A few months ago, I celebrated music critic Ben Ratliff of the New York Times’ cooking up vivid characterizations of the frontman David Yow, of the band Jesus Lizard. In today’s Times, he and Yow have done it again, and provide another occasion for an entry into our rock bestiary. (For more on the notion of such a bestiary, see this earlier post.)

In today’s review of a Jesus Lizard show on Tuesday at Irving Plaza, Ratliff again free-associates to Yow’s palette of rockish gestures, showing smartly how distinctive rock is at inventing rituals (of playing live and of enjoying live music through writing about it) that open onto spiritual-political possession and dispossession.

Ratliff writes, “Mr. Yow, no kind of natural singer, had to invent his voice. It’s all muted middle-range: nervous honks, pathetic moans, sudden belligerent shouts, always accompanied by a nearly blank facial expression. His physical language is contained, improvisational, swinging between extremes: he writes and screams like Sean Penn’s famous scene in ‘Mystic River’ — with Mr. Yow you always fill in the invisible cops holding him down — then flaps his wings serenely, or gives the crowd a fey, palms-out, fuggedaboutit wrist-wave. He seems fascinated by menacing acts, but tends to turn them into something else.”

A bible of ritualized idiosyncrasies, as rock so often is. Do those of us who relate to biblical religions have the patience to let this worldly bible of ritualized idiosyncrasies show us the extent to which our performances of faith are dependent on the ritualized idiosyncrasies of our own bibles?

Tom Beaudoin

New York City, New York, United States

The Jesus Lizard sounds like a made-to-order curio for our rock bestiary. But they’re a late ’80s-90s band with considerable indie credibility (or for the more refined, “distinction“), who are recently revived for the tour circuit. (Here they are live with “Mouth Breather” from 1991. I could never get into them, but I’ve long since learned that beyond the limits of personal preferences are good reasons to be theologically inquisitive about musics that move people.)

Critic Ben Ratliff’s review of their recent show at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival includes a vivid snapshot for our bestiary courtesy of singer David Yow. Ratliff writes in the New York Times that “Mr. Yow’s body language was furtive and prerock, suggesting a knowledge of Hawaiian dancing and the way to act around nervous horses.”

This kind of writing suggests Ratliff is taking dares, but I’ll be damned if he’s not conjuring up something grave and luscious here. A few more entries like that and we’re going to have enough entries for at least one circle in a mandala of rock animals.

Tom Beaudoin

Hastings-on-Hudson, New York