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11-The Michigan Daily - Monday, June 3, 2002


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'Hives will invade the Magic Stick this Thursday

By Scott Serilla And now in our dire time of need,
Daily Arts Writer the mighty hype machines that be are
telling us Rock's latest saviors are a
In these desperate strange times, Swedish garage band from the remote
you have to take your rock and roll Steel town of Fagersta, who like to
where you can find it. play violently kinetic
From semi-reformed rock that screeches like
metal geeks pretending Raw Power-era Stooges
to be pop-punk arena HIVES while wearing matching
overlords. From pseudo .Magic Stic ties and ascots.
siblings posing as a Strange days indeed.
candy-striped Lo-fi Thursday at 8 p.m. $10 And so enter Hives,
Zeppelin. From prep- allegedly founded way
school brats masquerading as danger- back in '93 by the mysterious Randy
ous downtown '70s proto-punk Fiztsimmons, who recruited five local
hipsters. Fagersta teenagers via letter to form

his own twisted boy band. Supposed-
ly, he steered the boys who become
the Hives through their early years,
crafting their distinctive blend of grit-
ty '60s garage with '70s punk attitude
and always identical '80s new wave
fashion sense and helping them build
a budding reputation through conti-
nental Europe.
To this day, Fiztsimmons acts as a
shadowy satellite Brian Wilson-esque
stay-at-home song writer/leader for
his crew. Perhaps it was Randy who
also handed out the strange stage
names too. We've heartthrob front-
man Howlin' Pelle Almquvist, his real


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life brother, guitarist Nicholaus
Arson, guitarist Chris Dangerous,
Vigilante Carlstroem on drums and
my personal favorite, tiny
bassist/Mario Brother look-alike, Dr.
Matt Destruction (Brit music bible
NME has conversely reported that
Fitzsimmons was real and then just a
character made up by Nicholaus, the
band's real genius. We have no clue).
The Hives' 2000 .sophomore LP,
Veni Vidi Vicious was originally
released stateside by Epitaph, but has
just now been re-released for wide
distribution by Reprise, maybe to take
advantage of favorable media com-
parisons to the Strokes and the White
Stripes. Well sure, all three bands
share a distinct retro-feel and a defi-
nite back-to-the-garage ethic, but
there's plenty of respect to go around
and no one group should be overshad-
owing the others.
So listen for their neo-garage
anthems "Hate to Say I Told You So"
and "Main Offender" on more pro-
gressive radio stations or their ultra-
cool "Handpicked" videos on MTV2,
or if you listen really, really closely
inexplicably but appropriately at Red
Wing playoff games. The NHL does,
have its share of Swedes these days I
guess and maybe since Swedes been
good for the Wings, they'll be good
for Rock too.
But of course, what's suppose to
really sets the Hives are apart is their

live show. Their short, fiercely explo-
sive live sets have had the chronically
over-enthusiastic British music press
going wild for months. Pelle struts
and kicks his way across the stage
with all the hip-shaking bravo of a
young Iggy or Mick while the band
blasts and thrashes its way through
instant classics like "Die, All Right"
and "The Hives are Law, You are
Crime".
The Hives like to make big claims.
The title for a recent compilation
was Your New Favorite Band and
their t-shirts read 'Nulls Salus Sine
The Hive' (Latin for 'No Salvation
Without the Hives'). Where does the
hype end and the legend begin? The
only way to know is to come out to
the Magic Stick Thursday to find
out.

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