by Karl Bakla

From the first time I heard the Dream Homes LP, I really dug Dear Landlord. It was a Pop Punk classic that would cause someone with type 2 diabetes to have a limb amputated & since the last time they played Las Vegas was a few years back with Off With Their Heads at the Divebar, I was stoked to hear that they were playing Las Vegas again. I was not stoked to hear that 7 bands would be playing the show. I don’t give a fuck if your band is Poison Idea during the Pick Your King era; I don’t want to see your band play on a 7 band line up. Yes, I am a dick! So Bethany & I did what any old duffers would do, we showed up late in hopes of missing 4 out of the 7 bands!

We were ready for a night filled with Punk Rock action. We drove to the show in a car blasting Dear Landlord & a trunk filled with beer. We drove through the Arts District avoiding Winos but purposely trying to run over Artists. When we pulled up to the show we were stoked to see Sal from TheCore taking in his equipment. We felt victorious! We knew that our plan to miss almost every band worked.  These stupid youngsters trying to outsmart us old farts, ha fucking Posers!

When we got out of the car Sal waved us over, it didn’t look like good news. He informed us that the Murderburgers & Dear Landlord would not be playing. Supposedly the person throwing the show couldn’t meet the band’s guarantee, or some shit. What the fuck? This is some Mitt Romney shit & was it an elaborate conspiracy by the young kids to fuck me over for purposely showing up late. Damn it, this is the second Punk Rock show in a row that I got fucked. I should have called in to Coast to Coast AM on the Wild Card line & brought this shit up.

We still wanted to see TheCore play so we stuck around. Sadly TheCore played to only a handful of people, but they played a really good set. When I first heard TheCore I thought they had a heavy Hot Water Music influence, but the more I listen & the more I see them play, it seems they have more of their own sound. The handful in attendance dug their set & appreciated their Bouncing Souls cover, it must also be mentioned that the soundman seemed to really like them or he was on drugs. Speaking of cover songs by TheCore, their tune on the Samiam tribute album is pretty awesome!

The word on the street was that the Murderburgers & Dear Landlord were going to be playing at Favorites that night instead, fuck them! I dropped Bethany’s ass off at Favorites & I headed home. I ended up winning this night. I got my dream Punk Rock show, one band & that band was a great Local band. I also got home in time for an Operation Repo marathon, which meant lots of lube & jerking it to Sonia. When I picked up Bethany at 1:30 am she was wasted & seemed to enjoy the show, I didn’t care I was more concerned with getting some ointment at Walgreen's because my wiener was raw & I suspect my hand gave it an STD.

by GE 138

People were buying tickets for this months in advance. It was originally announced to be taking place at the Beauty Bar, but the real Promoter Brandy Vinyl quickly corrected me and told me it was all going down at the LVCS. Cool. I saw Brandy sitting at the entrance to the venue, looking a bit nonplussed, which had me worried about the turnout. Would the Vampire they call the Godfather of Goth bring his Children of the Night out to bathe him in lustful Adoration and words of Praise? I dunno, but that was the last thing on my mind. I was thirsty. Majorly thirsty. I walked into Hennessy's to meet up with Deana, who was getting me into this gig gratis. I started hammering the house special of glasses of 18 year old Jameson's on the rocks for $5 a pop, which, if you don't know, is one Hell of a deal. I made sure I had a tremendous buzz on before heading upstairs to hang with the Nocturnal Ones. Danny the Blade was handing out the wristbands at the top of the escalator, so after chatting with him a bit I headed in to continue drinking and seeing what the lines for photography were gonna be. The place was packed. Every 3rd girl was a fucking sexy nightmare with jet black hair and fishnet clothing. I was in Heaven. Danny said Peter Murphy was going on in 10 minutes. I stood around chatting with everyone for at least 45 minutes waiting for the show to begin, drinking $7.50 Newcastle's and surreptitiously smoking weed and watching Security running around me trying to figure out where all that weed smoke was coming from. :-)

So I hear some haunting melody that I've heard before drifting around in the space directly over every body's heads - it's a Bauhaus song, but I'm not sure which one, but it doesn't matter - it means the fucking show is finally about to begin, and Peter Murphy was FINALLY going to play! wOOt! The crowd let out a howl of approval as he sauntered up to the microphone, sporting a fashionista style Goth jacket and scanning the crowd with that steely eye glaze of his before he started singing and man, did he sound good. Peter Murphy has the voice that I've always imagined Satan having. To say his vocals are haunting is doing them a grave injustice. Haunting - Grave - get it? See what I did there? ;-) ha ha ha His opening song was bugging me. I knew I knew it, I just wasn't getting a title to it. Doesn't matter because he sounded excellent. The whole band did, which was a relief. I was hoping they weren't gonna suck, and thankfully they didn't. Definitely dodged a bullet with that one. Whew.

I mean, here he was - Peter fucking Murphy - playing to a Vegas crowd that was comprised of 85% club kid Poseurs who couldn't name 1 song off of Bauhaus' first album if their lives depended on it, and people who knew everything about the Man and who have loved him long time, all gathered in the tinny confines of the LVCS to partake in whatever he was gonna offer us. Speaking of that seminal release, 3rd song in he played In The Flat Field, and it sounded killer. Wasn't as powerful as the original version, but I was loving it. I get bored / I do get bored I was swooning like a schoolgirl. Le sigh. Mr. Murphy had us all eating out of the palm of his twisted Gothic hand, intimidating everyone with that fucking look of his and working the room like a pro. It was cool to watch. I wasn't concerning myself too much with photo taking, as I was just content to stand there and listen and watch and take it all in. The guys in the band were ace, sticking to playing the songs pretty much like they are originally, and the guitar player was doing a commendable job with that. Covering Daniel Ash's work can't be easy. The bass player was alternating between playing his bass and playing a violin, and when he started playing the melody to Cuts You Up midway through the set, I was done. :-) That was the only song I wanted to hear, and it sounded incredible. I toyed with the idea of just heading home right there and then, because I didn't want that perfect moment to be ruined, but I decided to stick it out and see how things ended.

There were definite spots in the set where everything just grinded to a halt. Too much solo stuff and not enough Bauhaus material IMO. Still, it was a minor annoyance at best and totally just the whiskey talking. Whenever the momentum stopped, he would just throw in a sick ass Bauhaus song, like Stigmata Martyr, and just like that, everything was fine again. :-) Yeah, after a bit I headed to the back where the cool people were hanging out to take in the tail end of the show, and after what seemed like an incredibly long time, Peter Murphy finally walked off stage to thunderous applause and screams for one more song which, of course, he obligated us with. Tony Batz had warned me beforehand that Mr. Murphy was playing a Joy Division song tonight, and thankfully, that never came, but the mini-Bauhaus encore set he played was ended with their version of Ziggy Stardust, which I had completely kind of forgotten about. I hated the song when it was out, because it was huge and overplayed on KROQ every gawd damned hour, and it had nothing to do with what Bauhaus sounded like or what they were about (I thought) but tonight, as his last song played, it worked, and I was gonna give it to him. After all, he definitely worked for it, and he definitely deserved it. Yeah, as Peter Murphy finished with the big arena rock ending to that David Bowie masterpiece, I thought all was right with the world. It seemed fitting. As the house music came on, everyone made plans to do this and that and whatever, so I was off in search of adventure which, of course, I found and that all came crashing to an end when the sun started coming up. Vampires. So damn predictable.

For more Pictures of Peter Murphy, please click here.