Tuddd's Muddd

Bouncing Souls at Music Hall of Williamsburg, September 12, 2010

Still trashed.  You know what that means - BULLET POINTZ

• not gonna lie, I'm pretty much a complete poser when it comes to Bouncing Souls.  A friend of mine gave me a DVD a few years ago which had a bunch of Bouncing Souls albums on it (and also a prized WIZO album, which is also lost to the ages).  Not gonna lie here- I know maybe one Bouncing Souls album pretty well, tops.  (I'm much more of a Bad Religion/Social D guy.)
• Third time seeing them live.  First time I saw them, I got the shit knocked out of me in the pit and wound up losing my shoe, only to have it handed back to me by a child less than half my age.  Second time I saw them was on LI at Crazy Donkey in Farmingdale.  At that show, I was troubled by the fact that The Crazy Donkey has an anchor-sized piece of fucking massive iron in the middle of the floor right in the middle of where a hypothetical "moshing pit" would potentially break out.
• [Careened painfully into said iron girder multiple times.]
• Spent most of Sunday "in."  Was terrified by a hideous screaming/belching/~135 dB noise coming from the dryer, considering that when I checked it, the rat bastard was white-hot to the touch.  Remember, my family's home has burned TWICE in the last 11 years.  Dodgy electrical appliances are SCARY!  
• My new roommate is AWESOME.  Tonight he actually apologized for "playing [his] vibraphone too loud when [he's] fuckin' trashed all the time," which I honestly haven't even noticed.  This is by FAR the best living situation I've had since college, and the thousands of legitimate complaints I had about my last place/etc. (atrocious in every possible way, except the roof, which was pretty great) seem to, um, not be at play here.  Unreal.  *JINX!*
• My bro Devin came over pre-show, and drank 2 1/2 pounders despite being on pretty hardcore antibiotics and steroids for a nasty sickness.  That's what one refers to as "the champion spirit."
• 3 out of 3 experts agree; "Skin Horse" by Melvins is the best song ever written by anybody.
• Hooked onto a decent buzz before we left.  Last time I didn't smoke weed before a show was in June.  Huh.
• We got to the venue late, about 5 minutes after Bouncing Souls had taken the stage.  After a much-needed pissbreak, headed upstairs, slammed another beer, and snuck up the raised area to the left side of the floor (I will from now on refer to this area as "the veranda," since I see like 85% of shows I go to at MHoW from this spot) and headed into the pit.  Last time I saw Bouncing Souls live the audience was pretty much split down the middle between late 20s/earl thirty-somethings and tweens straight off the Warped Tour, but this crowd was slanted more towards us oldsters.
• As soon as I was enpittrified I "live dialed in" my bro Dale on "Lean on Sheena." 
• Good, energetic crowd, but nothing too terrifying.  I was by FAR the largest person in the first 20 feet or so in front of the stage all night, not particularly close on that one.
• I always wind up strongly touched by the amount of effort that goes into scraping the wounded off the floor/helping folks that have fallen over.  Last time I saw Social Distortion at Roseland (date?), I held back a sizable section of crowd so a chick could find her contact.  This action was, um, reciprocated (?!) by a leather-clad biker dude who kissed me on the mouth.  Scouts honor/honest injun.
• Again, physically, although I wasn't exactly running around the fucking maypole (more on that later), I held my own and then some.  Got kicked and punched in the face countless times, but considering the extremes, nothing that bad.  Two worst injuries occurred for me when 1.) some guy wound up and kicked me straight in my left ankle knob; and 2.) another guy punted me square in the shin.  Other than that I think my worst pain tomorrow morning (cross fingers) will be my neck what with all the "head-banging" and such. 
• About this maypole: I think I have to say the first time I saw that was at said aforementioned Bouncing Souls show at Crazy Donkey: was mortified to see all the kids running around, counterclockwise, in a circle, all orderly-like, instead of beating the everloving shit out of each other.  Plenty of that tonight, but also plenty of pint-size jacked meatheads throwing elbows.  
• Again, I'm not that hugely familiar with Bouncing Souls material, but it's pretty obvious from the 3 shows I've seen that they've somehow co-opted the TMJ-inducing "oleeeee, oleee oleee oleeeeeee" thing from soccer.  I don't care what explanation there is for that; anyway you slice it, sorry, that's fucking gay. 
• A LOT of people wound up onstage.  The band seemed used to that shit though.  At one point the other big strongish dude that was upfront offered to boost me up onstage, but I bashfully dismissed all of that.
• Their set was ~an hour, and after a brief encore break there was a ~10 minute encore, complete with requests.  This meant that they really didn't have to let up on the caffeinated pop/punk pace of the set and the anthemic meatheadedness of the songs they chose to fill out the setlist.  They played a coupl'a (that's it, I think, literally about 2) slowish songs and a cover that many people didn't seem to know, but otherwise folks kept it real. 
• Good show, would go to see these guys pretty much any time they come around.  Who knows when that will be, but in the meantime I'm'a get cracking on familiarizing myself with some classic Bouncing Souls stuff.  Any suggestions?
• (Will be attending the upcoming Bad Religion/Social D shows/pretty stoked.)
• Vinnie's post-show, then bowls.  Fuckity Fuck Yeah.

Bad Religion with Gallows at Nokia Theater, October 15th 2007

    Bad Religion has been one of my favorite bands since I first heard All Ages early in college and basically kept it on repeat for the next several years.  This being said, I've only seen them live four (I think) times, which seems way too low until I remembered that if you wanted to catch them live most summers you'd have to hit up the Warped Tour and sit through a bunch of Dashboard Confessional clones, all for a 45 minute (tops) set of Bad Religion, or maybe if you're lucky NOFX is playing too or something. 

    I like their new record New Maps of Hell okay, but it's nowhere near as good as The Empire Strikes First, which was a very, very good record.  Most people seem to be of the school of thought that "oh, wow, Bad Religion's shat out another one *yawn*" but f that.  Since founding member (and Epitaph label head) Mr. Brett returned to the fold in '01 (in a songwriting capacity), Bad Religion has enjoyed somewhat of a late career renaissance with The Process of Belief, ...Empire... and New Maps... all being fine albums in their own right.

    Got on the LIRR at 7:10 and drank a six-pack on the way in, and sucked down a pair of hot dogs pretty much as soon as I got to Penn.  Nokia Theatre is less than 15 blocks away, so a brisk walk over to the venue sobered me up a small tad.  Missed the first band entirely, but I'd heard good things about the second band, Gallows.  I usually have a tough time telling whether or not a hardcore band is any good live because the sound is usually pretty muddy and this show was (unfortunately) par for the course in that respect.  I admired the vocalist's sense of humor and showmanship; he spent the majority of his set singing from the 'pit and cracking self-deprecating jokes about his diminutive stature ("hey, I appreciate that you've got a lot of energy, but I'm about five foot fookin' seven and these guns [points at puny biceps] aren't hurtin' no one.")  When he made it back onstage for the second half of the set, his stage antics consisted of repeatedly tackling one of the guitarists and generally acting like a soccer 'ooligan on the warpath.  Pretty amusing.

    At the end of the set, the band threw picks and drumsticks into the crowd, and I grabbed one of the latter out of the air at the same time as some teenager; I yanked it in my direction and the kid crumpled to the ground, which was kind of cool.  I kind of felt like a dick because I had no intention of actually keeping the stick, knowing full well that it would probably wind up "up in me" if I took it into the pit during Bad Religion.

    Between sets I met up with a couple of friends-of-a-friend who I got fucked up with before/during/after the semi-tragic yet awesome Bouncing Souls show last December at Webster Hall.  (I say semi-tragic because a friend of mine almost got divorced after not getting home until 7 AM -- on a work night no less -- after this show.)  We went outside to smoke butts and after asking 20 plus people if they wanted to take the drumstick off my hands, some guy took it.  He announced himself as [something garbled] from Finland, and said that he collects drumsticks.  I told him that I collect menthol cigarettes, so he gave me a couple.  We went back inside and I bought another couple rounds of beers.

    The show itself was populated by pretty equal measures of old chestnuts/classics ("21st Century Digital Boy," "I Want to Conquer the World," "Anesthesia," "Generator," "We're Only Gonna Die," "Fuck Armageddon (This Is Hell)," "No Control," etc.) along with several from New Maps and throughout their entire catalog (I also remember "Sorrow," "New Dark Ages," "Supersonic," "Recipe for Hate," "52  Seconds>Heroes and Martyrs," "American Jesus" and the super-rare "Skyscraper").  A pretty fair balance between new shit and old, which in all likelihood was partly due to the band allowing fans to vote for the songs they wanted to hear online (a cool touch).   

 

    Bad Religion crowds are amongst my favorite.  You have the late 20s/early 30s old folk who dug BR in high school and college, tons of punk kids and others, but these are not ignorant abusive assholes we're talking about; someone falls down in the 'pit, they're going to be helped back up.  I also love that BR shows are always just a great big sing-along -- no shame in belting out the chorus to "I Want to Conquer the World" even if you're way off key. 

    Of course, it wouldn't be a Bad Religion show without dorky stage banter courtesy vocalist Greg Graffin, who baited the Giants fans in the crowd and joked about this show being just a "warm-up" for the upcoming evening's show in Boston, which was "the important show."  This of course brought derision and catcalls from the crowd, all in good fun.  At one point, the band eased into a seemingly impromptu version of "On Broadway," featuring some particularly sour backing vocals and a brief soft-shoe routine.  I half expected a juggling act or a trapeze or something by that point -- who knew Bad Religion were such well-rounded entertainers?

    Fun show, even if my neck is fucked up from jackhammering all night and if I was so hung over I didn't roll out of bed until 1:30 PM.  Can't wait until the next time these guys come around.   Cheeseburger tonight.  Back at ya tomorrow. 

   

Bouncing Souls with The Loved Ones, I Am the Avalanche and Static Radio NJ at Crazy Donkey, June 23rd, 2007

    Haven't written a decent entry in some time.  This is not to say that I haven't been to any shows, or that I haven't been to any *good* shows; quite the contrary, in fact.  The combination of family responsibilities, laziness, and not having been to any truly *great* shows has led to my current dry spell.  In all likelihood, said dry spell will likely be ended tonight when I see Os Mutantes at Lincoln Center, but why not get the creative juices flowing before that?  So, yeah, I'm going to try to fire up some reviews over the next couple of days.  Here goes.

Bouncing Souls with The Loved Ones, I Am the Avalanche and Static Radio NJ at Crazy Donkey, June 23rd, 2007

    First off, how often is it that I ever even go out on Long Island, let alone see a show on LI?  I saw Bad Religion at Mulcahey's last November, but before then.... who knows?  I saw Tool a few years ago at Nassau Coliseum, but there really hasn't been much to speak of happening on LI since I moved back here in 2004.  Five years ago or so, I used to love going to Dave Glicker's Downtown in Farmingdale and getting hammered while watching surprisingly good cover bands, but that really doesn't count as much of a "scene", now, does it?  (Yes, I'm fully aware that I should move to Brooklyn and quit my bitching.  I still have 5 months on my lease.) 

    I made a big, big, unforgivable mistake before heading to this show: since I've been working out a lot in a futile attempt at becoming less morbidly obese, I figured that I could squeeze in a _second_ workout of the day before heading out to this one.  Bad idea.  And, as a sidenote: the next person that tries to tell me that swimming is the "least painful cardiovascular exercise" or that "swimming puts the least strain on your joints" or some such other absolute bullshit is going to get a knuckle sandwich, hold the mayo, from this guy (pointing at self with thumbs).  Swimming is excruciatingly painful and makes me feel like I've been slapped into a medieval torture device.  (I'm thinking more along the lines of The Rack than The Iron Maiden, btw.)  Mistake number two was failing to notice that the show was going to start at like 5 PM so I'd have virtually no time to recuperate from the workout.

    I hobbled into the Crazy Donkey towards the end of opener Static Radio NJ's set -- don't remember much about them other than they seemed pretty unremarkable.  The crowd seemed to be mostly teenagers, which by now I'm kind of used to but it still serves to instantly make me aware that I'm going to be totally drained of energy by the time the headliners take the stage.  Happens every time.  Local act I Am the Avalanche came next, and they were okay.  Highlight of the set was a totally-out-of-nowhere cover of Weezer's "Tired of Sex."  Kinda generic-but-not-at-all-unpleasant punk, and the frontman came across as a pretty likeable dude. 

    Next up came The Loved Ones.  Seemingly out of nowhere, the singer shot off on a couple of confusing rants about Long Island kids having nothing to complain about because LI is "one of the richest areas in the world," and an all-too-long-and-incredibly-predictable "fuck the man" speech prompted by a security guard kicking some kid out.  Just the picture perfect example of aimless, moronic "me no likey authority figures" drivel that the kids at this show ate right up.  Honestly, The Loved Ones' music wasn't too bad-- poppy punk with nicotine-scarred vocals, kind of like a dead man's Social D.  My throbbing legs kind of drowned their shit out, though. 

    By the time Bouncing Souls came onstage, my knees and ankles hurt so bad that I was pretty much on the verge of tears.  The crowd instantly made it known that they had come out to see these guys by crowding up front, jamming the pit (where I was standing) and starting the inevitable crowd surfing procession.  I absolutely fucking hate this, because as one of the tallest dudes in the room, I'm pretty much ensured of getting booted in the back of the head by any and all of these bratty little twits.  Fuck, I'm getting old.  About five songs into the set, they whipped out "Lean on Sheena" after which I beat a hasty retreat to the back of the room.  I feel that it's important for me to state that it wasn't the roughness of the crowd that got me the fuck out of there.  Oddly enough, today's kids don't really "mosh" in the old-school slam-dancing manner that I'm used to.  Rather, they all scoot around in a counter-clockwise circle, like they're all running around the fucking may pole or some shit.  Pretty gay, no?  Again, just to be sure, my own infirmity and my desire to just go home, smoke a bowl and lie on the couch watching sportsball was what got me out of there. 

     So, I really don't see myself going to any more punk shows where there's going to be a shitload of teenagers.  Just makes me miserable.