Review: CoverGurl

I ate sushi with Chuck Norris. I also played pool with Michael Irvin. Had dinner with Ross Perot, went to a play with John Cusack, ate nachos with Jimmy Johnson, and flew with Ben Stein and Ann Coulter. Of course, none of those people knew I was there because I left them the fuck alone. Sure, I’m not too cool to say there wasn’t a brief moment of awe at Mr. Sushi when my date asked me if that wasn’t Chuck with the pickled ginger stuck to his beard. But other than the somewhat surreal experience of seeing people that only exist in my television suddenly appear in my natural environs, I’m largely unaffected and pretty much ignore them after a few minutes of making sure a ten thousand dollar bill hasn’t fallen out of their pocket within my reach.

So I obviously don’t understand the obsession with celebrities (other than Crystal Bernard or Shania Twain), celebrity babies, celebrity relationships, and hot mustard dipping sauce. The fact that People and Us Magazine and the National Enquirer not only exist, but that people read them unashamedly in public is disturbing to me. They should read them in private, like I do with each highly anticipated issue of Quilter’s World. And there’s nothing more annoying in the newspaper than those gossip columnists. Except for those Nancy and Sluggo comics. But apparently all that gossip and paparazzi shit sells papers, so rather than suffer the fate of decreasing circulation as the newspapers have recently, I’ve decided to embrace the role of gossip columnist and see how it plays at Leper Pop. Here it goes….

Leper Pop attended the Covergurl show at Castaways on Saturday featuring ex-Rock Star: INXS contestant Jessica Robinson, and our photographer caught the drummer from another popular local band (currently without a lead singer) in the audience. Our sources saw them speaking between sets and wonder if this was a recruiting mission… stay tuned!



Okay, enough garbage. In case you didn’t guess I was invited by West Coast Ray to come out to the Covergurl show at Castaways at North Avenue Beach on Saturday afternoon. Rain was threatening, but WCR only crosses the mighty Mississippi once a year so I told the Mrs. that I was going out for cigarettes and then hopped on my bike for a ride down to the lakefront. I don’t smoke so I don’t think I picked the best excuse but she had to read about vaginas and stuff for her OB exam this week and figured she could get more done if I was out of the house instead of standing over her shoulder giggling at the illustrations. I suppose I should clarify – she’s not having an OB exam done on her, but rather is taking an exam on OB material. The last thing this country needs is another unit made from this genetic material running around. But I digress.

WCR and his loyal sidekick Cousin Phil were kind enough to start drinking before noon and secure a table on the side of the boat where Covergurl would be playing. It’s not really a boat. It’s one of those buildings on the beach that’s designed to look like a boat to trick you into thinking that you’re rich and partying on a boat and can afford to drink $6 cans of beer.

I didn’t realize there was an opening band, so a band called C-Factor was playing when I arrived. Anyone with a graduate degree in biochemistry will realize that C-factor, the protein product of the csgA gene, acts as a short-range morphogenetic signal. It is required for fruiting body development of the gram-negative bacterium Myxococcus xanthus. Awesome band name. Except I think it went over the heads of the seemingly dunderheaded crowd who thought the band was named Sea Factor, y’ know, because they were, like, playing on the beach, y’know. Duh.

They billed themselves as Chicago’s Ultimate Party Rock Band! which immediately made me think that they were going to just invite us down to their parent’s basement and play some K-Tel records. Instead, it was just the singer and two guitarists belting out the ultimate in party rock. The bass player, keyboard player and drummer were not there so I’m assuming they had all been arrested the previous evening for trying knock over a burrito joint and were stuck in some holding cell awaiting a bail hearing. Despite only being 50% present, they still put on a decent show. Just like my marriage.

Finally Covergurl took the stage. Their name is a little more convoluted than C-Factor, but I understand it comes from the fact that they play mostly cover tunes and that Jessica (the singer, and a girl) used to put an umlaut over all the vowels in her name to suck up to her German teacher in high school. I also hear that naming the band CoverGirl resulted in a cease and desist order instead of all the free mascara they had hoped for.

As I mentioned before, you might remember Jessica from the Rock Star: INXS season a few years ago. I can’t remember if I was really mean or really nice to her during my time as a pathetic, little reality show blogger boy. But I honestly didn’t have super high expectations for the show. However, the band pleasantly surprised me. I don’t know if it’s just hearing her live, but it seems like she’s singing in a lower key or register and has lost most of the squeaks that the Brothers INXS always seemed to complain about. The band was on target and the set list was a solid mix of songs you knew but were not overly tired. I was only intending to stick around for one set, but stayed for two despite the mass of guys who thought that Castaways was site for the Douchebag Olympic Trials. All contenders. The only upside is that they were drawn there by all the scantily clad females cavorting about in their annoying ways. I haven’t seen that much skin since the last time I was on the Internets. But I digress.

Bottom line – Covergurl gets the thumbs up for a day or night hanging out and having a beer, or enjoying the sun down at the lake. I was going to make a joke about having to track down Brandon Calhoon next, but to my horror I discovered he will actually be in town next month. I’ll let Moist Rub cover that show. Thanks, buddy.