The Black Cheers / Loser’s Circle / Go Blank / The Martians
O’Briens Pub, Allston, MA 1/14/17
So I’m talking to Sam at the club, he’s a friend on TNB. He’s also a guitarist looking for a punk band. Get in touch with me if you wanna get in touch with him.
We’re at a “pop/punk” show, I mean, several of the bands have referred to themselves as such. And I say to Sam, “I made a New Year’s resolution, a New Year’s writing resolution. I’m not using the term pop/punk anymore (whoops!), it just doesn’t make any sense… It’s like an oxymoron. Punk was never popular, except in England in the late seventies and in America a year or two in the nineties. It’s like saying “peaceful/violence” or “Trump/politeness,” from now on it’s just plain punk to me.”
The connotation of pop music is it’s popular and that mostly means folks like Mariah Carey, who recently got skewered, or shish-ka-bobbed, because she was lip syncing on a New Year’s Eve show or some other nonsense, that those of the pop world, need not worry about as those ideals were sacrificed on the altar of Milli Vanilli years ago. (A superb singer from years past.)
So now I’ll step off my soapbox, enjoy The Patriots playoff game, while drinking my Coors Banquet cans with whiskey chasers and let the show begin!
The Martians are the first band to play tonight. Their album “First Encounter” ended up in my Top Five of 2016 and I know them as a prolific, potent, pointillistic, pop/punk band. (Whoops!)
And they headlined the TNB Xmas Party and had the spite and audacity to change one of their song titles to “Slimedog Sucks.” But they’ll see how it is next Christmas, they’ll have more chance scoring a gig on Mars, next year, than playing our party.
They play several, great songs from that album, plus more from an upcoming release (they had two EP’s and an album last year.) They end with a cover of “Fools Rush In” better known as “Wisemen Say” by Elvis Presley, done in a magnificent Lemonheads/Dickies style.
I’m glad to see one of my favorite bands deliver such a great set and as I make my way home, out into the cold, winter night, I know tonight was a really great time.
And then I remember, they’re the opening band, unlike the Xmas show they’re not the headliner, so I make my way back inside the club.
Now this is a Go Blank record release party and on facebook they describe themselves as “aggressive, moody, passionate rock” which fits, but I’m not hearing the pitter patter of punk tunes on my pate.
This is better described as energetic indi with excellent players but there’s no wildness, no abandonment of punk in their set. One song reminds me of The Psychedelic Furs, another of Reverend Horton Heat- both fine bands, but as Billy Joel once said, as he was awaken after being passed out behind a steering wheel, “It’s still not punk to me.”
Loser’s Circle is next. They’re two-thirds from the great, deceased hardcore band Refuse Resist and one-third for the great, deceased punk/hardcore band The Radicals.
This band does signify punk to me, every song is spiffy and energetic and is bursting with melodic hooks and licks. It’s like as if The Buzzcocks catalog exploded in the sky above Allston and fell on the eardrums of all those inside.
All three players sing and though my favorite tune by them, “I Won’t Lay Down” is the third song played, they play a lot of tunes from an upcoming release which sounds great. Of the new tunes I really like The Clash-like “Same Old Story” and especially like “Drinking In The Sinks.”
I’ve seen these low-life Losers several times now and I do believe, this is the best set I’ve seen them play.
Before the next set, I explain to the singer, Danny O’Halloran, my confusing his band The Black Cheers, with Duck & Cover in my review of the later band last year. It’s all Chris Brat’s fault, you see, being in both bands, and in the review I was questioning why Danny wasn’t singing with Duck & Cover anymore- mainly, because he never had!
But as Billy Joel once said, slumped behind his steering wheel, “Everyone makes mistakes.”
But make no mistake, that when The Black Cheers take the stage, you’re in for one slammin’, punkin’, garage/rock mix that will kick your ass into next week and put icing on the cake of this night’s punk fun goodness. They kick off their set with the title song from an EP of theirs “The Cat, The Rat, The Bat, The Dog,” and they never let down.
The Black Cheers play punk’n’roll at its best.
It’s still Saturday night, though technically, I guess it’s Sunday morning. I know that waking up tomorrow I’ll probably regret staying up too late and that extra shot of whiskey. While all the younger, and wiser, folks will be in bed at a reasonable time. So they can go to their yoga class, or go rock climbing, or some other event the young and healthy enjoy.
But I still love the late hours of Saturday night, where it feels like a curtain has been drawn against the coming week. When you feel you’re invincible and those early Monday morning hours of reality will never come.
Where the joy, the wildness is overflowing in every pore of your being, ringing in a night that might never end. Where this is your moment, where you’ll be convinced you never made a mistake in your life if, in fact, you landed here.
I had fun tonight being here at this punk rock show.
(Slimedog)
