Reason Enough / Words Of Truth / One Less Scumbag / Kuya
Midway Cafe, Jamaica Plain, MA 3/18/17
Today’s show is organized by Sean Connery. Yes, the Scottish actor who is the only “James Bond” as far as I’m concerned. Yeah, he had a great career, got knighted by Freddie Mercury and Queen, but his dream was always to play guitar in a Rhode Island hardcore band. And now, his dream is finally being fulfilled!
He’s put a great lineup together today and it’s for his 40th birthday! (Though he’s looking great for his age, I’d say he’s closer to eighty!)
So the first band up today is Kuya and I’m wondering to myself- I recognize this band, why don’t I remember the name?
I know the players. There’s Bobby on drums, one of Rhode Island’s top drummers who I’ve seen playing with everyone from The McGunks to Reason To Fight, Chad from Beantown Boozehounds and Taxi Driver on guitar, as well as Bill on guitar from Pint Killers. And there’s Josh on lead vocals/bass, doing a great job like the other guys but whom I’m less familiar with.
While I struggle with this dilemma, I continue to enjoy the show. This is some hard rockin’ pure hardcore that is intense but also wild and fun. During the set, Mark Doherty from Pint Killers, gets up onstage to sing a song by Sick Of It All and they end with a cover of my favorite hardcore band, Minor Threat, doing the song with that band’s namesake.
Afterwards I’m reminded that they were previously called The Struggle and I’m informed that previously I was a slim, debonair young man that thrilled all the ladies. Alas, the later are all cruel lies.
But Kuya is a really great band.
Up next is One Less Scumbag whose singer is donning a wrestling mask. Sadly, he takes it off after one song but not before I see Blowfish snapping a picture. (He is here along with the lovely, Miss Lyn both from bostongroupienews.com a music website that Thrash N Bang tries, vainly, to aspire to.)
This band could be called hardcore but I see them more as a pure death metal, headbangin’ band. And this style they play to perfection. An excellent, engaging vocalist and an awesome groove orientated drummer are their aces in the hole. (Blowfish wrote that the drummer was “indefatigable”- a word that’s even too fancy for me to use.)
We both agree that their anti-drug song, “Fuck Your Drugs,” is their best tune, a kick ass song with a great message.
They may be called One Less Scumbag but this is one more heavy, intense metal/hardcore band with great sustenance.
Sean’s band Words Of Truth play next. And they are one of my favorite hardcore bands we follow, down to a three piece after losing their singer (they all went hiking, he was never found.) I just find their music, more streamlined now into short, pure, hard, brutal tunes. They sound like a mix of Black Flag and Kiss meaning, some songs have hardcore hundred yard dashes and others some serious rockin’ out episodes as well, and sometimes this occurs in the same song.
To continue a theme from the last set, they lead off with “Kill The Dealer” as they romp through a bunch of hard rockin’ hardcore tunes.
Sean introduces one song with, “For those who love America no matter what stupid ass the President is.”
Towards the end of their great set they play my favorite song by them, “White Irish Bastards” and end it with “Our Brother” dedicated to a beloved promoter, Keith Brooks, who passed away about a year ago.
And the last band up, Reason Enough, I’ve only seen once before and that was during one of the benefit shows set up for Keith Brooks, which Sean had a big part in, last May.
That weekend I saw 22 bands in a row so I can’t recall too much about Reason Enough. But they are a New York rap/hardcore band with two lead vocalists/rappers much like Boston’s Dot Rats, with hardcore rhythms alternating with some funky beats.
Though this is not my favorite style of music they do an excellent version of it and they get a great response from the crowd, ending with a great set that was part of a great day.
Just before I leave I hear Chuck Berry songs playing over the sound system, including the song I’m about to mention.
I compliment Jill, the bartenderess, on her selection telling her I like this music better than the punk rock.
“Oh, did you hear?” she says, “He died today. Yeah, he was ninety.”
And just a few days ago I became acquainted, or more likely reacquainted with the song “You Can’t Catch Me” by Chuck. The chorus ends with, “Because I’ll be gone like a cool….breeze”
And that’s how I like to picture him now, passing in a cool breeze while riding along in his automobile, ringing a bell and giving Tchaikovsky the news about too much monkey business.
But I won’t claim to know where he’s riding off to. I won’t claim to know the secrets of life. But I do know the spirit of rock’n’roll and I believe it carried on- not in rock music, but in punk.
And I know Chuck Berry’s licks lived on in Keith Richards, Johnny Thunders, Billy Zoom and countless others and will most likely, continue to do so.
And though, I guess, I believe it’s true, that Chuck is really gone.
I know that rock’n’roll will never die.
(Slimedog)
