February 16th 2010: some band?, Total Social Suicide, Snake Sustain, Inhuman, Iron Age @ Union Pool, Brooklyn, NY
Shows in Brooklyn can be a real pain in the ass for me to get to because I have to take an hour and a half ride on the Long Island Railroad into Penn Station and then a half-hour subway ride into Brooklyn. Luckily, this place was right off the L stop and not at some back alley crackhouse in the warehouse district. Even luckier was that my old friend Fletcher wasn’t doing anything that day so I went in early and hung out for a few hours prior to launch time (8 o’clock). Being that my main complaint about this show was the time-frame it operated within, I’m gonna break this down by the hour.
6pm – We get to Kinko’s and start making copies of Raw Life #3.5. It’s just a short number with the Iron Age interview which will appear in issue #4 and an article about love, Hitchcock style, which won’t. The copy machine had a good reproduction quality, but a poor alignment with the edge erase function.
7pm – Finishing early, we headed to a comic book store located near the venue. A guy named Gabe runs the place and he is very cool. Wish I could remember the name of the place. I wound up dropping fifty bucks (I’m an idiot) on nine original issues of Search & Destroy magazine (I’m a genius). For those who don’t know; Search & Destroy was one of the original American “zines” featuring acts like The Dils, Nuns, Pagans, Dead Kennedys, X, Crime, Iggy Pop, Devo, and a shitload of other early hardcore/underground punk stuff from the late 70s in San Francisco. The writing is phenomenal and the layout is simple and effective; polished cut and paste numbers with arresting imagery. I felt like one cool motherfucker with these in tow. I bet Tim Faulkner is jealous.
8pm – We arrive at Union Pool to discover a shitload of metal heads in a bar and zero signs of a show getting underway. Ran into Chase (the people’s security, Iron Age road crew), gave him zines, chatted for a beat, and then sat down. Fletcher drank overpriced Pabst, I read issue #1. The show was not getting started. Saw Ian Dixon; he had nothing to tell us about when the show would start. Saw Zed; he told us Drunkdriver dropped off the show and how there was a free show down the block with a pop band called Waves. We thought about going over there, but just sat around chatting.
9pm – No signs of the show starting. We are getting restless. Chase likes the zine. We discover Alex is no longer in Iron Age. I am bummed. I had hoped to chat with him about seeing Bastard in May, among other brutal topics. Fletcher is tipsy.
10pm – We go into the backroom where the bands play. I think a band was just finishing up their set. It looks like Iron Age is set to play at 11:15; not bad. Union Pool is set up so that there is the bar, then an exterior area with a fire pit and a taco shack made out of an old cargo van, and then the room the bands play in. The band playing room is small and intimate, but has an awkward stage that is small with those old timey lights along the rim. Another band gets up to play. This band turns out to be Total Social Suicide. After about one minute Fletcher and I decide this has to be a joke band. Wanky thrash metal with hints of NWOBHM and ridiculous vocals. It would have been funny if it hadn’t of been sad. When they just started shredding it sounded OKAY so maybe they should drop the verses, choruses and bridges and just do thirty minutes of shredding.
10:30pm – Disillusioned with our hopes of a steady stream of spectacular bands and bummed that Iron Age’s set time had been pushed back to 12:15, we took a long hard look at the next band’s name – Snake Sustain – and decided to hit the streets for the next hour-and-a-half to find greener pastures. The comic shop was closed, the comedy show we knew about was over, and we couldn’t find the Waves show Zed told us about. We did see a dumb drunk girl slip on the ice and bust her head/butt. Note to idiots; don’t wear high heels in the snow!
11pm – We find a health food store and start browsing to kill time. I guess we’re boring people. Coconut water is good shit. Lady Gaga comes on the radio. Fletcher really likes Lady Gaga. I don’t. We quarrel. I felt like I was talking to a wall because she wasn’t making any sense at all.
12pm – We arrive back at Union Pool to find Inhuman setting up. I have seen Inhuman more times than I care to remember. They are a terrible band that should break up. We wait outside while they play, warming ourselves by the fire pit, discussing smart people stuff.
1pm? – Iron Age finally takes the stage and immediately makes the five hour wait worth it. The last time I saw them was at The Charleston where technical problems led to a disastrous, but wildly entertaining set. This time we got to hear a dozen more songs, but the energy and atmosphere was missing from the crowd, which brought things down a peg. Not to be dismayed, Iron Age throttled headlong into the music, pummeling the crowd with almost all of the songs of The Sleeping Eye, a taste of Evil Ways, and a new song that bridges the groove-oriented stylings of Constant Struggle with the underground metal riffage of their newer material with enthralling results. When all was said and done, the crowd was calling for more (and Chase was calling us names) so we were treated to We’re Dust, but no Violator. Fletcher doesn’t impress easily and she described them as “fucking awesome”. They were.
It was late as shit so we went home.
Constructive criticism: book Iron Age with better bands, have shows start on time, and don’t move Chase’s pepper.
Starting us off here is one of the earliest lady bands I sought out on my own, Hole. It seems obvious, but being that it was the 90’s a lot of cool bands actually existed and would play on the radio. It seems so strange to me now… to actually hear something worthwhile broadcast over the airwaves. Of course Hole had been around longer than I was aware of, but when Live Through This was out and kicking I took notice. Their songs weren’t really the normal stuff that was happening in the grunge world but they were lumped into that category because of it being that era. This was one of the first bands that showed me that gender wasn’t an issue with rocking fucking hard. The TV only lets you see dudes yelling and throwing instruments and shit, but ladies can do that just the same. When I turned 18 I pulled a chump move and sold this CD when I was strapped for cash, thanks to Nick Rice for hooking up the mp3s recently. I can still remember sitting under my bunk bed fidding with the speak wires in my room trying to listen to this record at the appropriate volume.
Fucked Up was a band I slept on for a while because they were the hype machine. I usually don’t take to the hype machine, but sometimes the hype is the hype for a good reason. I gave them a listen and was immediately seeking out their various singles, splits and shit. I got to see them a bunch a few years ago and it was awesome. At those shows I had a few random conversations with their bassist, Sandy, who is really a genuinely nice person. She plays the hell out of her bass too. She’s like the steady hand behind the band, just kickin’ that solid fuzzed out tone under four million guitar tracks… well now at least. I like Fucked Up’s mid-stage of their career. The new shit is just too out there for me to enjoy more than a couple times.
Up next is Brooklyn’s Carnal Knowledge, a band that I had the pleasure of seeing a couple times but wasn’t until their last show that I was actually into them. At that point I had finally picked up what I assume is their self-titled cassette. (It just sort of says CK on the tape.) This is a two singer all female hardcore band shouting feminist anthems back and forth at each other with full on rage. Musically it’s kind of got that mid-west Negative Approach feel to it because of the 2/4 drum beats and solid, steady guitar strokes. Songs are short, have some breakdown for punks parts and the occassion lead-song doodles, gotta dig this stuff. Members have since moved onto other projects, but we’ll get to that later.
F-Minus is up next with “Sweating Blood.” My first experience with F- was at CBGB’s when they on a bill they entirely didn’t fit. Those type of shows are a dream come true for me, but the majority of hardcore kids are one track minded and fear change more than Garth. They actually got a surprisingly good response that night, nothing too crazy, but more importantly it left a big impression on yours truly. At the time it was two gals, two guys with the three string players all contributing parts to the vocals. At the time Wake Up Screaming came out they might have converted to a three piece of something, but nothing was lost… they were faster and more spit-in-your-face than ever. The female singer is a little irksome to watch live because she’s too punk for her own britches, but I guess you gotta have an attitude like that when this is the kinda music your playin’.
I played The Gits in an earlier podcast, so let me just say that I really enjoy them a lot. It’s definitely punk, but it’s so much more than that. It seems to have had the ability to draw non-punk listeners in as well because people who probably woulda never given a shit in the year 2010 were paying attention like fifteen years ago. Maybe it was the era again. But with The Gits you get this weird hybrid where they throw some verbed up, rockabilly tones on a punk rock song and have the sickest female vocals shred all over it. What is not to love?
Ok so Joan Jett is next… a total legend. So much so that there is a movie about her life coming out and she’s still alive. Well it’s not specifically about her, but her former outfit The Runaways. I don’t have high hopes for that jazz. Anyway, I’m talking about the Blackhearts here. Jett’s tunes are classic rock’n'roll songs, standard format with the verse bridge chorus thing, but she shows everyone what a woman can do when she picks up a guitar and croons into a mic. She just write jukebox hits yo, songs you wanna pump your fist to and rock a car back and forth to while a fire burns ten feet high.
So the Lunachicks are another reason I’m mad at myself. They existed when I existed but due to my lack of knowledge about them I missed plenty of potential shows I could have seen and been astonished at. The greatness of this all female quartet is beyond measure, and by the time they reached Luxury Problem they had crafted their skills into perfection. Their songs are among some of the catchiest punk numbers because they have a pop sensibility, but leader singer Theo’s opera-punk vocals take it to a new realm. I realize it’s stupid to say this but this is one of those “what’s wrong with you” bands if you admit to not liking them to me.
This is Fire Party, one of the premier female groups to emerge from the nation’s capitol. Along with bands like Ignition and Fugazi, Fire Party play a style of punk rock with reggae or dub inspired parts. They have a hypnotic groove, and when paired with chanting harmonies I really become entranced by these records. Its a steady drive. You’re nodding your noggin before you know it.
This next song is a new one off of Little Lungs‘ new record, called Living Hell. This 7″ came out last week but I have been listening to it on repeat for a month. They posted a track from their follow up to another favorite of mine, Hoist Me Up, about a month ago and after hearing it I basically demanded the tracks from my homepiss Josh. The Lungs have undergone a new transformation and have a slightly heavier sound, while remaining completly upbeat and airy. I love anything that my buddy Angie, the lead singer and key songer writer, involves herself in. Go see them on tour in your state, or if you live in Australia… in Australia! Oh, Crozier is in the band now too, fuggin awesome!
So this next group appears under the “slept on of the decade” category. LI’s Speed Speed Speed formed with the demise of This Year’s Model and started playing dive bars pretty regularly about 5 years ago? I had the pleasure of being at about 80% of those early shows and having my mind numbed by what an incredible force they were. Josh and Steve would interweave guitar intricacies while Dan would give me nightmares with his mind blowing drum skills, while Karen played the smoothest basslines you’ve ever heard. She had this way of waving her bass while playing tha made me feel like a baby staring at a mobile. Their music is hard to define because they didn’t limit themselves, but it was always rooted it some form of fast rock that would fit along with any of the greats of the last thirty years. They are over unfortunately… but pick up a copy of their album if you enjoy this one, you won’t be dissappointed.
Up next is a jam from LA’s X, a band I admittedly know too little about. I have only ever heard their debut, Los Angeles, and the album from which this song appears called More Fun In The New World. I don’t even own Los Angeles (I’m admitting I’m not cool I guess) but I have MFITNW on cassette. I bought it at a random thrift store when it was on the verge of breaking based on the fact my friend Joe used to play the other album in his car. I was really pleasantly surprised when I first popped it in the deck, aside from the fact it sounded like it was run over by a truck twice. It’s just this rockabilly / surf style collection of songs with a male / female vocal duo. The thing about the vocals that caught my attention too was that practically the whole record they sing together. A lot of these types of duos will just double up on choruses or to accent specific parts, but they’re both putting in the same amount of work on each song. Pretty freaking cool to listen to. I went through that tape when I was driving my sister’s toyota until the pressure pad fell out. I got the tunes from the internet though, thanks internet!
To continue on that Cali sound train we just got on the next one is from 45 Grave. Now this is a band I got into strictly because of my love for The Nerve Agents. I may have don’t know if I’ve mentioned this yet but they are my all time favorite band. So when they busted out the 45 Grave cover of “Evil” on Days Of The White Owl I had to go in search of who created this amazing song. Turns out it’s a female fronted goth-punk band… what could be better than that?! I scored a copy of Sleep In Safety and gave it a few spins. It’s such a cool record because it has some weird stuff that sounds like it would be in the background of a “Sprockets” sketch with backwards talking and shit, then it segways into 60s surfy styled stuff with lyrics about violence and shit. Then there are random songs like “Party Time” which conjurn up Alice Cooper making out with Joan Jett. Such a great record. Only bummer is I think they got back together in the wake of all those 80s punk band reunions that happened over the last 5 years. You can’t be as spooky when you have to go pick up your kids from after school programs at the age of 45. Sometimes reunions are cool for a one time thing… but I think they are like back together. Ugh. Anyway, if you like screechy cool, singing Dinah Cancer’s vocals will be right up your alley. Check out 45 Grave.
So movin’ northward up the coast towards Canada, lets talk about The Bayonettes, a band out of the Toronto area if I’m not mistaken. I heard about this band from through Fucked Up grapevine, I suppose they would share a lot of Canadian stages together and I just said “oh what’s this band about?” Total upbeat punk stuff that has a UK feeling to it, I guess you could say there is a little bit of Buzzcocksiness to it without totally lying. I really love their songs on records but I’ve never had the opportunity to see them live cause of the whole Canada thing. Actually this podcast was the reason I remembered they existed cause they kind of slipped my mind for a while there. Are they still a band? I have no clue. I hope so cause I’d like some new records to buy because their disco up until where I stopped noticing them is flawless to me. Someone fill me in.
Spitboy was a stumbleupon for me. I spotted the cover art to True Self Revealed and through it down on the turntable at a record store and from the first bass hum I was pretty captivated. Then the vocals kick in and it’s sounds like two or three gals chaotically rippin through some steady chanty verses to upbeat punk tunes. I got home and did the knowledge and found out they were a diy style band from San Fran that existed in the early to mid 90s and put out records on Ebullition. “In Tradition” appears on this playlist and is one of their slower jams, which starts out with a drum and bass rhythm that feels like something an open minded rapper could easier flow over. Guitars and vocals chime in and the whole feel transforms. I look forward to finding their other records out there.
OK so this being a female oriented thing how could I, or anyone for that matter, leave off Bikini Kill. Probably the most notable feminist punk band ever, the group that inspired the most girls to say “fuck you” to their asshole boyfriends, and punch guys in the face on the corner of 14th and 4th when they try to cop a feel. I touched on my discovery of Bikini Kill in an earlier post so I won’t ramble about that, but I will say that no one does this style better. Especially the production quality… its cut so that you feel the protest in all of the instruments or something. I don’t have words to describe it but their records just sound so perfect with what they were doing. I got to see Kathleen Hannah speak with a number of other notable feminists at my college, that was quite a moving experience for me and my respect level for her went way up after that evening. It plummeted after Le Tigre (her later band) signed to a major label. I’m so fucking punk.
OK so this next band is seriously one of my favorite bands of the last ten years. I fucking hate it, too. The reason being that they were a from that group of kids who used to be in various bands that played at this fella Ren’s house all the time (he was also in Dirty Looks). These group of 10-12 people all seem to start bands up, play for a few months, record an amazing record and then disappear forever. It’s like early DC, they’re done before the record is even out. My experience with Dirty Looks was that my homeboy Dave V forwarded me their complete Permanent Hearing Damage sessions. I immediately fell in love and asked when they were playing, the response to that was like “oh two of them live in San Diego and the other two in Brooklyn so probably never.” UGH! Anyway my dreams came true and I finally saw them in an overcrowded apartment that was raided by the police one summer night, and although it was quite a nuisance it was an amazing experience to finally hear these songs live. This one is from the Bossy split.
Next up is Ink & Dagger, a band I often forget has a female presence at all until a random back up vocal will pop up in the left channel of my headphones. Ink & Dagger’s visual presence always seems very dark, ya know cause they were a bunch of vampires, so sometimes being able to tell who was in the band wasn’t the easiest thing. Let’s talk about that being vampires thing… they were doing the whole vampire thing well before there were teen vampire movies, fake promotional blood drinks and vampire dramadies all over the place. Well ahead of their time and saw what what was the next big thing, but pursued it too early. If they were around in 2010 they’d be doing the soundtrack to every horribly cgi’ed Twilight film and little goth kids would be eatin’ it up.
So Yum Yum Tree is up next, but I’ll be honest about them… I don’t know anything. I know that they appeared on a split 7″ with Staten Island’s Murdock (maybe that makes them from Shaolin too?) and that they did a picture disc LP that I have too called Glitering Prizes and Endless Compromises. In fact the only tidbit I have about Yum Yum Tree is that when I found the picture disc a couple years back at Academy Records Ron Grimaldi seemed to be bummed that it was the one record he didn’t find first. Yum Yum Tree is awesome stuff though because there is a serious slopiness to it. It’s all maintained and kept together, but it feels like the whole gang got together and said “Alright… let’s just do this thing. Press record.” and that was that.
Wow. Cheeky is next. My most favorite of groups with female members of the last decade. Again this is an Angie Boylan band, she was joined by an amazing group of folks – Kate Wadkins, Brian Schleyer and Kate Eldridge. I had the pleasure of playing with this band a number of times, but I went to as many shows as I possibly could have. Cheeky wrote the freakin’ catchiest pop punk songs ever, I’d put them on a shelf below stuff like the Descendents. And the best part about Cheeky was the overall vibe of their shows. The people were always genuinely happy to be a part of the show, to be watching this incredibly happy punk band sing songs about wanting ice cream and stupid meatheads. They unfortunately broke up last year right before they could write 8 full length albums like I wanted them to. Such a waste!
Oh here’s Blondie with “Hanging On The Telephone” which was originally by The Nerves. A lot of folks don’t know that, I didn’t even know it until a few years ago myself. Check the original 
So this one is from Long Island’s Fellow Project, a band that has existed a lot longer than I knew of. I first heard about them when I was on the same bill, same story as usual I guess, but this 
Channels is 
This one is “I Apologize For My Hunger” from Philadelphia’s Kill The Man Who Questions. First off, great band name. I’m not a fan of long band names in general but if you had to pick one that I wholly approve of, this would be it. KTMWQ is a double vocal band (for the most part) where vocalists Niki and Mike toss the mic back and forth on a range of political and social issues. The music usually speeds through but occasionally stops to take a breath when it sees some change on the floor. Niki has one of the cooler growls of a female vocalist because she is clearly not trying to sound masculine like some female singers do. On the Sugar Industry record she brings along the X Girls Up Fucking Front X chorus with her for much of the backing vocals.
The next band was a short lived local which shared members that Drew and I played in YV with, Fatal Erection. Noisy and semi-sloppy, Fatal Erection was the punker side of Mr. Hansell’s writing. Andre the robot played drums, Greg the short lived second guitar player for Turncoat played bass and Anna Jane helmed vocals. Anna was the star of the show for me with this band, respect to my three other bros… but Anna was so intense I couldn’t take my eyes off her at shows. Lyrically she would just get on stage and tell like a crazy fictional tale she wrote in a psychotic yelp all while maintaining that “out for blood” look in her eyes. I was asked by Chris to maybe record their last written material and I was really looking forward to it, then the knuckleheads fuckin’ broke up! I WILL STILL DO IT. HOLLA AT ME.
Milhouse is up next because I couldn’t leave Rachel Rosen out of this mix. Rachel was probably one of the first female I first saw grace a vfw hall stage while she was in Indecision. Along with Milhouse and Indecision, she also served time in The Wage of Sin, Most Precious Blood, that weird pit-bull grind band they did as a joke and SFA (as far as I know). Rachel has had a strong presence in the NYHC scene over the years and always stood out in all the bands I’ve seen her in.
This is “The Once Over” from Zombie Dogs, a band I consider the hope for the female hardcore scene, the band I hope will inspire other ladies out there will see and follow their lead. They just get on stage and have a blast, singing about thrashin’ and coffee… the stuff punk is made of. I hear they have a 7″ coming out but I have not heard anything regarding a release date. In fact getting in touch with them has been a task. I want to cop a legit demo off them with art and everything but I haven’t heard back. Maybe it’s the mail’s fault. Dunno. Love this band, please play more shows that I will hear about. Oh btw I think their demo is called “Pug’s Not Dead”… the best.
This last song is a bit of a joke, but it has good intentions. This is the Yeah Yeah Yeahs covering “Sheena Is A Punk Rocker” for this weird British comp. Now when the Yeah Yeah Yeahs first came out I was really into their variety of punky dance songs and Karen O’s shrieky sing style. Nothing gold can stay and they got pretty lame and I stopped caring, but the beginning of the band was cool. “Yeah New York” and that stuff is still fun, but what is with the slow boring acoustic type stuff? Anyway this cover is incredibly over produced and has a really lame laugh part where Karen asks “What is she, Joey?” which makes me cringe a bit but I thought it would be a funny ending to this playlist. So this is the end, I hope you enjoyed my favorite lady member bands. Go out there and support them because they can fuck shit up just as much as the guys.