But after making his first official L.A. appearance with his new band, The Muggers, Segall seemed determined to shake off his old image as L.A.’s reigning glam-rock guitar hero and reinvent himself — which, you could argue, is a pretty Bowie-like gesture in and of itself, though his re-calibrated stage persona is less Thin White Duke, more Iggy Pop, his new alter ago, Sloppo, in a creepy rubber baby mask, and not once picking up a guitar,
On this occasion Segall played the role of rock & roll bandleader to the hilt. He preened. He posed. He stared at a fixed point in space somewhere back beyond the sound board. At one point, near the end of the set, he abruptly collapsed, James Brown-like. He took his mic stand crowd-surfing and, several times, walked gingerly out onto the crowd’s outstretched hands — an old Segall trick, perhaps originally borrowed from Iggy Pop , but now one of his signature moves,
Ty Segall & The Muggers performing “Candy Sam / Squealer Two” live in the KEXP studio. Recorded January 21st, 2016.
Segall and The Muggers played Emotional Mugger in its entirety, front to back at his last live gigs. That might have disappointed fans hoping to hear more of Segall’s vast and often excellent back catalog, but still made for a pretty entertaining show, especially when the band’s guitarists, King Tuff’s Kyle Thomas (wearing an orange jumpsuit, and whom Segall introduced as Tang — “He tastes as fresh as he looks!”) and The Cairo Gang’s Emmett Kelly . The rest of the band, a sort of Eastside psych-rock supergroup, was just as tight. Dressed like a refugee from an ’80s ska band in shades and a tan trenchcoat, Wand’s Cory Hanson occasionally added a third guitar to the ruckus, but mostly jammed on keys and synths, keeping a trippy backdrop of noise going even between songs. Wand’s Evan Burrows provided heavy metal muscle on the drums and longtime Segall cohort Mikal Cronin held down the bass.
The Fat Angel Sings 