Category: SHOWS

Chameleons Vox At The Echoplex: Sorrow Never Sounded So Sweet

Rob Shepyer September 14, 2017

I’ve been fiending HARD for death rock ever since I read this bandcamp article exposing me to the bigger bands in the small dark punk revival scene. One of those bands I discovered was The Wraith and they were playing in support of Theatre of Hate at Part Time Punks. It was one of those rare occasions where I was just as stoked for the opening band as the headliner. Fast forward to a few weeks later, and Theatre of Hate gets stricken with visa issues, stranding the band in Europe so Chameleons Vox gets added to the bill after their show the night before sells out. Now with two British goth bands from the 80’s playing, this booking became an accidental powerhouse bill. Part Time Punks did it yet again, Michael Stock might just be the best promoter in this town for this whole, “rare vinyl come to life” thing Part Time Punks has going on. I waited for The Wraith as the fog machine’s outpour of haze consumed me and the stage. The Wraith is led by East Los Punk turned death rocker Davey Bales, who started the set by polishing off a plastic bottle of TAAKA vodka,

It’s Not Dead Fest 2: New Hope For Punks w/ Rancid, Dropkick Murphys, OFF!

Janky Smooth Central Command September 13, 2017

It had been two years since the first It’s Not Dead festival (which boasted punk rock legends such as The Descendents, Pennywise and Bad Religion) and the bar was set pretty high for its return. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get off work until 2 pm on that day but even by that morning nobody knew what the set times were going to be as the festival’s curators refused to release them until the minute doors were open at noon. A decision that I found somewhat annoying but I understood it encouraged people to arrive early to see as many bands as possible. As soon as I was able to see the schedule I was disappointed to discover that there was no way I was going to make it to the Glen Helen Amphitheater in San Bernardino in time to catch The Flatliners’ 3 pm start time. Cutting my losses, I hit the road after swinging by my house to grab my gear and change into more festival friendly clothes in hopes of arriving before The Buzzcocks took the stage later in the afternoon. related content: Punk Rock Bowling 2017: You Can’t Be What You Were

Hurricanes in Florida, Earthquakes in Mexico & Quicksand in L.A. At Teragram

Rob Shepyer September 12, 2017

The Teragram Ballroom was sold out for NYC post hardcore band Quicksand’s return to Los Angeles. Filled with old hardcore heads, I was confident the slam-dance-worthy music wouldn’t be able to draw violence out of these gen-x’ers but boy was I wrong. All it takes is one pit psycho to reintroduce danger into rock and roll and force you to put up your dukes or feel like a bitch. related content: Thee Oh Sees And The Practical Applications Of Quantum Physics It began with an album announcement, their first in 22 years. The first single off Interiors, “Illuminant“, sounds just as heavy and groovy and hardcore as anything Quicksand has ever put out and after seeing them live, you really get the sense that bands just can’t make music this good anymore. Montreal’s No Joy opened the night as the only supporting act. They’re a shoegaze three-piece with minimalist vocals, if any during songs. Their rapid drumming and twin six string attack fosters a lunatic lucidity which is different than the rest of the shoegaze flock. No Joy sounds best when they play fast unlike most gaze acts that keep it slow. That said, I wish No Joy dabbled more in the

Before ANTIFA, There Was Crust: Doom Celebrates Dirty 30 At The Regent

Rob Shepyer August 26, 2017

Anarchism and Anti-Fascism seem to have found a new seat, front and far-left-of-center, in the public forum. That seat is occupied by the political movement that has adopted those principals in the fight against Donald Trump known as ANTIFA. Their highly publicized clashes with the far-right might be what’s making news these days but if you know their ideology, one has to see its parallels with Crust Punk. The value system professed by many of ANTIFA’s members are rooted in the deconstruction of the “male dominator system” that is the basis of civilization as we know it. Monogamy, capitalism, binary gender, racial hierarchy, monotheism (especially in the Christ variety), and more, traditions most baby anarchists are born into, are all part of the “male dominator system”. Breaking away from the values you are born into is often a violent experience and what’s left of you after the fact, might just be a person damaged enough to become a crust punk. If you accept your crusthood, the proper thing to do is drop out (of life), never shower, and hop on the next train going nowhere. So what’s the difference between ANTIFA and crust punk culture? On the surface, it’s really

Prettiest Eyes & Egrets On Ergot: The L.A. Sound Explodes Out Of Harvard & Stone

Aria Silva-Espinosa August 17, 2017

Everything you need to know about rock based music coming out of Los Angeles can be summed up by the sounds that were coming out of Harvard and Stone one week ago, today. It’s not that L.A. has a very specific sound since the scenes surrounding the city range from hardcore to psychedelic rock but both Prettiest Eyes and Egrets on Ergo are bands that most high volume consumers of music seeing bands at places like the The Echo and The Hi Hat are inspired by on a regular basis.. Thursday night’s antics at Harvard & Stone began late in the evening with Los Angeles-based post-punk foursome Egrets on Ergot. As the band begins their set, vocalist Adam Brooks delivers a poetic monologue from atop the bass drum with his back to the audience. The recitation is followed immediately by Adam absolutely shredding on the saxophone. The use of saxophone sets Egrets on Ergot apart from other experimental post-punk groups by incorporating an experimental element often associated with jazz music in an entirely new way into the otherwise erratic and desperately disordered sound produced by the band. Generally, I wouldn’t enjoy the sound of a saxophone but somehow, Adam has

Summertime In The LBC: Love Letter To A City That Doesn’t Always Love Back

Jonathan Reyes August 11, 2017

Finding out the Summertime in the LBC festival was not actually in the Queen Mary had me feeling like they literally missed the boat on this one. Why couldn’t they figure out a way to have it on the actual boat? That’s only the tip of the iceberg that almost sank this festival. Almost. But instead, the performances were worthy of the type that were on the deck of the Titanic, just before it went down. This review is gonna be all ocean references… I’m naugty by nature. Festivals are tricky. There’s got to be dumb shit to preoccupy your time with in between sets. Like a tooth jewelry vender or the Swisher Sweet booth meant to let you know how deeply this fest embraced the Long Beach vibe, or over priced food and drinks. Summertime In The LBC had all this but lacked a couple of things that could’ve made the festival smoother and whole- a consistent DJ between artist’s sets, for one thing. But in a way, it honored the spirit of our city, because the cleaner and more gentrified they make Long Beach, it’s still the place where I once saw a man get out of his

Negative Approach Steamroll Echoplex w/ Nails, Bloodclot, Final Conflict

Rob Shepyer August 8, 2017

The mighty, punishing, blue-collar punk heroes of Detroit, Negative Approach, are one of my favorite bands of all time and their seminal album, Tied Down, is on my top ten albums of all-time list. They’re a band I’d do just about anything for, any act of band worship and fandom. I brought my shine-box to the show, just in case they wanted their boots spiffy. Any chance I get to see Negative Approach live, I do. So certainly, a powerhouse Echoplex lineup featuring Negative Approach, Final Conflict, hardcore super group Bloodclot, and headliners, Nails, had me buzzing just thinking about what kind of violence I’d endure and witness. related content: Sound And Fury Hardcore Festival Comes Of Age All Across Los Angeles The moment I walked in, I zipped straight to the merch table and saw the holy grail of T-shirts, a lime-green Tied Down shirt, the same color scheme as the album. I gleefully threw my twenty dollars at Negative Approach’s drummer, Chris “Opie” Moore who was slinging the merch. This was one of those rare concert consumer moments that made me more elated to buy this shirt than to listen to some of the bands playing. Atwater Village

Ministry Make Bid To Be Official ANTIFA House Band At San Diego Show

Danny Baraz August 6, 2017

It was FYF weekend in Los Angeles- a weekend in the summer in which Los Angeles is the center of the summer music festival world. Not to mention the swarming packs of virgins in San Diego for Comicon. So why then am I at the San Diego House of Blues, of all places, on the Friday of the first night of the festival in which one of my favorite musicians on the small list of all time greats that I have yet to see is performing? Well, Bjork IS a genius but seeing the Ho99o9 boys open for Ministry in one of my most cherished cities was just too good and intimate to pass up. So I hit up Eaddy, aka YetiBones a couple of weeks beforehand to see what was up and found out that it would also be his birthday on Friday, July 21st. It was so on. related content: FYF 2017 Steals Coachella’s Throne As So-Cal’s Premiere Festival related content: Ministry Make Ears Bleed at Punk Rock Bowling Club Show There were multiple story lines at play this evening. Aside from one of my well documented, favorite new bands playing with one of my favorite all time

FYF Fest 2017 Steals Coachella’s Throne As So-Cal’s Premiere Festival

Dave Unbuckled August 1, 2017

My bones are still rattling and recovering from Capn’ Jazz’s sold out set at The Echo Thursay night. So much so that I limp across the edges of Exposition Park, and marvel at the crowd as I walk into my first FYF fest. The festival has grown dramatically since it’s early days as a showcase for DIY and up and coming local punk acts in 2004. It’s so comfortably warm walking through the LA coliseum on the outskirts circling the festival that I skip my normal routine of stealing water bottles and go straight to the pit. Related Content: FYF Presents: The Glorious Return of Cap’n Jazz At The Echo In an impromptu pow wow we map out our weekend and get ready to go watch Badbadnotgood- a band I’ve been following since their second album BBNG2 began getting the well-deserved buzz it received nearly five years ago. The band has carved a niche identity as mainstays in these large festivals. The crowd sways through their set, flexing their youthful energy that will be gone by day’s end but for now the band invites special guest Denzel Curry onto the stage and finishes the set with people pogoing to Trap Jazz

FYF Presents: The Marked Men & Royal Headache Tearing Regent To Shreds

Rob Shepyer July 31, 2017

The Marked Men are a band of Texan punks from the early 2000’s that FYF managed to lasso into a show at the Regent Theater. To some, the news of this show was of the same magnitude as Jawbreaker‘s upcoming reunion for Riot Fest. The Marked Men’s sound is traditional power punk with an unrelenting 3-chord assault reminiscent of bands like The Spits. It’s the perfect soundtrack to youthful debauchery and even though the ages of the crowd were mixed from teenagers to geezers, the energy of everyone in the audience was young and crazy when the Marked Men took the stage. It trips me out to think that the 00’s were so long ago that bands from that era are considered icons and veterans now. Perhaps I’m getting too old for this shit. related content: The Spits at Union- Trash and Glamor United in Los Angeles Flat Worms were the first band to open up this can of worms. They were a speedy and fun power punk trio but as their set progressed their performance started feeling droll- not because of the small early turnout, but because the vocals lacked dynamism and they didn’t move with as much spirit

Van Nuys Police Poop On DIY Valley Punk Rock Pity Party

Janky Smooth Central Command July 28, 2017

The show planned for Saturday, April 29th, was supposed to be a banger. All the teens and young adults of the valley were prepping their tightly laced shoes and punk blazers for the boiling mosh pits that were bound to take place considering acts from bands like Sad Park, Clit Kat, Beach Bums, and Pity Party. related content: Sloppy Jane at The Smell- When Being A Mean Whore Became A Compliment For whatever reason, there aren’t many good DIY shows happening in the valley. If you really want to be in with the LA underground punk music scene, you’ll be taking the red line to downtown LA every weekend. But this show was supposed to be the exception. Van Nuys? I’m there. Lucifurnace? Count me in. That’s what we were all saying on Friday during lunch. We even picked up a bunch of stuff from Goodwill to bump our self-esteem for the event that would rival any prom. But to our great disappointment, it was shut down. It wasn’t a traditional DIY show. The flyer on Instagram announced that it was to begin at 3pm and end at 10pm. Typically, shows start at 7:30 or 8 and go until midnight.

FYF Presents: The Glorious Return Of CaP’n Jazz at the Echo

Dave Unbuckled July 27, 2017

It was 6:45 when I checked the time on my phone, as the clock in my car is no longer functioning. The chances of finding a parking spot on Sunset Blvd at the seven O’clock hour is nearly an impossible feat, but I had given myself a healthy amount of fuck-around time. To my surprise, I managed to squeak into a spot, right then, as the hipster coffee shop flipped their signs to ‘Closed’. I walked up the street as the sun began setting, and stopped in front of Permanent Records. This was not a night to get distracted with digging for vinyl, but like most addicts, I gave in and checked it out. Forty-nine minutes later, I was carrying a large box of records back to my car, ignoring the glares of the residents of Echo Park, who likely assumed I had robbed the store. RELATED CONTENT: DID THE MELVINS PLAY A FREE SHOW AT PERMANENT RECORDS TO SUPPORT BUZZ’S VINYL HABIT? When I entered the Echo, I was told The Cairo Gang was set to open in thirty-seven minutes, and CaP’n Jazz wouldn’t be taking the stage for several hours. I limped to the smoking patio, having rolled