In the black-and-white video for their song “Meat Market,” the members of Everybody Else look like they’ve come straight from rock ’n’ roll central casting. Decked out in tight pants, leather jackets, and perfect ’70s bangs, they enter a party and clap together while walking side-by-side. It’s one of those retro fantasy moments that conjures the Romantics and the Raspberries, maybe even The Ronettes. You know that this trio took all the proper rock ’n’ roll correspondence courses when you consider that it derived its name from a little-known (but much prized by cultists) Kinks classic.
More than the Raspberries or Romantics, though, Everybody Else reminds me of The Knack. Like The Knack, Everybody Else is from LA and fashion-conscious, yet proudly unfashionable. Above all, like Doug Fieger and his old bandmates, these guys revel in their own hedonistic shallowness. They write pro-sex, anti-love songs and only get deeply emotional when they think about their favorite bands.
They view the world as a big meat market, and approach any prospective girlfriends with wariness: “So don’t be falling in love with me/you should be digging the scenery.” In “Rich Girls Poor Girls,” they give props to cash-strapped females for their romantic acumen (cheap stereotype, anyone?), but drool over the thought of all the benjamins the rich girls can provide.
The Knack were juvenile, narcissistic horn-dogs, but they were never hypocrites. Say the same thing for Everybody Else. 7pm Sat, May 31, $10, The Warhol, 1011 Ave. B, (210) 413-1006.
— Gilbert Garcia
