BOREDOM? SMASH IT! WITH BE YOUR OWN PET
By Simay
These four kids from Nashville – Jemina, Jonas, Nathan and John – dislike boredom. Being the T-Rex, Iggy Pop and Velvet Underground-loving young soulds that they are, they have a creative solution: SMASH IT! And that’s exactly what they did on a Thursday night at Philadelphia’s Electric Factory when they opened up for the Arctic Monkeys.
Mix Karen-O with Juliette Lewis, put that in a petite 20-year-old and shake it up real well with an extra splash of punk rock fun. That’s Jemina, opening the set with “Bunk Trunk Skunk,’ roaring, “I’m an independent mutha-fucker, And I’m here to take your money.” This, of course, is louder than it reads with Jonas’s guitar, Nathan’s bass and John’s drum sticks flying in the air.
It’s been a long time since I saw an opening act that could grab the audience by the balls and electricute them with their tunes like Be Your Own Pet did. Everyone (and when I say everyone, I mean a range of 10-year-old boys and 40-year-old women) was shaking their heads in full-speed until they got dizzy, pausing to take a breath for a few seconds just to do it again. Cheering and head-banging to “Fuuuuuun” and “Thresher’s Flail,” I’m sure I wasn’t the only one impressed by the band’s energy, especially Jemina’s spinning head and vibrating body. I’ve read on their website that they all have asthma, yet they definitely don’t show it.
Their set ended with Jemina throwing herself on the floor, like that scene from The Exorcist where the girl runs down the stairs backwards on all fours. Don’t be scared now, though, since the scenery was much more pleasant with all the members of the band smashing the night into the ground.
