I Want To Throw Punches

As if the Cult Ritual show earlier this month wasn't enough for one week, the July 4th show at the Whitney House just a few days later added the exclamation point with a total punk rock blow-out-- six hours, seven bands, and hardly a dud in the bunch, though I'm not going to speak on Yes Please since I walked in after their set had already ended (or else I've conveniently blocked them from my memory, one or the other).

So by my perspective, New London's atrilliongallonsofgas started things off, and they were seriously heavy-- like "first two Black Sabbath albums" heavy-- and thrashy, too. Fatal Film had mentioned their name to me before I ever saw them, which had me thinking that atrilliongallonsofgas were probably some sort of indie rock band, though they are definitely not. Their songs are shorter than you'd expect for this type of thing and alternate between doom/sludgy parts and fast parts, like Sea of Bones and Iron Hand getting into a fight or something (which in real life would probably be awesome). Their demo cassette has practically the worst sounding dub of any demo I've ever paid for-- the same songs sound much better on their MySpace page-- so maybe it's a good thing that I'm not able to make a rip of it right now (edit: rip is up now, muddafuggas!). Head on over to their MySpace page (atrilliongallons) if you want to check these guys out, and you should definitely try to catch them at a show because their live set is completely punishing.




Sister Kisser were back after their ass-kicking set at Whitney back in May, and even though this time I knew what to expect, I thought they were even better. Their demos (just re-released on cassette by Dead Broke Rekerds) are one thing, but their live set is completely another; the songs are played faster, the two guitars sound even thicker, and everything rocks that much harder. Now, I know that Sister Kisser are totally punk rock (Hot Water Music seems to be the comparison that everyone else reaches for) and I should stop trying to describe them by indie rock/hard rock standards, but when I watch them play it reminds me of two Replacements recordings-- the flat-out version of "Can't Hardly Wait" on "The Shit Hits The Fans" and their hopped-up cover of "Another Girl, Another Planet" on "All For Nothing"-- so if you can picture that in your head and maybe throw some really fast Cheap Trick in there too, that's a start.




This is the one picture I got of Coke Bust; I was able to break through the bodies and get up front just long enough to snap this photo, before the mosh pit closed in on me again and some kid spilled half his beer all over me when he got knocked into from behind. I probably could've gone all Young Republicans/Violent Children on him and slapped the bottle out of his hand, Porcelly-style, but jeez, it'd been practically knocked out of his grip already anyway, plus the sight of two or three open beer cans in a Coke Bust pit is fairly amusing (at least to me it is). Instead, I stepped aside into one of the side hallways of the Whitney House basement for the rest of Coke Bust and Sick Fix, where I could hear everything fine but just couldn't see anything, and gave my camera and shirt a chance to dry out. Oh yeah, I also took a break and went upstairs to the kitchen to clean up, where someone from Al Gore and The Alcoholics (love those guys) started telling me about how much improved they were since the first time I saw them, before he fell over.




Foreign Objects = the harder stuff on "Pink Flag" punked out a bit with female vocals, and it works most of the time. Actually, it's pretty great. I've been listening to the Foreign Objects demo in my car a lot lately, and I gone from thinking that the singer is the worst part of this band to thinking that the singer is the best part, so I guess I need to pay attention a bit more. They've got a 7" out now, too (on the same label that put out the Closet Fairies and Witches With Dicks!), which I bought from them at the show but haven't listened to yet; the two songs I'm posting here from the demo tape aren't my rips, either, but were swiped from the primo I Could Die Tomorrow blog. I couldn't improve upon the files that ICDT posted with my own rips, so I'm leaving them as they are.




I overheard Donn matter-of-factly saying to Lauren before Clusterfuck's set, "We're going to rip this place apart", and that they did. It was Clusterfuck's fourth show in three days-- they'd even played in NYC at ABC No Rio earlier in the day-- and, no shit, this was the best set I've ever seen at Whitney House. I know I might've said that about Sister Kisser back in May, and I'm sure I thought it about Cult Ritual earlier in the week, but Clusterfuck topped them all. The way the place went nuts while Clusterfuck were playing was unreal. Donn had already been planning on conserving his voice by handing off the mic a lot, which he did, especially after they ran out of songs that they knew how to play (I guess it's been a while) and ended up finishing with a cover of 7 Seconds' "Bully" as an encore-- though not before Jeff tried to go all Keith Moon by kicking over his drumset.


Clusterfuck -

"Flagfucker"

"Idle and Immoral"

"God Told Me To Buy Stocks"

"Bully"
(7 Seconds cover)

Foreign Objects -

"Lost Time"

"Fable"

Coke Bust -

"Forced To Live"

Sister Kisser -

"The Money Shot"

atrilliongallonsofgas -

"White Backgrounds"

(all of these files are now listen-only)

I Know It's A Warning And I Choose Not To Heed It

"One dreary day in 2006, as America slowly devoured itself, Clusterfuck recorded an LP. A record so grand in its dismantling of dead end culture and prefab politics that the universe had no choice but to destroy it. These 5 songs are all that remain. A scant 30 copies sold at 1 show in a skate shop basement. Don't look now, but time is already ravaging this little marker. Oxygen molecules are bombarding the minute metal content until all that remains is rust." -- liner notes to Clusterfuck's "Bootleg EP"

This little biscuit is a limited-run CD that Clusterfuck brought with them on their triumphant return back to the Northeast earlier this month, containing the few songs that were salvaged from the original recording of Clusterfuck's 2006 LP (lost forever after a hard drive failure). The second recording session that was eventually pressed up as the classic "How The West Was Won" LP is certainly no slouch in itself, but I like these earlier versions of the songs even better. I was told that only 25 of these "bootleg" CDs were made, and I'm figuring that they're all sold out now, but I've gone ahead and duplicated four of the five tracks just for you, before time and wind and rain turn my copy into tiny little specs of dust, no doubt. The question is, brothers and sisters: How Much Rock Can You Take?





Clusterfuck -

"Son of Sam"

"No No No Brain"

"I'm Fine"

"Disengage"

(these files are now listen-only)

Excuse Me While I Bang My Fucking Head Against This Wall

Hardcore can still be a blast when done right, and for that I refer you to Clusterfuck. Reminiscent of "Group Sex"-era Circle Jerks or "In Got We Trust"-era DK's, the Clusterfuck tracks on this split are insane-- performed with all-out abandon, recorded super loud and trebly as fuck. Songs crash to a halt with a sudden, exhorted "Yeah!!", or end in a squall of feedback, just as good hardcore should. They even go so far as to drop in a riff from "Iron Man" during "Shit Eating Grin", and how funny is that?

No doubt Clusterfuck are able to pull this off owing to the fact that they're mostly made up of Connecticut punk veterans, including Donn, the singer, who also sang for Seizure and Fudge Daddy-O's and played drums for the incredible Kitty Badass, and drummer Jeff "Spaz" Coleman, who was in Seizure, Fudge Daddy-O's, and the way-overlooked Injections (if you're into pop punk, when I eventually post the Injections demo here it'll kick your ass). Donn was like the third or fourth singer for Seizure; I saw him sing for them only once, at a reunion show back in '97, but he ran around the stage like a total maniac and it was pretty friggin' hilarious.

Clusterfuck's lyrics are hilarious, also, although this split comes with the world's tiniest typewritten lyric sheet, which even after it's blown up to full size is still nearly impossible to read:


Rat Byte also shred it old school, reminding me of '80s NY/CT HC bands like Cause For Alarm, Rest In Pieces, and Violent Children. They've since broken up, but a couple of members have resurfaced in the aforementioned Guilty Faces.

Clusterfuck -

"NATO Needs Shock Treatment"

"Idle and Immoral"

"Flagfucker"

"God Told Me To Buy Stocks"

"Shit Eating Grin"

Rat Byte -

"Break Yourself" / "Get Lost"

(all of these files are now listen-only)