Byline: Chelle LaFleur — Jock La Feet

New Orleans club fixtures Jock La Feet played The Ninth Street Dive tonight to a packed house. Nothing new there; Jock La Feet is a band that, with a better name, oughta be out there on a bigger scale, sorta like Rat Catcher. I may have only been around this scene for a few short months and may have spent zero time on the far side of the levees, but I gotta tell you, if you don’t think that Jock La Feet can compete nationally, you haven’t heard Jock La Feet. Which makes me wonder if you’re realy dumb enough to think you can read this review and feel like you were there.

After a write-up like that, what I got to say next will make you wonder. And that’s ’cause at their record release party last night, Jock La Feet got showed up by this little band from somewhere West of the Mississippi, four dudes who rolled into town in their lead singer’s dad’s Ford Bronco, with the equally bad name of ShapeShifter and an even worse gimmick, where each band member identifies with an animal.

It’s their music that makes these four guys — two who seem to like their leather pants a little bit too much (was that dinner on them?), and two who seem even more bland than that — stand out. Nothing could have made New Orleans ready for this band, and as you know, this is a city that’s seen and weathered an awful lot.

Opening with “Take the Stage,” ShapeShifter erupts with speed and sound, sort of like a meteor if it was racing toward the planet, bound and determined to make contact. And like flying space junk, you can’t get away. Believe me, there were a few in the packed club who were dumb enough to try.

From that — again, horribly titled — song, ShapeShifter delivered a half-hour’s worth of music, almost ten songs in all, and all available on the band’s first record. Which, no surprise, they were selling out of the back of Daddy’s Ford Bronco until the cops tried to arrest them for not having a permit. (They escaped by skipping town.)

I’m telling you here and now, this is a band you’re gonna wanna watch. They got a lot of growing to do before they’re half the band that Jock La Feet is, which means they have a ways yet before they’re ready to tour like this again. Doesn’t matter, though, ’cause they blew Jock and the boys two parishes over.

Remember the name: Chelle La Fleur. I told you here, and I told you first.