Listening to the music of Ex Hex can feel a little like going back in time. Mary Timony’s lyrics on last year’s album Rips unfold like a series of dear-diary entries, where the adolescent concerns of gum-chewing teen rebels and lip-gloss-covered lovers dominate.
Live, though, there’s a disconnect. Timony is a reluctant frontwoman: timid, awkward (“I think I knocked over a water bottle,” she informs the audience at one point) and with a habit of staring off into space. She’s a million miles away from the girl gang attitude that’s evoked on record. So when she’s running through lines about “skipping school” and “smoking up” (in a deadpan vocal style that recalls the Bangles’ Vicki Peterson) on the trashy New Kid, the illusion feels a bit tarnished.
Still, the yin/yang tightrope act between Timony and bassist Betsy Wright provides the engine of the show. Wright, with her shock of black hair and scissor-kicking, lip-snarling attitude is quite the Joan Jett figure. On an extended version of Beast (a song with such a mid-70s sheen it sounds as if it should have been on the Dazed and Confused soundtrack), they do their best Bowie and Ronson impression, with Timony’s furious guitar soloing providing the excuse for Wright to lean in and pull some classic rock shapes.
It’s left until the encore for Timony to really come to life. After a heartfelt run through of Johnny Thunders’ You Can’t Put Your Arms Round a Memory, she finally unleashes her inner mean girl on War Paint, rolling her eyes and pointing her finger as she spits out lyrics about a friend who thinks they’re too cool for school. At last, a performance that matches the song.
