Toronto – So what exactly is a turbogeist? An expensive German sportscar? A really fast ghost? For our purposes, Turbogeist are a punk band from the UK fronted by one Jimmy Jagger, also known as the son of Mick Jagger and Jeri Hall. And for the record, they sound nothing like his dad’s band. They’ve got an aggressive sound that’s a little bit all over the place. They’ve got a few catchy tunes like “Monster Pussy” and the Misfits-esque “Alien Girl.” They also played a song celebrating cold beer, which I beleive was called “Ice Cold Beers.” The guitarist also wore a shirt that said “Cold Ones,” so I guess they like beer. They were pretty enthusiastic onstage and definitely seemed to be enjoying themselves for the most part, although their live show does tend to be a bit chaotic and off the cuff. On June 17 at The Silver Dollar, they played behind a backdrop of wood covered in graffiti which I found to be pretty interesting. I overheard the show’s promoter Dan Burke telling them to keep it up so I guess he liked it too.
As these things go at a fest like NXNE, plans often change. Even though I had seen them the night before, I ended up seeing them again at The Comfort Zone. And the show was plagued by sound troubles. First off, Jagger’s mic wouldn’t work. After a lot of fiddling around with it and Dan Burke chastising the sound guy a bit, Burke fixed the mic simply by yelling into it. Or that’s what seemed to happen anyways. So there you have it, folks – Dan Burke is like the Chuck Norris of Toronto. Microphones are afraid of him.
There was a further sound issue later in the show as Jagger had some issues with his guitar. As he struggled with it, looking visibly distressed, the band continued on without him, playing a loose cover of Roky Erickson’s “I Walked With A Zombie.” It was totally there to stall for time, but ended up being my favourite moment of their set that night.
