Hooker Spit Windex: 8/29/10

Hooker Spit Windex, Choose Your Poison, Black America: Victory Warehouse

This night time gig was a welcome relief from the social obstacles of the aforementioned Stork Club trap. Young snotty kids not giving a fuck were hanging out, stickin’ it to the man, stickin’ it in a tournequetted, eagerly shaking left arm. Black America was a band name I’d heard before, and I had been wondering if they actually a bunch of (suburban?) white kids dipping their toes in the tepid waters of “being offensive.” Well maybe they weren’t all white, but definitely none of them were black. The singer was saying some borderline funny/sketchy stuff, which is actually pretty hard to interpret as sketchy when it looks like he’s not too recently moved out of his mother’s house, or maybe even her womb. The music was short, old schoolish hardkoresongz none too memorable. Whatever, this was fun and I’m glad kids are still forming bands like this.

Choose Your Poison: Grindcore? I’ve really gotta write these reviews sooner after I see the shows, so I can remember some shit.

Part of the reason I’m came to this show (the other part was I thought Population Reduction was playing) was the band’s name Hooker Spit Windex. Now there’s a moniker that takes some balls (and ovaries, actually) or some real creativity. Well, they had a little of both, but more in the name department than the music, which was competent Napalm Death style grind. The fact, however, that the jams were being kicked out by the these fucking nerdy weirdo co-eds with very bad attitudes, from Dayton, Ohio (yes I’ve been there, I know it sucks, this all makes sense) won me over completely. I was glad I came to see them, and I bought a bright neon green t-shirt and a tape. Victory is mine!

Nuclear Family, Jucifer: 8/20/10

At the time of writing this, August 20th was the last time that I drank Ancient Age whiskey. Once a favoured beverage in the realms of Boca de Fuma, the A.A. has fallen from grace and become a poison to my body which cannot be tolerated. Maybe they changed the recipe, maybe it's the shitty plastic bottles they now use causing a bogus chemical reaction... maybe I've become a pussy. Anyway, I think I'm done with that shit.

But it was with a bottle of said beverage in hand that I approached the inaugural show at the Shirley Temple of Doom. When I got there Fugitive Kind was playing. Last time I saw them, if it wasn't their first show, it was a very early one, and let's just say that a year and a US tour can do wonders for a band's talents. Now this whole time I was hanging out, drinking a lot, and not paying too close of attention to the bands. I don't know who came next, but let's get to Nuclear Family. I'm going to be extremely lazy here and use someone else's description of the band which I happen to very much agree with:

Sometimes you don't have to push boundaries, you don't have to break new ground, you don't even need to do something different - you just have to do it right. That's what Albany's NUCLEAR FAMILY do, and I watched 'em do it last night.Jen's vocals and Zach's guitar don't compete for your attention, but they do both command it from start to finish, and it's easy to alternately get wowed by either. -Robert Collins on Terminal Escape

These guys seemed really cool. Just regular everyday people, showing that Albany is a world away from NYC, not doing punk to rewrite it's rules or to have a cool punk look, or rule the downtown scene, or have a hip international label put out their limited seven inch singles... just doing it cause it's fuckin' fun and they want to!

I'd seen Daylight Robbery a few times before, Acts of Sedition has played with them in Chicago and Milwaukee on past tours, and they continue to get better and better! If you're a fan of X(US), Gorilla Angreb, or Masshysteri you should check this band out. If they were Scandi and didn't sing in English they would probably be three times more popular already.

After this, the Ancient Age was really starting to take effect, and I ended up down a the Victory Warehouse, where Dirty Marquee and Hooray For Everything were playing. I honestly cannot tell you if I actually saw either of these bands play. I know I had a good time hanging out and saying "what's up doooooooooood!" to people and that's about it!

After that, I somehow ended up at the Uptown, and I didn't even remember this until days later when I was reminded, but I caught at least most of Juicfer's set, which when the memory seeped back into my mind, like a wretched monolith appearing back out of the fog in the distance, was rad. Cause I'd never seen them before. And I almost missed out on remembering even seeing them this time. Drink and be merry my friends!