On Saturday I drove the hour or so down to New Haven to see Lemuria (who've nearly become my favorite band all of a sudden) and a bunch of other bands that I also really like, only to get crossed up when the show was moved to a different venue within an hour or so of when it was supposed to start and I ended up missing the whole friggin' thing. All was not lost, however, since I hit up Redscroll on the way back home-- finally scoring a used copy of The Injections EP to replace my horribly battle-scarred original-- and then once I got back into town I stopped by the Whitney House, where they were having an all-acoustic show with Malcolm Tent and Al Pist.
I've known Malcolm peripherally for a lot of years, as well as being familiar with his playing with Bunnybrains and Ultrabunny and Creepdust and so forth, but this was the first time I've ever seen his solo acoustic show, and it was too hilarious. To say that his solo stuff sounds like an equal mix of Jello Biafra and Paul Caporino might sound like a bunch of hype, but for almost every one of the songs he played I was thinking, "This sounds like the Dead Kennedys", or "This could be a M.O.T.O. song" (except for the covers, of course-- Black Flag, Gorilla Biscuits(!), Devo, DKs, and the Ramones are the ones I can remember). You should seriously look up his "they all suck" song on YouTube; "Presidential People Suck" is the name of it, I think.
Al Pist was really good, too; he's got good songs and he presents them well, in a manner that is believable and sincere without any excess bullshit (seeing as I brought up Jello Biafra's name already, I figured I'd make that distinction). I think he was the only guy all night that I saw tuning up, also. I could definitely see Al playing to a regular crowd, and not just a punk crowd that already knows his background or whatever, and pulling it off sucessfully. I'm not sure any of this sounds complimentary or not, but it's meant to be, and I'm saying it anyway. Al ended his set with a Code of Honor cover, and he really does have a "Beware the Savage Jaw" tattoo, by the way.
I didn't take any pictures because I would've felt stupid using a flash in a small room where everyone was sitting down. I've had this God's Left Hand CD for a few years, though, so I'll go with that instead.
God's Left Hand -
"Fire Is My Friend"
(this file is now listen-only)
