Phillyist Playlist: Living Colour at World Cafe Live

Anyone who clicked here thinking they were getting info on some reunion of Jim Carrey, David Alan Grier and the Wayans Brothers (the older and funny ones, not the younger and stupid ones), click away now. We're here to talk about rock. Furious, hard, guitar-shredding rock.

Thursday night, the New York City funk metal fusion quartet Living Colour (MySpace) takes the stage at World Cafe Live. Back in the late 80s, Living Colour shook the rock mainstream, sending shockwaves through its bland predictability with every guitar riff. One can only hope they have the same effect today, over twenty years later, as we endure similar rock doldrums.

You probably know Living Colour best (as we do) from its biggest success, 1988's Vivid, which included such songs as "Open Letter to a Landlord" and the mega-hit "Cult of Personality." Their sound (and message) was new to rock radio. It wasn't the hair-metal monotony that we typically associate with "80s rock" but it wasn't the flannel-wearing, feedback-heavy grunge that we think about in "90s rock" either. It was something different altogether: neon cutoffs and dreadlocks, punk rock and jazz, soul and metal, Sly Stone's rhythms and Slash's guitars. Living Colour's sound is nothing if not distinctive, with guitarist and founder Vernon Reid's intricately experimental and aggressive style, singer Corey Glover's ability to be soulful and enraged in a single track, and lyrics that challenge the many discriminatory and close-minded elements of American society.

Living Colour's influence also extends beyond its music. As a prominent all-African American rock band, it broke down racial barriers in addition to musical ones, and paved the way for other genre-bending, politically charged and racially integrated bands such as Rage Against the Machine.

Living Colour appeared on the inaugural Lollapalooza tour, organized by fellow 80s fushion rocker Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction, in 1991, along with acts like Nine Inch Nails, Ice T and Siouxsie & the Banshees. The band eventually split in 1995, but reunited to tour in 2001, and have since produced one album of new releases (the experimental Collideøscope) in addition to rarities and live recordings.

Living Colour is currently touring in support of its forthcoming album, The Chair in the Doorway, which hits stores on September 15. Bring your bright yellow jean jacket if you dare.

Living Colour (with Sara Wasserman)
World Cafe Live (3025 Walnut Street)
Thursday, September 3, 7:30pm
Tickets: $35