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Our Verdict: Hot: Cheri Lovedog rocked the Aptos Club on Saturday. Deconstructing Cheri In Cheri Lovedog's movie Prey for Rock & Roll, Gina Gershon plays the aging, 35-year-old rocker who among other things grapples with that eternal question: Am I still hot or not? When it's Gina Gershon asking, the answer is, of course, a resounding yes. That's the beauty of casting, because it's easy to get the audience on the side of the protagonist when it's Gina freakin' Gershon. The downside, though, is that the fictional band is a bit of a tough act to follow, even if you're talking about the actual band upon which the fictional one was based. Happily, the truth of the matter is that even 10 years after her crisis of confidence--at 45 years old--Cheri Lovedog's band rocks, and she is still totally hot. And I'm not just saying that; I could have easily avoided the subject altogether. If, when I arrived at the Aptos Club last Saturday night to catch Lovedog perform live, she had turned out to be a washed up, matronly sack of potatoes colored with caked-on makeup and distended tattoos, I could have just written about her cool boots. Or about the dreadlocked bassist's striped tights and Salem Witch Trial Museum T-shirt. Or about lead guitarist Sean Kennedy's equally cool boots, bulging biceps and rockin' guitar solos. But whatever, Cheri's hot and looks good in leather pants, and that aura of easygoing confidence she's got going on makes a long life lived by rock & roll (as opposed to the "live fast/die young" ideal) seem like a honest-to-God possibility. Performancewise, they didn't really seem to hit their peak until their last song, a punk-flavored cover of Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'," complete with a trumpet solo. But even at less than 100 percent, songs like "Every Six Minutes" and "Prey for Rock n Roll" gurgled with triumphant angst, and their cover of Stephen Trask's "Angry Inch" ripped the balls right off my imaginary transsexual friend. Hedwigfest, here we come! White Album Rescheduled! Having already gone to press last week before hearing the news that the White Album Live! show would be cancelled due to the flu rampage, we'd like to take this opportunity to inform those of you who'd still like to see the show that the rescheduled dates have been confirmed for Friday and Saturday, Jan. 2 and 3. For ticket information, visit www.riotheatre.org or call 831.423.8209 for recorded updates. Keepin' It Real I just couldn't bring myself to make the trek out to Zelda's last Wednesday to meet the cast of MTV's Real World Paris, who stopped in town as part of their cross-country pub crawl, but I'm sure they were perfectly charming. Or were they? Please send any sordid or irritating stories to [email protected], because if we ever hope to one day dance on the charred and dismembered remains of "reality TV," we've got to start picking at it now. Mike Connor [ Santa Cruz Week | Metroactive Central | Archives ]