We're Not As Fucked As You Think

This was probably the worst show I've been to all year. Swear Jar, now playing as a three-piece without a bass player, did their best, but in the cavernous Charter Oak, the sound just went in all different directions. Dear Landlord's set was decent enough ("thanks for letting us into your church"), even though they're not really my thing. Off With Their Heads were friggin' terrible. Ryan stands in front of the band now, looking like some random dude who just walked in off the street and decided to grab the microphone; he still hasn't found his way as a frontman without a guitar, I guess. The tempos were so slow that even stuff off "Hospitals" sounded lifeless. Seeing them play at Charter Oak four months apart means OWTH are at once one of the best bands I've seen this year and one of the worst bands I've seen this year. I don't think it's a matter of them being on Epitaph now-- besides, I'm willing to bet "In Desolation" was finished before they signed, and it might even be a better album than "From The Bottom" anyway-- but there seems to be a conscious effort being made to move the band in some other direction, one that I'd rather not take part in.

The funniest part of the whole night was when Sean wrapped duct tape around all but three rows of church pews, trying to get people to stand further down towards the stage. I don't know if it ended up working or not (most people were probably gonna move down once the bands started anyway), but it was still pretty defiant on his part.


Dear Landlord -

"Three to the Beach"

I Don't Like You And I Won't Pretend To

Here's a bunch of photos that I took at the big Off With Their Heads show on Thursday night; technically the show was put on by the Whitney House, but it was held at the Charter Oak Cultural Center, which was a good thing since it really would've been too big a show for everybody to fit into the Whitney House basement like the previous two times that OWTH came through this area. And seriously, this show was friggin' huge-- there was still plenty of room to walk around and stuff, but pretty much everybody I've ever seen at CT house show over the past two or three years was there (save for a couple of people I can think of off the top of my head), plus I saw some people whom I'd never thought I'd see at a DIY Hartford punk show, but whatever. Some technical fuckups with the sound equipment had me sorta bummed out about halfway through the night, but OWTH's set was a satisfying near-riot (even OLD PEOPLE were stage diving) so in the end it didn't even matter.

The Slow Death (from Minnesota, a retuned version of Pretty Boy Thorson and The F'n A's, whom I think played The Whitney House basement at least once) started things off early because they had another show in Brooklyn later that same night. Mikey Erg is drumming for them on this tour, and he ran through the Spin Doctors' greatest hits during the soundcheck, which was sorta hilarious. One of the Hartford Advocate's offshore indians labeled The Slow Death "country-punk" or something, but "Another Song About Phones" (their new 7", which isn't even listed on the Kiss of Death web site yet) can be pretty easily matched up with the a-side of that mysterious Ean Eraser single, so fans of that new-type fake '80s wave-o rock could probably dig The Slow Death too, and not just the one or two people who bought Armchair Martian records.

Iron Hand were up next, their first set in 7 or 8 months I guess, and they freakin' killed. I'd remembered them as being really heavy, but I didn't remember them playing with this much quickness; instead of their usually steamrollering sludgy/crusty stuff, they almost sounded like '86 vintage Youth of Today. Of course, I could only hear the guitar and drums, no vocals or bass, which maybe explains why my thinking is so far off. Stefan from Estrogen Highs is playing bass for them now, with a new drummer, Ross (ex-Tombstone Minds), who was awesome. I stood behind the drums for a few songs and watched him, and almost couldn't believe how dead-on fast he was. Then Dead Uncles went on right afterwards, and because of the sound issues I couldn't really hear everything they were doing, only that people were moving around during their set, which was good. Brian from Iron Hand even jumped in like a maniac for the sing-along part to "Village Idiots", which was one of the high points of the night. They might've said they were going to do a cover at one point and then decided not to, I don't really remember.

Whatever problems the P.A. presented were sort of erased once Off With Their Heads started playing. I don't know if it's because they were the only band to set up on the stage, holding the sound in and making them sound better, but OWTH seemed to have the best sound of the night. It didn't seem like their set list has really moved at all since their first Whitney House appearance two years ago, but it didn't really matter. Like I said back then, seeing Off With Their Heads reminds me of how much I still like punk rock, even if I act like an indie rock prick most of the time. I ended up going home with a rectangular bruise on the outside of my leg from being bumped against the stage so many times, just like after seeing shows at the Tune Inn and the Norwalk Anthrax years ago.


Off With Their Heads -

"That Must Be Nigel With The Brie"

"Big Mouth"

Slow Death -

"Another Song About Phones"

Iron Hand -

"Liquid Assets"

Dead Uncles -

"Wholesome Sleep Deprivation"

(all of these files are now listen-only)

I Think This Time I've Finally Lost It

Friday night's Off With Their Heads show at Whitney House was easily four times as packed as any of the other times I've been there, even with the wooden partition and stuff that had been taken out since the week before. Guilty Faces were originally listed as being on the bill and then bailed on it (that record better be out soon, by the way), but the four bands that did play-- Off With Their Heads, Dead Uncles, Play It Faster!, and Iron Hand-- were all worth a night out, which was pretty damn alright.



Iron Hand, holy fuck. I was not prepared for how awesome these guys were gonna be, especially with this being their first show ever. Iron Hand is some dudes from They and The Children (who just split up in September) and Oiltanker, and there was one song of theirs that had the most wicked headbanging mosh part ever, I swear. There's even a photo out there where you can see me headbanging, although I was probably just looking down at my camera. I'll admit that it's beyond me to be able to describe any hardcore besides old-school thrash at this point, but if you're thinking that Iron Hand probably sound like Smurf Crisis or Converge or whatever crappy metal bands started counting as hardcore way back when, then they're not at all what you're thinking. More like Ass-End Offend, but that's just a scientific wild-ass guess on my part. Their demo wasn't ready yet-- about another week, they said-- but you can check out some songs on their MySpace page (myspace.com/ironhandcrushesall) and that oughta clear things up a bit.




Play It Faster!, are some kids from down Route 8 or somewhere, playing Plan-It-X core or something like that. Their songs are simple and catchy, plus their drummer doesn't waste a lot of motion and plays with a loud hat, which is the way I like it. They seem like one of those bands where you maybe hadn't heard of them before, yet everyone in their local scene knows the words to all their songs by heart, so go ahead and have fun, that's gotta count for something.




The first time I saw Dead Uncles, who made me think of Dillinger Four even before I knew that's what they were trying to do, is when they opened up for The Ergs! and For Science back towards the beginning of the year. They didn't really fit in with the preppie pop-punk crowd, for whatever reason, and the room emptied out right before they played, which was a bunch of crap. Friday night, though, Dead Uncles got the response they deserved, and it was great to see the place turn into a madhouse when they played, with people flying all over the place, in front of and even on top of the band. The first wave of crowd surfers began in earnest, and yeah, it's pretty funny to see someone crowd surfing underneath a 7-foot ceiling (just like at the old Anthrax Club), but it works, somehow.




The singer for Off With Their Heads didn't seem to get the drum kit joke I made at the beginning of the night, but they're from Minnesota so I coulda been a martian for all they knew. I could barely move during Off With Their Heads, which was awesome; people were shouting along to every word and climbing up on top of people by hanging from the support beams in the ceiling so they could get closer to the band, and every few songs the guy who thought I was a martian would stop to tell everybody how great this place was. It this whole mess that reminded me of how much I love punk rock, which I tend to forget sometimes. Off With Their Heads ended up playing every song they knew, almost, announcing "we only know two more songs" before playing ten more songs after that.


Off With Their Heads -

"For The Four"

"Shambles"

Dead Uncles -

"Mediocrity: It's What's For Dinner"

"We Weren't Meant For Free Time"

Play It Faster! -

"It Never Ends"

(all of these files are now listen-only)