Friday March 29th 2024

The Pity Whores / Fast Times / Bob McGunk & The Hangovers / Whoopi Sticks / Jonee Earthquake Band

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The Pity Whores / Fast Times / Bob McGunk & The Hangovers / Whoopi Sticks / Jonee Earthquake Band
Midway Cafe, Jamaica Plain, MA 8/30/14

 

So this is the debut of my punk daughters punk band. You know, I tried to steer her toward classical music, jazz, Kenny G, Taylor Swift but what can you do?

And somehow this is the second time I’ve reviewed them. How can this be? Just one of the great mysteries I guess, like the pyramids of Egypt or TNB.

Jonee Earthquake is the first band today. The drummer was a little late and I tried to coax my daughter into “sitting in” but she’s not having it.

This band is not hardcore or punk. This is pleasant sounding surf/garage rock with a pirate at the helm. They’re okay but it’s not my favorite style of music. And pirates ain’t jackshit without the parrot!

And that’s all I have to say.

Now, it’s Whoopi Sticks debut- the band, and my daughter Lindsey’s as well who plays drums, sings lead and writes the songs. Jaymz Purtle is on bass, who I know as one of the best local drummers along with three guitarists who look like they’ve just been plucked out of a police lineup.

I’d describe them as No Wave which was an early eighties style in New York with bands that played experimental, abrasive, raw music that frequently had female members (this band has two). But if you don’t get that reference how about primitive, angry, playful, intense music with powerful, sometimes dissonant sounds and changing rhythms.

And they have some great songs! It’s a little rough today but playing and execution will come in time, great songs are a gift. The crowd digs them and so do I. I told her, “It only gets better from here.” Then I grounded her and sent her to her room without supper.

Bob McGunk & The Hangovers are next with Bob taking a little hiatus from The McGunks.

He is the guy who first alerted me to the term “punk’n’roll” and he truly embodies it. If you put The Ramones, Motorhead and Johnny Cash in a blender then I believe this rockin’, punkin’ gutsy concoction would be served.

They start the McGunks song “Three More Beers” with the intro to Alice Cooper’s “Billion Dollar Babies” a song that Alice did as a duet with that hippie folk fop Donovan and later in the set does a Ramones cover “Rock’N’Roll Radio,” as well

With the covers, a few McGunk songs and a few new songs added you get what you’d expect from a McGunks show and that’s a great live experience and today is no exception.

Fast Times is next and their singer/ guitarist Nick is the son of one of the Nervous Eaters, one of the best and most popular punk bands in Boston during the late seventies and eighties. He started out as a tiny sperm of one of the Nervous Eaters but look now how far he’s come (in statue not ejaculation).

He breaks a string during the first song.

Two songs later, on his back up guitar, he breaks another.

The excellent bassist looks like he broke something over his head as he has a few lines of blood dripping down from his forehead. Along with the able drummer, they provide an excellent rhythm section.

Nick has to borrow Bob McGunks white Strat to finish the set.

But these are all minor distractions because this is one of the best hardcore bands on our site, that maybe falls more into the skate punk style than the heavy hardcore one.

They, as always, play an exciting, energetic set and end with “Taco Time” a splendid, delectable morsel of a song as Nick smashes the guitar into the floor of the stage and then proceeds to light it on fire. (Forgetting, that it is indeed, a borrowed guitar- Whoops!)

Unfortunately, now is the time for the inevitable- The Pity Whores, those debauched, derelict, defaming devils- those moronic, misguided mutants from Mongolia- intent to wreck havoc on all decent, law-abiding, church going people and livestock, here today at the Midway.

Though normally a trio today they’ve transformed into a eleven piece band as there are many “guest stars” kind of like a Dean Martin variety show for the hardcore crew.

Members from The Radicals keep hopping on stage as well as Catherine, from The Old Edison, to do vocals.

At one point Catherine is singing, Aria from The Radicals is playing guitar, someone who I don’t know is playing bass leaving Fred, the drummer, as the only true Pity Whore.

The Pity Whores play a potent mix of pop/punk, hardcore, garage punk’n’roll/ Mongolian sea chanteys that somehow more than makes up for their disagreeable, despicable, dastardly demeanor and decor.

At this point Lindsey is hopping up and down, Rocky the pug dog is trying to con people out of their Guinness by doing tricks. I’m just smiling- pleased that the Whoopi Sticks had a good debut and the absurd fun of punk shows, like this one, I still get to witness.

And that’s all I got. And that’s all I’ve got to say.

 

(Slimedog)

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