Razorcake Issue #19

Michigan Fest, DVDLive footage from a three-day music festivalheld in the not too distant past, featuring onesong each from Arab On Radar, !!!, Vaz, CrushKill Destroy, Dillinger Four, Isis, Coalesce, TheArrivals, Haymarket Riot, Rye Coalition, SmallBrown Bike, Milemarker, and others. All thetechnical stuff (sound, lighting, etc.) is quitegood, multiple cameras are used, amusing interviewsare peppered in between the performances.I really liked the diversity of the bands presentedhere, and was impressed by a few I would neverbe caught dead with on my stereo (don’t ask,‘cause I ain’t gonna tell you). While I did have a problem with the “hardcore”end of the punk spectrum being represented by bad metal bands andthe lack of more “traditional” punk fare here (what, the Spits couldn’t becoaxed to participate or anything?), and the occasional “college musicshowcase” vibe of the proceedings, it was a nice watch in an Urgh! sortaway, where you may not dig all of what’s going down but the sheer volumeand diversity of what you get to wade through is refreshing. –JimmyAlvarado (Bifocal Media, PO Box 50106, Raleigh, NC 27650-0106)Minor Threat: DC Space, Buff Hall, 9:30 Club, DVDA DVD reissue of what was originally the Minor Threat Live video,which consisted of a live set recorded at the 9:30 Club on 6/23/83, withadditional footage from two other shows dated 12/17/80 and 11/20/82,respectively, and an interview with Ian rounding things out. The videoand sound quality vary, with the 9:30 Club stuff being the best in thatrespect, but all have their charms, like watching Ian sing to a pretty ampedcrowd while sporting a rather large lump on his noggin incurred in anaccident just before the show. Although the splice and dice presentationof the interview (all the questions spliced together, followed by all of hisanswers spliced together) was a bit annoying, all the hits can be foundhere, the energetic performances are a helluva lotta fun to watch, and thelong, detailed intros before each performance are very informative andprovide some perspective for those who weren’t there. In short, essentialviewing. –Jimmy Alvarado (Dischord, 3819 Beecher Street NW,Washington, DC 20007)Vandals: Live at the House of Blues, DVDBack in the early 1980s, a small, relativelyobscure South Bay punk band called theVandals developed a word-of-mouth reputationby trashing the houses of parties they played.Not long after that, they released an amusing EPof silly tunes poking fun at nearly everything inreach, from dropping LSD at Disneyland tofriends-turned-legends to punk’s politicalstances. One of those tunes, parodying thepunks vs. urban cowboy wars then raging atCosta Mesa’s Cuckoo’s Nest, became a regionalhit and earned the band their fifteen minutesof fame. After their first full-length earned them another hit, they summarilysacked their lead singer and brought in another less flamboyantfront man to fill his shoes. Fast forward to 2004, wherein the Vandalshave effectively laid waste to the laws of physics and have upset thespace/time continuum by somehow managing to increase their fan baseby producing suckier and suckier music. The only member left from theoriginal band is the drummer (who is now the bass player), the band hasjumped from one subgenre to the next over the years, first chasing cowpunkuntil they realized there was no money to be found at that well, andnow raking in the dough as a cheap NOFX knockoff. Presented here iswhat one assumes to be a recent performance at the House of Blues,wherein the band crank out tune after tune of bland, faceless, frat boy rockto the assembled poseurs and Avril Lavigne clones looking to earn somepunk cred at school by seeing a “real” punk band. The only “oldie” showcasedhere is a thorough butchering of the Simpletones’ “I Have a Date,”which leads one to think that it might just be a good thing that Snickers isdead, because someone no doubt deserves a good smack down for whatis done to that tune. To put things more succinctly, the Vandals are livingproof that you should never, under any circumstances, let the drummercall the shots. As if the DVD wasn’t punishment enough, included is abonus CD of the performance with which you can soil your stereo just asbadly as you did your DVD player. It also means you get two targetsfor your next skeet shooting session, which is about the onlydecent thing one can do with such utter wastes of plastic.–Jimmy Alvarado (www.kungfurecords.com)No Means No & the Hanson Brothers: Would We Be... Live?, DVDThere are some great bands still kicking around these days, but veryfew of them are just as, well, HUGE as No Means No are live. They reallyare a sight to behold. On the stage, these guys come off like musicalgiants – tight, heavy and weird giants. And on this DVD, you get a tasteof what that is like – twenty songs by this fiery power trio. Best of all,these guys are living proof that musicians don’t have to put their guts outto pasture and go all Westerberg just because they turn thirty-five. In fact,it can be said, without hyperbole, that these three salt and pepper-hairedCanucks bring more heat live than a dump truck full of the most preening,Mountain Dew-swilling, spiky-haired-dad-hater punques the suburbshave to offer.The second band on this video is the Hanson Brothers, which featureNo Means No drummer John Wright on the mic (as his alter-ego JohnnyHanson) and No Means No guitarist Tom Holliston (on the six-string asTommy Hanson). The band’s name is an homage to the three scene-stealing,“differently-abled” brothers from the 1977 hockey movie Slapshot.(“They’re fuckin’ horrible lookin’. What did the old man trade for theseassholes, a used puck bag?”) The Hanson Brothers are also a great band,full of big rock styling. Their tunes are much more straightforward, fouron-the-floorpunk than the staccato, stop on a dime songs of No MeansNo, but they also really know how to bring it live. Most of their songs areabout hockey and beer, but their appeal will not be lost on you if you’renot into these two things – for some unfathomable reason.This DVD is really fun to watch and is exceptionally well-produced,but No Means No are one of the best bands you’ll ever see live. They arethe Grand Canyon of punk. Pictures will never do them justice. So, it’shard to say that this video captures all the verve of being there. But thatis a really a failing of ALL live videos, not this one in particular. In fact,the folks at Punkervision deserve full marks for producing such a highqualitylive video with a limited amount of equipment and crew at theirdisposal. Their videos are shot on four separate hand-held cameras, withno communication between the operators. The audio is recorded with amix of the live board feed and area mics. All four video feeds are synchedup with the audio later and cut together. Punkervision, like punk musicitself, gets great results from being a model of efficiency, relying more onpluck and raw talent than fluff and frills. –Jeff Fox (Punkervision)