Iron Lung, No Statik, Acephalix, Merdoso

This was the Prank Records showcase of some of the label's local bands at Balazo on Thursday, January 19. It was also kind of the unofficial kickoff party for the Short, Fast, and Loud anniversary fest at Gilman the next two days.

The first band up was Merdoso who played such a short set that I didn't get a picture of them. They were a solid D-beat band that I'm going to be seeing again in the future.


No Statik killed. My favorite local band. They should really be at the point of being a headlining band at a show this size but they consistently open shows or play second. That's cool but I'm going to a show where they are on the bill because of them at this point.


Acephalix was a weird choice of band for this bill because they are such a metal band now that some of the crusto kids don't like them. They play fast so at least it wasn't like they interrupted the flow of the night too bad. They were rad as usual. Dan is really getting to be a fan of running into me when they play. I told him that one of these days I'm going to headbutt him and he seemed stoked on the idea.



Iron Lung are rather amazing live. I've seen them enough times now that I've got their current set pretty much down and kind of want them to play some of the other songs, they have enough.

Neurosis, Saviours, US Christmas

No pictures this time because it was at Great American Music Hall but with this post I will be caught up with the blog (I'm a bad blogger). The show went down on Sunday, Jan. 16 and Neurosis fucking killed it.

I got hooked up with a free ticket from a friend of a friend who had bought an extra one for each night and got canceled on. US Christmas was playing when I got there and I thought they were all right at first but they steadily broke me down. It was very ambient stony doomish music that sounded like a hippie version of Neurosis without any of the aggression. They had a violin player and a dude dressed in some East Indian cultist outfit and face tattoos playing tambourine. I just couldn't hang and went outside where half the people I know in the Bay Area punk scene were hanging out.

Next up was Saviours who I've seen about five times too many. They aren't terrible but they always kind of impressed me as hipsters who saw Metalocalypse and decided to start a death metal band. It's just pretty generic and vapid and they are always opening for an awesome band that they should be ashamed to darken a stage before. Once again, outside was where the party was at. Some guy walked by and said "hey what's up Jason" to me because I was standing next to Jason Stormcrow's girlfriend and he's a fat dude with dreads and a beard too. We had a good laugh about it.

I had never seen Neurosis before and to tell you the truth I'm not very familiar with their catalog, although I've always been stoked to hear them come on the stereo at a party. I was standing next to a Redding friend when they took the stage and the guitar player came out looking exactly like our friend Curt from Redding who has played in a bunch of bands. Our chuckling was cut short as Neurosis proceeded to blow our minds. They played for about two hours which is just a little too long for my fat ass to stand in one place but it was sufficiently incredible that I didn't mind much. They went off, the playing was excellent, the projected film behind them was disturbingly trippy, and the intensity made me want to punch somebody. I am converted.

Hammerlock, The Shankers, Shivaree

This one's a twofer. I went to the East Bay Rats party on Saturday, Jan. 15 and ran into some Chico kids, some of who I used to play with, who were headed to a show down the street at Copland where some of them were playing. The Rats show was some shitty Pyrate Punx related bands so I ended up heading down to Copland after doing some flyering and watching some of Hammerlock's set. Hammerlock play weak "metal" that sounds like it's influenced by classic rock. They do have a cute bass player though. Here she is:



Not the douchebag with the hipster mustache in the foreground, the hot chick in the back. I swear, you can't just snap a picture of a pretty lady and leave to hang out with your friends without some dipshit walking into the frame.

Down at Copland the Chico bands were shunted to the end of the bill so the lame hipster bands could play together. The other bands were terrible so I just hung out upstairs until the hipster element had cleared the building.



The Shankers are probably my favorite band in Chico despite being a rockabilly outfit. There isn't any of that punkabilly or psychobilly shit in their act. They play old school proto-rock 'n' roll and cover people like Jerry Jeff Walker. Johnny the guitar player used to play in a punk band with me and the guy is the best musician I've played with and a rad dude. I would want to play bass in this band if it wasn't for Kerra his girlfriend who plays better than me and looks better in a dress. The last couple years when I see them I've noticed that Kerra sings more songs than in the early days, which gives the band added depth. I was also stoked to see Christine back on drums after a few drummers had cycled through in the past couple years. She plays a stripped down kit standing up and it's cool to see live and adds a crashy simplified element that some of the dudes who have played in the band who play full kits lack. With this kind of band, less is more. Stoked to see them again.


Last was Shivaree which features another old friend who I used to play with on drums. Sean looks about as stoked on his band as I am in that picture right up there. It's a folk punk band more in the style of the Pogues than Defiance Ohio which doesn't really make it fun to watch but at least they picked good material to rip off. I'm just over folk punk in general unless it's Mischief Brew. The shit is played out and that scene is filled with douchbags and scumfucks. Sean argues that they aren't a folk punk band but there's a dude named Rat that sings and plays guitar and a fiddle player with dreads.

And the backpatch of the week award goes to this guy:

And yes the dude was of African descent.

Owen Hart, Blood Hunger

I've fallen behind again. This show was at Gilman on Friday, Jan. 14. I was originally going to another show to see Mata Mata, who I've never seen before, over Owen Hart who are one of my favorite bands but I've seen a few times already.

It was a little weird because the four or so bands that played the first part of the show were all crappy screamo shit that wasn't worth watching so I got there late and hung out with people outside the club who were there to see Owen Hart too. I guess it was a combo show to accommodate Owen Hart's wish to have a Gilman show to release their new record at. Bummer thing was that all the screamo fucks left and the crowd was small.


The other Tacoma band touring with Owen Hart was actually a pretty decent death metal group called Blood Hunger. They were a little goofy, as you can see the singer wore a wolf hood thing that didn't really make me like them any better. They had some competent jams and really it was just the singer who was ridiculous.



Owen Hart played stuff off of their new record and it was hella good. I kind of liked them more when they had two guitarists because they would play off of each other and it was one of those weird things about the band that made them more notable. They still kill and are less gimmicky and more straight ahead. I got the new record but haven't been able to listen to it all the way through yet because my turntable is being a fucking asshole. It keeps switching the speed from 33 to 45 randomly by itself. It might get the toss soon.

After the show I went to the other show I was originally going to but it was dying down into the afterparty. Talked to a bunch of people there and then some people headed over to another house to party some more. As we were leaving some teenage crusties beat up some jackass tagger kid in the street in front of the place.

When we got to Will's house the two Tacoma bands from the Gilman show were staying there. I got pretty messed up with the dudes in Blood Hunger because the goofball singer kept passing me his bottle of whiskey. I stumbled home around 4:30 and don't remember getting in.

Hatred Surge and Mammoth Grinder round 2, plus hipster shit

So this show happened a few days ago at Copland in Oakland. The show was Tuesday the 11th and I got super hammered and spent most of the night hanging out upstairs. I met a dude who might be down to play drums in a metal project I'm trying to put together. I also saw Andreas who used to be in Vitamin Piss and we talked for a bit about how he's living in Sweden now. That's fucking cool.

It was a weird show with a bunch of really bad hipster bands trying to play fastcore or black metal since those are the new hip flavors in music so I didn't even bother with names of bands after immediately realizing that they sucked. Hatread Surge and Mammoth Grinder were fucking awesome again.


I couldn't get a picture of this dude where he isn't making a funny face. He spends lots of time headbanging. Also, the drummer for Mammoth Grinder has like 1% fat and when he plays all his veins stand out and he looks all buff and crazy.


The crusties in the crowd went pretty nuts for both bands, especially Hatred Surge. You can't quite see that shit is going off the hook here but notice that the dude in front of me is getting hit in the back of the head with the headstock of a bass.

This girl that I see at shows and sometimes talk to stood next to me during Hatred Surge and was aggressively dancing. I don't know her name and I don't know where I met her but barring that I think that we might get to the hanging out together level sometime if I can stop myself from being a weirdo long enough. Probably not going to happen.

Hatred Surge, Mammoth Grinder, Pink Nightmare, Torture Unit

God, I've been to the fucking Balazo three nights in a row. I need to get away from that place. I worked the door at this show so at times my attention wasn't focused on the bands and I had to deal with that asshole security dude they have there. He kept giving me shit about ins and outs when people would leave to get money to buy merch or drinks at the show.


The first band was Torture Unit which apparently has some well known people from other bands in it but I was busy taking money at the door most of the set. It was good fast hardcore punk. I'm down to see them again.


Pink Nightmare shares members with another band called Foreign Objects who are rumored to be awesome and were playing another show down the street and they didn't get there until right before they were supposed to play. They were kind of boring to watch but the band played decent riot grrrlish punk in the slower and snarling vein. The grrrl singing has a super deep voice and I thought it was a dude until I checked out up by the stage and saw a petite female belting it out.

I've wanted to name a band Pink Nightmare for years and perform in the pink bunny PJs from the "Christmas Story" movie. Of course a bunch of SF riot grrrls beat me to it.


Mammoth Grinder was more of a metal band than a grind band but they were pretty good. I was vaguely upset that their name misled me but they made up for it. During the end of their set, that dude Stinkweed who plays guitar and sings in Plutocracy drunkenly made friends with me and insisted we smoke weed in the back room. That didn't hurt Hatred Surge's set at all.


After switching out a drummer and adding a dedicated singer, Mammoth Grinder returned to the stage as Hatred Surge. Killer band, brutal grind assault. Enough said.



I brought a box of records to the show to give to Hatred Surge from Martin at Lengua Armada and Martin hooked me up with the new Lengua Armada stuff most of which is already sold out. I got it on limited colored vinyl too bitches. High points are the new Vaccuum 7' and the Totsugeki Sensya 7'. Fucking stoked.

Nomos, The Men, Skin Like Iron, Face the Rail, Lie Still

Another night at Balazo/Submission. I'm going back there tonight to see Hatred Surge and Mammoth Grinder. Been taking way too many trips to the city.


Lie Still is a brand new band featuring Pete who has been in a bunch of metal and hardcore projects like Benumbed and Agenda of Swine. They played powerviolence with lots of stops and slowdowns and look like they could turn out pretty good. I think they would be better if I was playing bass for them.


Face the Rail comes out of that whole ex-Warkrime scene that I'm split down the middle on. This particular band was pretty fucking good, very garage rockish with a midtempo hardcore sensibility. Definitely worth seeing.

Next up was Skin Like Iron. I don't like them and their weirdo hardcore trying to incorporate bad elements of thrash metal. And they have a dude from Ceremony in the band which usually counts as a strike against in my book. I had a way better time trying to hash out a crusty metal project with a friend out in the back patio than watching that shit.


There have been a lot of New York bands coming through in a burst now that there isn't a blizzard canceling all tours. The Men are from Brooklyn and played a very catchy type of aggressive pop punk. That's not really what they sounded like. I kept thinking I heard a Dead Moon influence in there with some noisy garage style guitars, lots of effects and solos, and a driving style that builds up and dies down multiple times in each song. I really liked them and almost bought a 7' but they were $7 and the line was long so I said fuck it.


I had heard good things about Nomos and they delivered despite an initial prejudice against them when the pudgy singer immediately took his shirt off and started punching the stage. Yeah we've all seen Fucked Up and I can do without that gimmick again. By the end of the first song they had won me over however. They played good, aggressive East Coast hardcore with lots of fist pumping parts and moshy breakdowns.


The Nomos pit was wild and the singer spent most of the set in the crowd crashing into dudes. I like.