Written by Matt Brown. What's not to love about Nickel Fuckin' Beer Night at Beauty Bar? Good music, good people and cheap beer. I wish every night could be Nickel Beer Night. I've been trying to slow down the alcohol intake lately and give the old liver a rest so I told myself I would only have ONE beer. But of course as soon as they started lining up those little plastic cups I couldn't help myself. I bought 4 right out of the gate. That got me nice and greased up for the first band, my good friends in Jerk! There's a lot of opinions out there on this local Pop Punk trio. I'll admit that the first time I saw them I thought they were pretty rough but they are rapidly improving and have definitely grown on me. There's something to be said for simple, unashamed 3 chord Punk Rock with lighthearted lyrics about girls, being 'radical' and lesbians. After another round (8 to be exact) of nickel beers it was time for one of my favorite local acts: The Pluralses. These guys are a great live show and always get me in a rocking good mood. They're songs are heavy and fast, not to mention hilarious. Singer/bass player Trent usually starts each tune with "This song is about...(something wildly inappropriate)". Also, The Pluralses will be on our Pints With Punks radio show in the next month or so, keep an eye out, it will definitely be fun. OK, Jerk! was great, Pluralses kicked ass. Time to reload on nickel beers. 4 more and I'm done for the night... I swear... Now. Time for The Mapes. Honestly I didn't know much about these guys. From what I've heard they're a Local band with a killer live show. Little. Did. I. Know. If there was a roof behind Beauty Bar the Mapes would've blown it the fuck off. Aside from their costumes and stage antics, I was amazed at the energy in their music. Absolutely amazing hardcore Punk that had my toes tapping. The crowd filled in and everyone had a great time. I saw all the usual faces. Got a solid buzz on less than $10, What a great evening. Afterwards I finished off the night with some Tacos El Gordo and headed home to sleep like a baby. Good job Beauty Bar. Adios, until next time...
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Written by GE 138. First off, thanks to Monica for taking me (dragging me) to go see this film. She's a great friend and I don't know what I'd do without her. <3 So I get to the consumer behemoth that is the Towne Square. I can only imagine that this is what the world would of looked like if the Germans had won the war. I park a million miles away in a big ass parking lot, wander around lost for a while while following signs to the theater which ended at 2 flights of stairs going up. Who the Hell puts a movie theater on top of 2 flights of stairs anyways? Ugh! Monica isn't there yet, but lots of Punk looking people are. She gets there, we grab popcorn and drinks, and make our way inside the theater, where the crowd sitting there looks like they're waiting for a Rancid concert. That is in no way, shape or form a compliment in any way. Through her strong brujeria Monica makes a whole row of fashion Punx shift seats so that we can sit in the back row together. Mongo impressed. We settle down and the movie begins and I immediately want to leave. The shaky premise of Heroin Bob and Trish's love child named Ross going off on a drinking and drug induced bender while on the way to an Extreme Corporal Punishment gig just held no interest for me. The soundtrack was terrible - more Goth than Punk, and the hairpieces / wigs looked like shit. I didn't give a fuck about anybody in the movie. They all sucked. Heroin Bob's son was some poof Goth dandy looking kid, who's only friend was the coolest Punk in SLC, a pretty boy named Crash who apparently had no backstory or history - he was just there, he just was that cool, but you'd never know it by his actions or dialogue in this movie. They were being driven around by this quiet girl named Penny who had a car fetish and a pedo rapist father. Why did the movie mention that about her? I dunno. They didn't explain why these 3 hung around together, and I didn't wanna know. I just wanted to leave. The fact that people in the movie theater were enjoying the movie was nauseating to me. I was hoping that the young Punx in the audience would of lit the movie screen on fire while screaming Anarchy! or some shit, but as always, they disappointed me. Stupid kids. They didn't even tear up the seat cushions when the movie was over or sneak any booze in. The only weed I smelled being smoked in there was coming from me!! Poseurs! LOL Monica is loving the movie, as well she should. It's a total after school special chick flick, full of pretty, vapid people who speak in 140 characters or less. The soundtrack is horrible, full of what sounds like freshman year Punk Rock bands and classic Goth club hits, and the entire movie, especially the Heroin Bob flashback / interjections, just reek of condescension. It's almost embarrassing to watch the characters from the first movie, Trish, John The Mod (now John The Norwegian Death Metal meathead), Beggar Sean (now Senators Aide Sean), and Handsome Mike (now Mike the sleazy porno kingpin), interact on screen with each other. Did they need the cash that much?? I hope not. After watching everyone having a great time at the ECP gig, with plenty of Dwarves footage thrown in for good measure, somehow Ross ends up on stage and takes the microphone away from the singer of ECP and tells the band to stop playing, and they do. I can't tell you how many times I've seen that happen at the gigs I went to. I really can't, because it's never fucking happened. Now with everyone at the gig waiting to hear what Ross has to say, he proceeds to tell them all to fuck off and that he'd like to fuck them all at once. Then he does a stage dive and nobody catches him. Good, I thought. The angry, insulted crowd then proceeds to stomp the kid, while ECP continues playing in the background. Oh the horror. This is where the movie actually starts at - with Heroin Bob's son Ross getting stomped out, and then the story is told via flashbacks to bring you up to speed. Then Senator's Aide Sean and John The Norwegian Death Metaller come crashing in and fight their way through the crowd to save Ross from being stomped out flatter and thinner than this movie's premise, and they drag Ross outside to confront his mother Trish and the ghost of Heroin Bob that hangs over them all. Then they all hug. Then Ross, who was making fun of Penny for looking like a dude the whole movie, suddenly says he loves her, she says she loves him back, and they head off with Crash, who is just walking out of the gig, and the trio of Punks head off into the moonlight together, leaving the old folks standing there smiling and waving and wishing them well on their journey. Where was Crash when his friend Ross was getting jumped? Who knows? Then Heroin Bob comes back on screen to say who cares about any of this shit in the movie and then he reminds us that he's still dead and flips everybody off. The End. As the credits rolled and the lights went up, I could hear people voicing their disappointment and disgust with the movie. "I can't believe I paid for that shit" and "I can't believe that I sat through that shit" were 2 of the more popular sentiments being voiced by the departing crowd. The only ones I heard saying anything good about this piece of shit movie were the fashion Punx who looked like they could be extras in an Exploited video circa 1985. They loved it. They thought it was the Punkiest thing they had ever seen. "That movie was tight" I heard one of them say as Monica and I were leaving, which for this generation was a Shakespearean statement! LOL This whole farce was brought forth by some Gofunding type of scheme, which should tell you all you need to know about this movie, because if it was a good movie, somebody, anybody, would of released it and distributed it. What company doesn't wanna make $$$, right? Yeah, but the fact that this movie was brought about by what basically amounts to charity / begging on the Internet tells you it's not very good, and it really, really isn't. There's a couple of good moments, like the Ross beer buying scene, or the Sean getting maced drama, but that's it, and even that is stretching it a bit. Punks Dead: SLC Punk 2 is a sad, sad movie, full of poorly fleshed out characters and mind numbingly dumb story lines and arcs, and lacking the wit, charm, passion, and brevity of the first one. It's like that high school Punk band you see struggling to maintain composure while opening up for the big bands at the big venue for the big gig. You know they suck, but you cheer them on because it's mean to be truthful and laugh and boooooo them off the stage like they deserve to be. Punk's Dead: SLC Punk 2 is like that struggling opening band. You know they suck, but you look for something, anything, to like about them. The problem is that there is nothing to like about this movie. Nothing. Unless you're one of the mindless fashion Punx still in high school, or thinking and dressing like you are. I'd tell you to avoid seeing this movie at all costs, but you know you're gonna see it anyways, you Punk Rock motherfuckers you. :-) James Merendino, you should be ashamed of yourself for this travesty... Punk's Dead: SLC Punk 2 is available nationally in select theaters. Check the Punk's Dead: SLC Punk 2 Facebook page by clicking here to see where and when it's being shown. The movie will also be available via DVD and video on demand on March 8th. Whoop dee fucking doo. Written by GE 138. "You are going to need wrist bands to get in and out of these doors." some guy was randomly yelling at Erika and I (plus Bob of course) as we were walking into the rear entrance of Backstage Bar & Billiards. As we made our way in he abruptly turned around and stopped us in our tracks and asked "Are you in a band?". Yeah, I replied. "A band that's playing tonight?". I looked at him with a WTF sneer and said Yeah. "Are you sure?" I laughed and said Yeah, I'm pretty sure, and he says "OK, but go right to the front and get your wristbands, OK?" OK, I assured him and make my way inside Triple B's. There already was a grip of people in the place, and the second hand smoke was thick in the air. Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! was on a loop on every monitor in the room. Nice. There was a queue of people waiting to get in, and Helen (Pulsar's Mom) looked stressed out as she was trying to do 3 things at once.Carlos S.F.T. and Crystal were walking right up the same time I was. Hi, I said to Helen, I need to get 3 wristbands please. She said "You're only allowed 5, one per band member total and you've already got 3 out." Now as far as I knew, I was the first one to go up front and ask for anything in that regard, so I asked her Who grabbed the first 3? "The drummer, his wife, and her friend." I literally LOL'd when she told me that, and I laughingly assured her that that was an impossibility, as I was the drummer of the band and my girlfriend was in the bathroom, and that we didn't have a friend with us - we had a Bob, who's a dysfunctional member of the Civilians family. She replied, "Oh, well I know him quite well, and I can assure YOU that it was him that took the passes." Uhhhhmmm, OK. I had lost the taste to suss it out diplomatically and logically and just told her Look, the guy in the back was giving me a hard time about getting wristbands to go in and out, and he sent me up here, which is the only reason why I am up here, and you can either give me the wristbands or not, but if you don't, I'm not loading my gear in to play the gig, and you can tell everybody that asks why I'm not. She kind of looked at me and I smiled as she handed over a grip of wristbands, which I then handed out to everyone I knew in the vicinity. So yeah, that's how the T.S.O.L. gig kicked off for me... LOL Everybody and their Mom was in the place. The Goths, The Punks (Young and Old), The Punx (Oi!), The Bro-hams, The Nerds, and some old people who looked like they were up way past their bedtime. We were all their to pay homage to T.S.O.L., and the turnout was excellent for a Weds. night. I stood around chatting with Monica, Karl, Bethany, Jesse, Roxie, Carlos and Crystal (of course), Dave, and a whole plethora of various people and friends I can't recall at the moment. We all stood around smoking and drinking and waiting for something, anything, to begin. Finally, after a little prodding by Jeremy to the sound man to make sure the bands stayed to their scheduled time slots, opening band Sheiks From Neptune took to the stage to some prerecorded Sci-Fi noise and rolling waves of fog, and even before I recognized them as the band once known as Bloody Ale (at least the singer anyways), I wasn't feeling it. They played an up-tempo Sci-Fi Surf vibe type of Punk Rock, all while wearing fez hats and loud Hawaiian print shirts, looking like Shriners (Shriner-core!), and the crowd was lapping it up big time. I felt old and out of it because I didn't get the appeal. Fun circle pit action broke out sporadically as people were just rocking out to what they were playing, and the fog throughout their set was a cute touch, but it reeked of effort, man. It reeked of them trying waaaaaaay too hard to have people like them, but it worked, because people were digging the fuck out of the Sheiks From Neptune, so what do I know? I said my goodbyes to everyone I was hanging around with and headed off to help Bob with the drum kit backstage. It's always great to play Triple B's. Big Daddy Carlos runs a good place there, and if it was anywhere else but Downtown, I would totally hang out there all the time, but it is Downtown, the only place that it could really exist, and for that I'm grateful. Better than playing outside in the back area of the Beauty Bar, that's for sure, and everything beats playing at LVCS. Enough said. The Civilians always get a great response when we play at Triple B's, but they usually cut us short, ha ha ha, so tonight, we planned a fast and furious 24 minute set that was all killer, no filler. Lots of circle pit action and just a great response from the crowd. You'd think we were good or something... heh heh We had just gotten our colored vinyl records a few days beforehand, so this gig was a celebration of sorts. Jeremy gave some records out, and people bought a whole bunch more. Red seems to be the popular color of choice so far. I never see anything that's going on while we play, being a drummer and far in the back, and apparently neither do the guys up front who always have lights in their eyes, but I could hear what was going on, and from where I was sitting, it sounded like a wild and raucous and rowdy time was going on. I could hear Karl Bakla being belligerent (You're the only Local band I like!!), and I could hear Scott (the guy who took the picture of the Civilians I stole from Facebook that I'm using for this write up) yelling out song titles, and after every song it sounded like KISS - Alive... hahaha It was a fun time and Thanks to everyone for hanging around and checking us out and supporting us by buying merch. It's sooooo freakin' cool!! Right after the set I was just exhausted and sweaty and sitting on my ass in the magical hidden room inside the book case directly behind the stage. Lots of kind words and compliments being through my way, with the strangest compliment someone gave me was that "The Civilians have a unique sound'. Whatever. Left Alone started into their set and I just wasn't feeling it. I'm not a big fan of their music, and when I ventured a peek out front to see about maybe taking some pictures of them for the website, I could see it was packed tight as sardines up front, so I went back to the green room to hang out with the guys in T.S.O.L., where Jack was getting everyone drunk on Jack & Cokes and Ron Emery was talking guitars with Jesse Amoroso. I was also engrossed in conversation with Rob Ruckus and Monica and Erika about cannabis oil and edibles, among other strange, interesting things. We were still chatting away backstage like hens in a hen house when T.S.O.L. took to the stage and started playing their standard set of greatest hits for the hungry crowd. They sounded exceptionally good, except for the drummer, who was THAT guy in the green room, beating on everything he could with a pair of drum sticks while twirling them with his fingers, just to let you know he was a drummer. Ghey. I don't know what happened to their other drummer Tiny, but this guy they had behind the kit was no Tiny, that's for sure. Missed accents, flubbed tom rolls, and non-existent cymbal hits. But besides those little annoyances that probably only I noticed, the band sounded good. Really good. Jack was his usually charming, witty, charismatic self, engaging the crowd and cracking wise to everything being said, and watching that man work a crowd to do his bidding, whether good or bad, is something I've enjoyed for well over 30 years now. It's still very entertaining to watch, and he sounds as good as ever. His voice was strong. He sounded great. Ron's guitar tone has always been impeccable; soulful yet angry, crunchy and melodic all at the same time, and when he plays the guitar lines to songs like Superficial Love or The Triangle, it still makes your blood pump and it gets the hairs on the back of your neck standing straight up. And he's been doing that for years. Fucking love it. Mike on bass does the same thing to me when he plays the opening riffs to Property Is Theft or Weathered Statues. His bass tone is like spooky surfy nightmare melodies made to get you moving, tapping your fingers, toes, something. When he gets to rocking, it's hard to stand still, but yet I was. The crowd was energetic, with a few lunatics running around looking for some circle pit action, but no one in the crowd was feeling it. We were all just a bunch of old people out on a weeknight up way past our bedtime and just wanting to hear some kick ass T.S.O.L. tunes and not slam and pogo around like we used to when we were younger. I was cool with that, because I was spent. T.S.O.L. played every great song of theirs that you can think of, and the crowd loved every minute of it, and after about an hour or so they called it a night by closing with Code Blue. It was a great set from the band, and once they were done the lights came up and everyone shuffled out the doors. Great gig. Fun times. What more could you ask for? T.S.O.L. - you know I love them!! :) Written by Karl Bakla. Rough past two weeks for Rock ‘n’ Roll, we lost Dickie Hammond (Leatherface), Brandon Carlisle (Teenage Bottlerocket), Filthy Animal Phil (Motörhead), & we almost lost Dr. Know (Bad Brains) …so turn their tunes up, the music they gave us lives on! With that stated I went to see Lagwagon last night, let me correct that I went to see Pears play last night & Lagwagon just happened to be on the line up. This might sound strange but for the past 23 or so years I have gone to several Lagwagon concerts, but never seen them play, maybe they are amazing, I dunno! Got to the show just as the doors opened & I couldn’t help notice how empty the show was. 20 years ago there would have been a line wrapped around the Huntridge if Lagwagon was playing… shortly after I entered the venue the Pears started their set. There is a lot of hype behind this band & usually that just leads me to disappointment, but not tonight! The Pears did not disappoint, even though the room was cold & empty the Pears brought some much needed energy, it also helped that most of the people up front seemed to know all the words to the songs. If you haven’t check out their album Go To Prison, check it out! The songs sound even better live… Pop Punk, Hardcore, both labels apply! By the way, does the singer of the Pears do yoga? He has some amazing moves and kicks shit up several notches! Next up was the Runaway Kids and they fucking sucked, I wondered whose filthy butthole they licked to get onto the show. If you like Strung Out, you might like this band. The singer sings & they have hints of 90’s mall Punk. For further proof that this bands sucks, just take a look at their Facebook page (click here), one of their members wears a Limp Bizkit shirt, sure that guy will probably beat me up, but so what. I’d rather get my ass handed to me than listen to Nu-Metal or whatever the fuck you call it. I would like to take a moment and say fuck this venue! I can’t believe people that are 18 years old that pay full price for a ticket have to stand in a small pen on the side of the venue, while people that are 21+ get to stand right in front of the stage but are expected to pay 24 bucks for a double whiskey… I really felt that we are there to buy drinks and the music really didn’t matter. Now don’t get me mistaken, I know they are running a business and have to make some money, but this place was douchie as hell, the only thing douchier were the guys from Punks In Vegas. I’d like to thank Punks In Vegas for their continued commitment to making Punk Rock safe! I noticed that Punks In Vegas has some shit on New Noise Magazine, fuck that magazine it is lame as fuck. If someone handed me New Noise when I was twelve I probably would have passed over Punk for something else. Next up were The Briefs. Sure the bulk of the crowd didn’t seem to care, but there were quite a few people up front that were excited that they were playing, especially the guy that looked like Rob Schneider. Sure I am not familiar with the bulk of the Briefs discography but I love their Hit After Hit LP & I was stoked they played Silver Bullet & closed their set with Poor & Weird! Next up were Lagwagon, but it wouldn’t be a Lagwagon show if I stayed to watch them play, so I left and headed out to Roberto's. It’s funny I don’t hate Lagwagon & I actually like a few of their songs, I just never really cared for the white trash tweeker skateboarder types that seemed attracted to them, sure most of those types don’t go to shows any more, but traditions are traditions! |
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