Radioactive Chicken Heads – at The Viper Room – Hollywood, CA

If you've been away from Los Angeles for a while, you may not recognize the Sunset Strip so easily any more. Corporations have taken over a lot of the venues, and pay to play has turned an area that launched everyone from The Doors to Motley Crue, hosted Frank Zappa, and inspired The Standells, into yet another boring strip mall of radio-safe over-processed bland and boring blah. Except last Saturday,
when for one brief and shining moment The Viper Room woke up for about an hour, and The Radioactive Chicken Heads proved that music isn't dead, it's just mutated a bit.

Radioactive Chicken Heads are a band of mutant chickens, fronted by a carrot, and supported by a tomato on bass. They offer sound nutritional advice, like the cover of Barry Louis Polestar's "I Eat Kids", and battle evil, like El Pollo Diablo, who was hatched from a deviled egg. They are also hands down one of the best bands playing in Southern California today.

The Chicken Heads had a steep hill to climb when they first took the stage. The majority of the crowd was well-dressed, and held over from the previous performer, playing soulful top 40 type pop. There were a few glances exchanged when the first punk power chords leaked from behind the curtain, but people were already laughing and taking pictures by the time Franken-Chicken made his rounds of the crowd.

Because that's the thing, even if you're a Sunset Strip bunny in high heels and chandelier earrings who can't spell punk, let alone listen to it, there's simply no escaping the fact that this band is fun. And funny. And underneath it all, actually good musicians, something all too often skipped over in Hollywood's desire to create bands with good image.

The band played songs off the newest release "Poultry Uprising" as well as older fan favorites, including "Liquid Fat" and "Pest Control" (a song about killing Chuck E Cheese. Admit it, you want to.) before finishing with "Badd Bunny", definitely a carrot's worst nightmare. By the end of the night, everyone was a Radioactive Chicken Heads fan, and the Sunset Strip was a little bit better place.

If you'd like to see what you missed, The Viper Room has an archive of the show's live stream here

 

-Jo Problems-
Big Wheel Staff Reporter

 

 

 

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