The PirkQlaters, the Useless, JamesPlaneWreck and Skittish Itz @ the Knitting Factory (5/23/13)

"I know you motherf*ckers know the words!" Ryan Sampson shouted midway through the second song.  And he was right: when the chorus rolled around again, the lyrics boomed out from the crowd.

I didn't really know the words.  In fact, prior to this show, I'd never heard nor seen the PirkQlaters before.  I knew the name, however, and their rep as Boise's premier ska band.  Also, I'd come to like many of the band's members both as musicians and as people; Sampson's last project, the now-defunct Hotel Chelsea, was one of the best punk bands in town, and I really don't want to think about how many drinks I've bought from him, Red Kubena, Justin Andrews and Luke Strother over the years.  Anyway, when I added all of this up, I had more than enough reason to check out this Knitting Factory show, which marked the PirkQlaters' rebirth.

There were already ninety people there when I arrived.  When the PirkQlaters played, there were so many that I didn't even bother to count.  I'll say this much, though: except maybe for Sonic Youth, I can't remember any other Knitting Factory show that was so well-attended.  I saw plenty of familiar faces as well, including Ivy Meissner, Dustin Verberg (Black Bolt), Josh Gross, Geno Lopez (the Sneezz), Travis Abbott (Obscured By the Sun) and at least two members of Piranhas (who were originally on this bill but didn't play, for some reason).

Local punk band Skittish Itz opened the show.  "It's not rocket surgery," lead singer Russ Worstell's t-shirt said.  Stupid on the surface but clever when you think about it--suited this band very well, I thought.  Not that their music sounded dumb; it was just that their catchy melodies and buzzsaw riffs did their damnedest to perpetuate that so-simple-anyone-can-do-it punk myth.  Their smart lyrics, complex arrangements, indomitable drums and fluid solos gave the lie, however.  But that just made their love of punk's idealized simplicity even more commendable.

JamesPlaneWreck played next.  After the show, a member of this band told me that they felt uncomfortable being on that big stage.  I can understand that, but from where I was standing, they looked and sounded as if they belonged up there.  Blasting out of the Knitting Factory's speakers, "F*ckin' With Ghosts" and "When We Start to Fold" never sounded more anthemic.  Aaron Smith's rough voice and guitar roared, Shaun Shireman's bass surged along underneath, Shane Brown carved some stinging leads out of his Idaho-shaped guitar and Andrew Bagley redlined his drums.  When the tip of Bagley's drumstick broke off at the end, I couldn't help but wonder why that doesn't happen more often.

Up next was the Useless.  Any fears that one may have had of a restrained, tactful performance were swiftly allayed by the blow-up doll that the band set down on the PirkQlaters' drum kit (it didn't stay up there for too long: one of the horn players chucked it into the pit, where the crowd proceeded to toss it, swing it around and bap each other on the head with it).  Anyway, this groups' throaty vocals, curling guitar licks, woozy brass and bouncy rhythms all sounded as winningly raucous as ever.  In keeping with the revivalist spirit of the evening, when people called out for a number from their straight-up punk days, the band busted it out in spite of their protests as to their age, weight and blood-alcohol level.  The mosh circle started up as soon as the first number kicked into gear, and the crowd in the pit kept up the cheering, jumping, dancing, chanting and fist-pumping straight through to the end.

The PirkQlaters provided a truly grand finale to the night.  Kris Simmons's chugging, melodic bass and Chris Devino's rip-roaring drums provided the engine for the blitzkrieg ska and pop-punk tunes.  Red Kubena's dreads flailed as he slashed away at his guitar, and his and Aaron Clayton's buzz complemented Ryan Sampson's manic chicken-scratch.  Meanwhile, Ryan Sampson's tuneful holler sounded in good form, and it met its match in Justin Andrews's rousing harmonies.  Andrews also pitched in with some jabbing saxophone solos and did pretty much everything he could to whip the crowd into a frenzy (strutting and jumping around the stage, hopping onto the drum riser and urging the crowd to clap to the beat, etc.).  Last but definitely not least, College of Idaho professor Luke Strother contributed some elegant trombone work, grinned, slapped his chest, sang along with and without his mic and generally looked the happiest that I've ever seen him.

Almost everyone in the audience was on their feet for the duration of the set.  The pit became a maelstrom of bouncing, moshing, singing, roaring and crowd-surfing.  The Useless's blow-up doll got popped and torn to shreds (I saw someone holding its arm later on).  A bra materialized on Luke Strother's mic stand.  Andy A from Demoni (and Eightball Break, which Sampson cited as the PirkQlaters' biggest influence) came onstage to play bass on a couple of numbers.  Shane Brown hopped onstage with his shirt open and jiggled his belly at the crowd.  Justin Andrews wished audience member Sage Cooper a happy sixteenth birthday and tossed him a frisbee signed by the band (it got tossed off to the side of the stage not long after; hope the kid got it back).  Between songs, Ryan Sampson crammed in jokes, stories, thanks to the audience and shout-outs to original PirkQlater Zak Gilstrap, the openers and the Boise music scene as a whole.

All told, this was easily one of the best shows that I've seen this year.  "And this is not the reunion show," Sampson told the crowd near the end.  "We're back, motherf*ckers!"

Ryan Sampson holding court at the after-party at Sammy's

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Gary Helicopter Crash (a.k.a. JamesPlaneWreck), Business Venture and Stepbrothers @ the Red Room (4/6/13)

This show caught my attention because of Business Venture, a new local band whose lineup includes the Ratings Battle's Matt Wildhagen and Jason "Bug" Burke.  Burke, as some readers will undoubtedly recall, has been recovering from a back injury.  I wanted to see how the man was doing and also hear what kind of music he'd come up with.  I was also curious about a band who had billed themselves under the odd moniker Gary Helicopter Crash.

I only counted thirteen people when I got to the Red Room.  That number would build to over forty as the night progressed.  Not too bad.

This show would've been worthwhile just to see this gentleman up and about.

Local pop-punk band Stepbrothers opened the show.  These guys sounded as tuneful and rousing as I remembered from the JamesPlaneWreck/Black Bolt show back in January and possibly a touch more confident.  I couldn't really hear what they were shouting up there, but their buzzsaw guitar and full-speed-ahead rhythm section rocked so hard that I didn't much care.  Their goofy, playful between-song banter helped ("This always happens.  I mean, his nipples are just so hard...  Before and after the show...").

Business Venture played next.  You can't keep a good punk down, I guess.  This set gave me the opportunity both to hear my friend Matt Wildhagen chug away on bass again and to see how well Jason Burke seems to be recuperating.  It did my heart inexpressible good to see Burke headbanging and slashing at his guitar strings.  Even better, the music was great: thunderous riffs, catchy tunes, blitzkrieg drumming (courtesy of Andrew Rader), smart lyrics, strong vocals (courtesy of Radillac's Nick O'Leary).  A group to watch out for.

I probably should have figured out sooner that Gary Helicopter Crash was a pseudonym for JamesPlaneWreck, but hey, I've never been too swift on the uptake.  Anyway, this set made me think of a story I read about a George Jones concert back in the day.  The Possum, the tale goes, was so hammered that one of his backing musicians had to whisper one lyric after the next in his ear.  When Jones opened his mouth, however, the songs came out so smoothly and inevitably that you'd have never known.

Aaron Smith admitted at one point that they were pretty darn drunk, but they only showed it by sounding a couple notches less intense and focused than has been their norm.  Judging from their seemingly effortless groove, you'd have thought that they were sober as a judge with Celiac disease on Palm Sunday.  The crowd certainly didn't seem to have any complaints: they whooped and cheered as loudly as usual.  Laid-back but still plenty forceful.

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JamesPlaneWreck, Black Bolt and Stepbrothers @ Neurolux (1/23/13)

The past few days have been a little rough for me.  I'd been getting over a cold, which kept me from checking out the Coven show at the Shredder last Saturday (woulda been a great headline, though--"Boise Music Blogger Headbangs Himself to Death").  I was feeling better on Tuesday, but not quite enough to check out Krystos and Antique Scream at the Red Room.  Thankfully, I felt fit as a fiddle by last Wednesday, which meant that I could go down to this show at Neurolux featuring Black Bolt, a punk/garage-ish band that I hadn't seen in a good long while, and Stepbrothers, a local act I'd never seen before.  And of course, JamesPlaneWreck's presence on the bill didn't hurt either.

I counted about twenty people including the musicians when I got to Neurolux.  The audience would build to about thirty.  Not bad, considering that it was a Wednesday night and miserably cold outside.

Stepbrothers opened the night.  BANG! BAM! SCREECH! went their instruments during their soundcheck.  "We're writing a song now," one of them quipped.  I got the feeling right about then that I was gonna like these guys. Their twangy, tuneful basslines, thrashing drums, manic riffing and charmingly caterwauling vocals proved me right.  Their songs and arrangements were so sharp and their deadpan banter so funny that their oh-so-familiar pop-punk whine didn't bug me in the least.

Black Bolt played next.  These guys seemed to have tightened up a notch or five since I saw them at the Venue last May.  Their buzzsaw riffs, stinging leads, rail-greasing basslines and quick, clipped drumming all felt much more assured, which made their rowdy, catchy punk-tunes hit harder.  I'm on the fence about the guttural growl that leader Dustin Verberg adopted for his singing: it didn't do the songs any favors, but it was a nice change of pace from that pop-punk whine.  Then again, it didn't hurt the songs either, which I thought said good things about both the songs themselves and Verburg's brains.

JamesPlaneWreck closed out the night.  These guys were clearly in a good mood--Shane Brown and Aaron Smith joked around with each other and with the audience between songs (I heard shouts of "Bon Jovi!" and "Freebird!" from the crowd).  When they played, however, it was all business (well, mostly).  Their growled vocals, grinding riffs, twangy leads, rubbery bass and powerhouse drums all sounded in fine, thunderous form.  I swear, the out-of-staters at Treefort are not gonna know what hit 'em when this band plays.

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Teenage Bottlerocket, the Useless and Hotel Chelsea @ the Red Room (11/8/12)

A couple guys whose taste in punk I respect were excited about Teenage Bottlerocket coming to town, so I grew intrigued. The fact that local outfits the Useless and Hotel Chelsea were opening for the Wyoming band seemed like a good sign as well, so I marked this show down on the calendar.

The gentlemen I spoke with weren't the only ones excited about this gig.  There had to have been at least eighty people at the Red Room when I arrived, and Wes Malvini would tell me later that 160 people had paid for tickets.  Pretty impressive, considering that Gwar was playing at the Knitting Factory this same night.  I found the fairly broad age range of the audience equally impressive.

Hotel Chelsea opened the show.  Not only did their buzzsaw guitars and high-speed rhythm section sound in fine form, the band seemed genuinely happy to be playing this gig.  Red Kubena's harmonies rang out loud and proud on "Sampson is a Fuck," and the crowd danced, clapped, cheered and threw up the horns throughout.

Next up was the Useless.  This marked their second time playing live with their reassembled horn section (their first was an opening slot for Reel Big Fish at the Knitting Factory, which I'm sure they didn't find intimidating at all).  The trombone and two trumpets added just the right jaunty, woozy touch to such paeans to delinquency as "French Fries and DUI's" and "Policeman."  Jason Rucker's rough vocals and sharp guitar sounded pretty damn good, especially considering how drunk he was, and the sturdy rhythm section kept van cruising down the road.  Moments where the grip on the wheel slipped a little just added to the fun.  A few excerpts from this set:

"Shh!  It's a sad panda party!"

"Hey, who here likes ska?"  "WOO!"  "Who here likes heroin?"  "WOO!"

"How many of you are f*cked up right now?  Raise your hands!"  (Five or six people did, but I wouldn't consider that an accurate number.)

"Jason Rucker got me drunk!"

"I suck?  Depends on what you're selling."

"This is probably gonna be our last song unless more shots come."

"If you're a cop out there, this song goes out to you!  SOO-EEE!"

Teenage Bottlerocket closed out the night.  If one of their members hadn't regularly shouted out "ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR!" in perfect Dee Dee fashion, I'd have never guessed that these guys liked the Ramones.  Just kidding: their rip-roaring guitars, hi-hat-heavy drumming and lyrics about freak-outs and nuthouses had the Ramones written all over them.  They had strong enough songwriting and performance chops to make this stuff their own, however, and they'd also taken care to absorb the Ramones' sense of manic fun.  The crowd became a roiling mass of flesh as Teenage Bottlerocket blasted through one song after another.  "I don't know why the f*ck we never been here before," someone in the band said at one point.  Hopefully, it won't be the last time.

You can find info on these groups on Facebook and elsewhere online.  Special thanks to Wes Malvini and the Red Room.

Aficionado, Mixtapes, Citizen, Hotel Chelsea and My Young Dreamer @ the Venue; New York Rifles @ the Red Room (10/12/12)

This was a tough call.  Originally, I'd planned to catch New York Rifles's return to the Red Room this night.  They'd kicked some serious ass when I saw them back in July, and this night's bill also featured equally ass-kicking local bands the Hand and the Bare Bones.  At the last minute, however, I opted to check out this show at the Venue, which featured four bands that I'd never encountered before and Hotel Chelsea, whom I hadn't seen in a while.  After all, it kinda defeats the purpose of this blog if I just write about the same bands over and over and over.

I counted a little over forty people when I got down to the Venue around 8 pm.  About half of that crowd would leave as the night went on, but those folks may have just had school or work in the morning (the audience seemed comprised largely of teenagers with a few parents tossed in).  Hopefully, it wasn't the music that drove them away.

First up was My Young Dreamer, a young pop-rock band from Meridian.  I missed a bit of their set, but what I caught sounded promising.  Their solid groove and friendly, confident stage presence put across some smart, catchy songs.  I especially appreciated "Be a Man So I Don't Have To," about a guy hoping that his girlfriend will take the axe to their dying relationship.  Frontman Jake Haley and guitarist Michael Pease's clear vocals didn't lean too hard on the stereotypical pop-punk whine.  An attempted sing-along fell flat, but they shouldn't let that discourage them.  If they can keep this up, folks should come around eventually.

After My Young Dreamer came Hotel Chelsea, who sounded in fine, thunderous form from Ryan Sampson's winning bellow and Red Kubena's searing solos to Mikey Rootnote and Chris Devino's freight-train bass and drums.  They played so well, in fact, that I couldn't help but wonder at the crowd's muted response.  What, did their Ritalin prescriptions need adjusting?  Anyway, a highlight of the set came when Kubena and Sampson briefly discussed which song to play for their closer.  Kubena would only hear of one option: the self-explanatory "Sampson is a F*ck."  No points for guessing which song they finally settled on.

Next up was Citizen, whose five members hail from Michigan and Ohio.  Their take on pop-punk had a slightly more hardcore feel that the preceding two acts' did: Eric Hamm's thick, twangy bass, Cray Wilson's pounding drums and Nick Hamm and Ryland Oehler's grinding riffs framed Mat Kerekes's rousing scream.  In spite of the extra abrasiveness, however, they still sounded plenty tuneful.  A nice combination.

Mixtapes from Cincinnati, OH played next.  With their sharp melodies, sharper lyrics, unstoppable drumming, buzzsaw riffs, locked-in rapport and playful, hyperactive stage act, this group would've made the show worthwhile all by themselves.  They bounced, twirled, spat at each other, chucked their guitars into the air (not quite intentionally).  Grand fun.

The Albany-based band Aficionado closed out the show.  You know that an emo/prog-leaning rock band is doing something right when their lineup includes a flautist and they still don't sound like a bunch of prissy crybabys (well, not too much, anyway).  Indeed, Laura Carrozza's serene flute parts and soothing vocals helped put the music over by tempering the melodrama of Nick Warchol's agonized moan.  In the man's defense, though, I should add that his thoughtful lyrics helped with that too.  Meanwhile, the elegant guitar lines, grounding bass and pulverizing drums demolished any lingering reservations that this normally emo/prog-phobic reviewer had.

After Aficionado finished, I headed over to the Red Room.  There's something to be said for shows starting late, sometimes: I got there in time to catch all of New York Rifles' set.  Their buzzing, stinging guitar, hooky basslines, quick drumming and can't-believe-I-haven't-heard-this-a-million-times-but-now-I-want-to songs sounded even better than I remembered.  It probably helped that there was a slightly larger crowd to see, hear and dance to them this time around.

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