Quiet Please, the<i> Artiste</i> Is About to Be Pained

Let me just say right off that the Viper Room is not my kind of place. Not because I don’t like rock ‘n’ roll dives, but, on the contrary, because I do.

But the performer I heard about a few weeks back sounded like she might be worth putting my prejudices aside.

“This woman is absolutely amazing,” my well-connected companion gushed. She was talking about a singer/violinist she had seen the previous week. Other people I ran into said the same thing. “Oh, she’s amazing. She’s. . . .” Words actually failed them.

Well-connected companion, who keeps up on music-biz goings-on, said that the week before, the audience was chock-full of recording industry A&R; people.

“Uh, could we get on the guest list?” I asked. Apparently not. I would have to risk the full $10 Viper Room admission. Parking in the adjacent lot was also $10.

Once inside the club, there was no place to sit. Wherever I stood, I was told by someone burlier than myself that I had to move. The few booths were marked “Reserved,” most likely for people with platinum albums or platinum credit cards. I had already spent $20. I sat in a booth anyway. Others sat on the floor below the stage.

The first disconcerting experience occurred when a condescending imp of an emcee took the mike and said, “Could everybody please be quiet? Shh! Shhhh!” I thought, “In a rock club?” I made to protest but my companion glowered at me.

After a short, hyperbolic introduction, the violinist took the stage. She wore a long, white gown, braided hair and a pained expression that all but announced, “I am profound and I feel things deeply.” She played a mean fiddle, but I’m positive it doesn’t hurt to play the violin. She sang, too. The songs were about, well, painful things.

“Excuse me, I’m her mother. I need to sit here.” My line of sight was now blocked by Ms. Violinist Senior who plopped down at the table in front of us. No matter. Soon after, a Viper employee of astounding physical mass kicked us out of the booth. Later, everyone would be ordered up off the floor.

Well-connected companion informed me the mom once dated Lenny Bruce. But if the late comic passed anything remotely resembling a sense of humor to her and her daughter, it wasn’t evident in the performance I saw.

When the first song ended, I thought the singer was just breathing heavily into the mike until I realized her lips were moving. She was whispering, “Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.” I looked around for someone that I could ask, “Is this some kind of joke?”

But the pampered clientele of the Viper Room were rapt. They were leaning forward to catch whatever pearls she had to drop. Their Range Rovers and sushi dinners were far away now. They had glazed expressions that seemed to say, “Oh, yes, we feel, too!”

The performer kept up her “I am in communication with the gods and this tortures me” persona even between numbers. I endured as much as I could. Not long after she whispered, “This next song is called ‘Please Break My Heart, Please Break My Heart, Please Break My Heart,’ ” I decided that was enough.

I spent the rest of the set in the downstairs bar--which was empty--furiously nursing a $5 glass of beer. To be fair, my companion claimed “Please Break My Heart” was meant as ironic humor. Perhaps it was my sense of humor that had atrophied. I didn’t get it. On the other hand, none of the Viper Room cognoscenti had erupted in laughter either.

*

My only consolation was the arrival of two women-- English tourists--who were equally furious at the evening’s emotional charlatanry. “It’s like everyone’s pretending to feel something they’re really not,” one complained.

Worse, the visitors were ready to extrapolate these qualities to all Americans--or all Angelenos, anyway. They thought this place was typical of the L.A. rock scene.

“No,” I said. “Jabberjaw is a rock club. Al’s Bar is a rock club. The Whiskey A Go-Go is a rock club. The Viper Room is. . . .” I faltered.

How was I to describe Johnny Depp’s slick venue? A place that gives you all the trappings of a rock club without any of its grit--a grunge club minus the grunge? I looked up at the monitors that show what’s going on upstairs. The violinist was leaving the stage, no doubt imperiously waiting for enough applause to summon her back for an encore.

“The Viper Room is, well, TV,” I said.