Firehose Offers Innovative Rock ‘n’ Rap at Lhasaland

In a time when most rock music has become institutionalized into a set of cliches, possibly the only really innovative deconstruction of popular music occurs when rap music deejays ingeniously “sample” old records to create fresh sonic textures.

Which may be why local rock band Firehose, in its first local appearence in some time at Lhasaland on Saturday, performed a piece by revolutionary rappers Public Enemy. There’s a strange kinship between the methods of the San Pedro trio--widely considered the Southland’s most important standard bearer of inventive, non-mainstream rock--and rap deejays. Firehose also takes fragments and elements of overdone styles (folk, metal, jazz), and rethinks , instead of recycles, familiar rock riffs.

Rappers, though, build from a steady beat up. Firehose avoids rhythmic consistency, delivering jerky dynamics akin to an exposed nervous system. This is mind-set jamming, not body slamming.

A group that represents a refreshing change from the conformist, conservative retro-reactionaries dominating current pop culture, Firehose displayed its strong commitment to populist values and played with ferocious energy and technical dexterity.

Still, there are problems with its bits-and-pieces approach. At times the newer songs by personable guitarist-singer Ed Crawford resembled winsome, straight-ahead heartland rockers, but more often than not Firehose’s somewhat obscure post-punk beatnik-isms speak an insulated language that can make one feel like an outsider without the password.