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Voodoo Glow Skulls, Ten Foot Pole, Digger, and River City Rebels As a nice break to the daily drudging of material at CBRSS at Harvard, the Englishman and I went to check out this rock n' roll extravaganza. In classic big city style the show started roughly two-and-half hours later than advertised, so we went to fuck up some nerd bombers (sic) at MIT. After two hours of kicking video game ass at the student union, we waggled back to the Middle East. Heading into the basement of this fire hazard, River City Rebels (Victory Records) were bustin' out their classic punk sound. Unlike their release on Victory "Playing to Live, Living to Play," RCR employed a full-fledged horn section. I am still not sure if that made the songs better or not. Whatever. RCR was all about having a good time and made fun of the crowd for not rocking out harder. But, once they played their anthem "Small town pride," everybody in the place from the punkers to the drunks to the misplaced yuppies were getting into it. Next up were the perennial pop-punk legends Digger (Hopeless Records). Having not seen them since four years ago when the infamous Midgets played with them, I was excited. When they took the stage, I was a bit confused by the personnel. The only person I recognized was Chris the lead guitarist. In addition, they had a girl playing keyboards? Eh? Though keyboards wound up being minimal at best. I later learned from Chris that recently they had an entire personnel change and this lineup seemed to be working to perfection. Digger rocked the place playing hits from all of their releases, even reaching way back to "I want my hat back" and the like. I do wish they would play those two songs on the Weston split; those are their best ever, hands down. Digger has a new album coming out in the fall on Hopeless. At that time, the Englishman and I didn't realize that RCR and Digger would be the best entertainment of the evening. With that said, Ten Foot Pole (recently, Victory Records) took the stage to yells of enthusiasm. With only an early knowledge to the recorded material of Ten Foot Pole (e.g., "Unleased"), I recognized a song here and there. Not that Ten Foot Pole is a bad band, but they are characterized by a generic SoCal punk sound. Given that they were part of the initial movement of the sound among the Epitaph and Fat Wreck bands, they wallow in mediocre. The headliner this evening was the Voodoo Glow Skulls (Victory Records). The last time I saw VGS, I met Joey Ramone, so who know what would happen tonight? Well, nothing that special, except for the consistent entertainment of VGS. What is amazing about these guys is that many years after they launched, they still pour enormous amounts of energy into their sets, showing that they love this stuff. However, as has been the case with VGS through the years, they have some tremendous songs and then a bunch of filler. When they slow down a touch and let their talents come across, they fucking rock; inbetween you withstand the filler. Nonetheless, VGS mixed up their set with classics from earlier albums and most of their new album "Steady As She Goes." The highlight of the evening, though, is when the lead singer Frank Casillas kicked off a number with a flaming skull torch. VGS is on tour for some time into the future, so check out the package.
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