Tag: berthold city
The Hardest So-Cal Has to Offer, Strife Plays “In This Defiance” at The Roxy
Rob Shepyer
August 27, 2018
Southern California has always been a hotbed for hardcore punk from Black Flag to The Circle Jerks but carrying on the torch into the 90’s was a band from Thousand Oaks, California called Strife. Exhibiting that classic straight edge, beat down character, Strife was a band that from the get go, had the feel like they belonged on a stage with a pit belonging right in front of them. Their second album, In This Defiance, with its many guest appearances by Dino Cazares, Chino Mareno, and Igor Cavalera, became the band’s definitive album. They were a band that could get hardcore kids to dog-pile and sing together songs so undeniably powerful and demanding of an audience, that they became essential to the Southern California hardcore canon. related content: For The Children 2017 At The Echoplex: Hardcore Is The Gift That Keeps On Giving Strife’s impact resonated beyond their sound though. Each band that would perform on this evening at The Roxy had a connection to the band. Beginning first with Fixation from Philadelphia, who even though are in the early stages of their career, played a set that was cohesive and powerful enough to make you envision a long and
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Attaining the Supreme: Shelter at the Constellation Room
Rob Shepyer
June 28, 2018
What is the function of music? Is it to make you dance? To emotional move you? Or is it to inform you? In Shelter‘s case, they provide a special form of information for the audience. Not of the political or personal variety, but rather of the spiritual. Spiritual information that will make your soul feel full. Attain enough of this spiritual information, through study, meditation, and yoga, and you might be rewarded with the “Supreme”. What exactly is the Supreme? It is something beyond beauty and the sublime, it is a state of being that language fails to describe, but perhaps music stands a chance in translating the Supreme into sound and performance. The first band I arrived to see was Berthold City, a band started by the guitarist of my favorite hardcore bands, Strife’s Andrew Kline. Even in their fourties, this band was jumping around wildly, with bodies that hadn’t suffered the usual damage dealt by the typical rock and roll lifestyle. The songs had a sweeping, hardcore feel and though the turnout was small this early in the evening and the audience was a bit stiff, we all felt connected to the music and each other. With songs
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