are a couple decades old, he played them like he just wrote them yesterday: with all the intensity and energy his big ass can muster, banging his head and letting the sweat from his long curly hair slop all over the folks in the front row. Other bands seem to get bitter when fans only want to hear old stuff. M.O.D. is not one of those bands. They don’t care, as long as everyone’s having fun and thrashing their asses off. But that’s not what I’m talking about when it comes to fact number two.

I’m also not talking about bad ass as in super offensive, though that is also true. The guy has a habit of jabbering on and on, making all sorts of racist remarks about dot heads and fags. That shit just flows out of him naturally. M.O.D. are not being offensive as a joke, although they are often quite funny in that “Man, I should not be laughing at this, but it is goddamn hilarious,” sort of way. They are not being offensive as some sort of performance art. They aren’t doing it because they want to piss people off, although they don’t really care if that happens along the way. They are being offensive because Billy Milano is a legitimately offensive person, with a head full of misinformed politics that he thoroughly enjoys sharing with the world as if he’s some hairy, magnanimous emperor sharing gifts with the humble metal kingdom he reigns over. When he segued into the tune A.I.D.S. (Anally Inflected Death Sentence) by complaining that people are too concerned about saving dogs and other animals, but they don’t do enough to rescue gerbils from gay people who stick them up their asses, there is a pretty decent chance that he actually means it.

Fact number two is actually tricky. I’m talking about the classic definition of bad ass. It was hard to see at first. It’s kind of hidden. You see, M.O.D. aren’t interested in being one of those bands that just gets up on stage, thrashes hard through their set and then takes off. Instead, the time spent playing music is very small compared to the time spent goofing around and bullshitting. With a huge smile cutting through his beard, Billy Milano spent ten minute chunks of time telling stories about how television writer and producer Larry David paid him 20,000 bucks to use “Bubble Butt” in some show with Kirstie Alley and how he was madly in love with some buff wrestling chick named O.D.B. (“One Dirty Bitch,” not “Old Dirty Bastard,” who is not a chick nor a wrestler and is also dead). While watching him chuckle through these tales, it’s easy to think, this is no bad ass, this is just some goofball who may have been a bad ass at one point in his life because he has tattoos.

Any semblance of bad-assness was further buried when he introduced the song “Get a Real Job,” by talking about getting old and how when he sees hot chicks, all he really wants to do is cuddle with his dogs. That’s just plain not very bad ass.

And he sure didn’t seem bad ass when a couple of dudes started brawling in the mosh pit. When the fists started flying, he did not say, “Yeah, kill each other you wingnuts!” Instead, he whined, “Come on guys, don’t fight. There’s no point in fighting.”

I, on the other hand, love seeing fights at shows. I don’t want to be in them, but I’m certainly not interested in being that peace maker guy who gets in the middle and tries to reason with a couple of goons who have violence on their beer-soaked minds. It amazes me how silly it can look sometimes. The two hairy guys in this brawl, for example, were anything but graceful. They just shouted, pushed each other around and tossed a few meandering jabs. I couldn’t even hear the sound of them landing over the buzz of the crowd. Weak. Yawn. I’ve seen grade school playground fights with more pizzazz.

Further more, Mr. Milano didn’t seem to mind it when people heckled him. All he did was make some silly comment back about teabagging them or that he knew he was offensive and didn’t care whether anyone agreed with him or not.

At least, that’s all he did at first.

When he made the comment about all the dot heads in this country screwing everything up, it pushed one dude in the audience over the edge. This guy moved close to the stage in his North Face jacket and his middle finger raised, shouting shit at Billy Milano. “Just play the song.”

Some girl in the front row, who Mr. Milano had mentioned he chatted with on Myspace (also, not bad ass), slapped Mr. Middle Finger in the face. Of course, Billy Milano yucked it up and mocked the guy for being bitch slapped. Then they played “Speak English or Die”

After one more run through of “Bubble Butt,” the band started to introduce their last song. The offended dude in the North Face jacket approached the stage again, shouting something. Again, the girl in the front row slapped him across the face. The guy wandered around for a moment, rubbing his face.

I kept my eye on this dude as he paced around the mosh pit area. He was clearly thinking of something. I could almost see the light bulb turn on over his head as he approached the stage one more time.

“There’s still time for you to…” was all that I heard him say.

Whatever the rest of it was, it must have been pretty good, because the smile dropped right out of Milano’s curly beard. Like the mighty hippopotamus, Billy charged off the stage, fists flying. In one brilliantly fluid movement, he used his 300 pounds to quickly plow the guy through the crowd about twenty feet into the nearest wall, slamming him into it and commencing with the punches. There was no talking, no playing around, no sissy pushing matches. Just straight to the decking, the way a fight should be. The way a true bad ass knows a fight should be. “There’s no point in fighting.” Pffff.

After a suitable amount of beating, Big V’s bouncers casually strolled in and pulled the two apart.

Billy moved back to the stage for the final tune of the night, a violence-charged rendition of S.O.D.’s “United Forces.” I smiled and shouted along. My standards for what I expect at a thrash show had just been raised.

P.S. Out of the three shows I have been to at Big V’s, two of them have involved brawls between unruly crowd members and the headlining bands. I’m starting to think this shit happens there a lot. From now on, I’m calling the place Big Violence.

P.P.S. In Defence played before M.O.D. and they ruled it. Lead singer Ben Crew was out of town, so the band needed two alternates to fill his shoes: One of the other guys (the guitar player, I think), plus that hairy dude from the band Faggot. The hairy dude’s seemingly natural hairiness was augmented by the hairy pink gorilla costume he wore as he rolled around the mosh pit singing tunes like “Boom Box Crew” and “Call More Dudes.” The energy level was through the fucking roof, rampage style.

P.P.P.S. I also got to see M.O.D. at the House of Rock in Eau Claire, WI, on the previous night. That show was a little more restrained. Other than Billy Milano making constant threats to people smoking cigarettes in front of him (“I’ve got emphysema, motherfucker! I’ll kick you in the throat!”), the violence level was minimal. Oh, and my friend Jere got pissed off when Milano was shit-talking Barrack Obama. “Vote for the Mexican! Vote for the Homie!” Jere yelled before throwing his drink at Milano and then screaming “Pussywhipped!” about fifty times. Milano threatened to beat him up for throwing the drink. No violence came of it, which, looking back, is a good thing, because I would have been the one stuck jumping in front of 300 pounds of Billy Milano to prevent him from messing with my bud. That’s one I don’t really want to ever have to take for the team.

P.P.P.P.S. I didn’t have the heart to tell Jere that Obama isn’t actually Mexican.

(M.O.D. played at Big V’s in St. Paul on 3/14/08)