Firewater

The Ponzi Scheme (Jetset)
by Lex Marburger

“You’re going down like a pederast in a boy’s school.” What’s not to love about that line? Set it to a delicate balance of European folk music and American Post something-or-other (a new cereal?), and you’ve got Firewater, the savior to souls of drinkers everywhere. Their first album, Get Off The Cross… We Need The Wood For The Fire set the tone for what Tod A. wanted after he stopped Copping, and it turned out to be what happens when Tom Waits’ band takes a free-for-all trip through Europe, gets rollickingly drunk and decides to kick out the jams. The Ponzi Scheme has many of the original members wandering off to side projects (Soul Coughing, Jesus Lizard, etc.), but Hahn Rowe (Foetus) stays at Tod’s side, stroking his violin with the eerie grace of a resurrected Hasidic troubadour. The Ponzi Scheme has some harder edges than Get Off The Cross... as the opening number, “Ponzi’s Theme,” indicates, with mystery surf bleeding in at the edges, while “So Long Superman” is a farfisa-powered shuffle (and for some reason, Tod keeps mentioning Lou Ferrigno). “Knock ‘Em Down” is a Gospel shout, with lines like “I don’t believe in God ’cause he don’t believe in me… and he never returns any of my calls.” Tod’s explorations have him drifting back to this continent, but aiming slightly South. The Spaghetti Western sound seeps in all over the place, like in “Green Light” and “Isle of Dogs,” and don’t forget the polka-klezmer-mariachi strangeness of “El Borracho.” As far as song titles go, “I Still Love You Judas” is a classic. Some people were let down by Tod’s apparent turncoating from the Cop Shoot Cop sound, but the same energy exists in Firewater. How couldn’t it? Tod howls and grates his throat, and the air crackles with excitement when he rocks out to “Dropping Like Flies,” or bemoans his fate to the mournful tango of “Another Perfect Catastrophe.” Firewater. The name says it all.