Starcrawler: Show-biz kids
Fronting youth and the kind of fearlessness youth carries with it, Starcrawler, a quartet of L.A. teens who worship at the throne of Lemmy, took the White Stage in mid-afternoon while clouds gathered overhead. As it turns out it didn’t rain, but it did bleed a bit.
Fronted by vocalist Arrow de Wilde and guitarist/vocalist Austin Smith, Starcrawler is pure Los Angeles, though it’s an L.A. that probably hasn’t existed in actuality since the late ’70s. De Wilde, as it turns out, is the daughter of one of the members of Beachwood Sparks, an august indie rock band of the ’90s whose music sounds nothing like Starcrawler’s. Does that qualify as skipping a generation?
In any case, de Wilde is definite Hollywood Babylon material. Painfully skinny, she’s all sharp corners and jutting elbows. Dressed in white fringed jeans, ribbed tank top, long, blonde hair streaked with red, she was just itching to be hurt, and the lyrics to their profane rock songs are about childish animosities and victimization. A sucker for the camera, she gave the YouTubers her best crazed expressions, all bugging eyes and evil smiles.
Of course, the other shoe eventually dropped and she bit down hard on a squib and blood poured out of her mouth. It was Hollywood in its purest form. Motorhead may be dead but as long as kids like Arrow de Wilde deign to listen and figure they can do that as well, Lemmy will never be forgotten.