October 7, 2010: Nails / Fleas / Ruined Tongue / Lluks @ Yayo Taco
My car had actually died hours earlier in the parking lot of a 7-11 where I was getting a celebratory Slurpee. Fruit Punch flavored. I was celebrating not being in the CCDC. Long story. My at-one-time reliable vehicle had gotten me to the gig, and I'd worry about making it back home afterwords. The place was virtually deserted when I showed up. I ordered the Taco plate special and killed time talking to the Legendary Chris Shakes, who was making a rare public appearance. I haven't seen this guy in like a million years and it was good chit chatting with him. I saw Karl Bakla wandering the parking lot, looking like he had just stepped off a Vietnamese fishing boat, and him and I just sat around talking about all things Punk while watching the place fill up with an odd mixture of Scenesters, Hessians, Punx, Thrashers, Skaters, Metal and Poseur kids, all looking under the age of 16! LOL We were definitely the oldest guys there. Well, besides the undercover police officer wandering around the crowd as well. Yeah, it was gonna be that type of gig. I grabbed another beer from the bucket and drew heavy from the bottle. This was going to be interesting.
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I didn't hear any announcement or anyone giving fair warning about it, but suddenly there was this massive wave of noise emanating from Yayo's, musical in nature, so I quickly snaked my way inside with everyone else and queued up to the tiny stage area to see what the clamor was all about. The opening band had begun playing, and was just rattling the very foundation of the place, with monster shredding riffs being perfectly complimented with just as blindingly fast drums rolls and accents, all with one pissed off motherfucker on vocals. Sounded pretty sick to me, so I stood there and took it all in, enjoying the cacophony for a bit before just as quickly as it had begun, it was over. Technical problems had deterred what had been an amazing set of noise that I was dying to hear more of. Rats. 2 Airbag peeps were in the band; Cheeze on guitar and Doug on drums. The other guys could of been Airbag regulars for all I knew, but I digress. This band, that I don't know the name of, had just blown Yayo Taco the fuck up, and I'm looking forward to seeing them do it again sometime soon. Incredible stuff. Does anyone know the name of this band???
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"Hey! Did you just take my picture?' The bass player from the next band setting up asked me. Yeah, I love the Raiders logo on your amp, I told him, and him and his friends and I started bonding over our Love for all things sports related in the Bay area. I assumed that the band was from somewhere up there, but I wouldn't know for sure because again, without any introduction or announcement, the band just started playing. They were really good, playing this angry, Screamo core shit, with this cute little kid drummer who was looking all angry and pissed off while he was playing. More cute than menacing, I would of been content to stand by and watch this band if it wasn't for the Assholes and Douchebags who were starting to throw their arms around and who were drop kicking people who usually had their backs turned to them, acting like the chickenshit fuckwads that they are. The floor was covered in beer and broken glass. The vibe was getting heavy. Of course, major Drama starts to ensue, and that's when I made a bee line outside because if it's one thing I'm not, it's Drama. The band was pretty good, but their crowd made my experience less than enjoyable. Anyone know who these guys were? I don't. (Editor's Note: The band's name is Lluks)
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I heard the next band playing but didn't give a shit. Marcos had shown up, and Jack from Pigasus was there too, and we were all standing around in the 'Bitter Old Guys' circle, drinking and smoking and wishing that there was some diversity on tonight's bill. All these bands were sounding the same. It was getting boring. The more I drank, the more I didn't wanna be there. But then I remembered that my car was broken, so during the next break I headed back inside to catch whoever was playing next. Ran into some major Drama between Ecophagy Records and Hexakosioihexekontahex Records, 2 supporters of all things Metal and Underground here in Las Vegas. It was very surreal being smack dab in the middle of some major scene Drama that had absolutely nothing to do with me whatsoever! LOL Crystal and her obnoxious friend were very amusing. The kick in the balls was weak, but funny. Good thing Mike came and took her away when he did. Big Red is a much better man than I am, that's for sure. Funny stuff.
After that little bit of nonsense, I headed into Yayo's to get a good spot to check out the next band that was up, having no idea who they were or if they were good or not. At this point I was hoping so, but also at this point, I didn't care. I could always leave again. I checked out the guys who were setting up to play. The guitar player looked like Elvis Dave's younger brother. The drummer looked psychotic. There was only 1 mic stand, so the bass player was taping one together using an extra cymbal stand. PFR. So people are just standing around waiting, there's this nervous tension in the air, and then this sound, a guttural sort of exclamation, completely unintelligible, is screamed into the microphone and then Blaaaaaaarrrrrrrgh!, like the sound of Cthulhu himself awaking and arising from the ocean's depth, the band starts playing, and I am completely floored! Fucking mind blowing, face melting shit that just reminds me of why I loved bands like Terror, C.O.C., Infest and Converge. Just fucking insane shit. My cock is throbbing it's so good! The guitarist is throwing riffs out as quickly as machine gun fire, just as jarring too, and his vocals sound like the wails of the Damned. The bass player is rocking back and forth in one spot like a nut job in a straight jacket, screaming Satanic gibberish into the microphone while trying to bang his head so hard that it falls off, and the drummer is just somewhere else, with a look in his bugged out eyes that says he's just not right mentally and to not fuck with him physically. The songs are short, fast, adrenaline filled bursts of pure Punk Rock goodness, the likes of which I haven't heard in a while. The crowd is going nuts, with people pig piling and stacking up like pancakes directly in front of the singer, fighting each other for the few opportunities they could get to scream along into the mic with him. The drummer stood pretty much motionless, with only his arms moving to and fro, and he was just pummeling this poor drum kit like it fucked his sister or something, completely beating the shit out of with reckless abandon. The bass player, besides screaming his head off and rocking out like a man possessed, was probably the scariest one of them all, because he looked like a dude who just discovered the joys of pussy or something, just, ferocious and monster like. The guitarist/singer kept transforming into this Jekyll and Hyde guy, one minute smiling and checking things out, the next minute acting like an animal with a look in his eyes that would intimidate Charles Manson. It was a bit scary to watch, but between the band and all the bullshit fighting going on in the pit, I was pretty much stuck between a rock and a hard place. I didn't want to leave, because what I was seeing the band do was soooo mesmerizing, but the pit action was getting annoying, bordering on requiring a physical intervention, but then something happened, the spell was broken - the music was over. I think the band got fed up with the crappy P.A. and the shitty playing conditions and just called it short, or maybe they ran out of tunes to play, I dunno, but just as quickly as it started, it was over. In a state that could only be described as shell shock I stumbled towards the band, asking the now normal seeming bass player what the name of his band was. Nails, he said. I thanked him and went straight to the merch table and bought everything I could by Nails. Mission completed. Now I saw what all the fuss was about this band. Nails fucking killed it. Oh my fucking Gawd was this something to see. Nails. Wow.
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For more Pictures of Nails, please click here. For more Pictures of the 1st Unknown Band, please click here. For more Pictures of Lluks, please click here.
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