Sonic Boom Six

Cardiac Address EP

Rebel Alliance, 2017

 

One day, Laila K and Barney Boom were sitting around the boompad having a heated discussion.

“Most of the time, I like our innovative directions,” said Laila. “But being a perpetual reinvention machine is a lot of pressure.  The franchise we took our name from has been re-hashing itself essentially nonstop for a quarter-century, for fuck’s sake!”

“Perhaps we need to go back to basics somehow,” considered Barney.  “I’m wary of doing an EP though.  We put out so many EPs back in the day that I can’t even name all the bastards.  That’s fine in the beginning.  Those teasing little lunch appetisers of things to come.  But we’ve spent the past decade basking in the warm, evening meal satisfaction of the studio album.  You don’t go back to lunch!”

Laila composed herself.  “Well we need some way to fund a trip on the Warped Tour so we can knock American skulls together.  A quick EP might be just the reflective exercise we need anyway.  What if we did it in a style suited to the format, like a string of hardcore punk bangers?”

“Hey, that’s an idea! Sonic BOOM!”

“I’ve been asking you for years to stop saying that man.”

“KRS-One reference!”

Etc.

---

What exactly did Laila mean by “hardcore punk bangers”?  Those were the words she used onstage when the band actually reached the Warped Tour, and they rang in my uninformed ears until I got the disc home.  Were they finally going to usher in an age of concordant punk and nu-grime, as predicted in The Carbon Diaries series?  The RATM-style recurring tagline, “Big up all UK punk and free party people,” was present on the sleeve, but being recurring, wasn’t as reliable a clue as it at first appeared.  While it’s fair to say that Sonic Boom Six have certainly been responsible for an underground push in the urban-dance splicing direction over the years, it seems that my Anglo-Americanised brain got more mashed up in interpretation than the songs on this record.  On Cardiac Address the band look back to their rock inspirations from the 80s, 90s, and their peers of the early 2000s. 

Recorded in Blackpool, the 8-track EP features some of the various sounds of a Rebellion Festival.  Whether skate, street, ska or hard, each sub-genre comes in small and fast compartments of thunderous quality (total runtime: 20 mins), that as the title and cover artwork suggest are from the heart with no fuss.  Minimal-winner “When You’re A World Away” starts with hardcore menace and remains Minor Threat-powered throughout its 75 seconds, blasting dumbarse claims about refugees and the homeless in short order and giving them no time to respond.  “My Philosophy” is a quick and catchy counterpoint to The Specials’ “Too Much Too Young,” musing about the possibilities of life paths not taken.  And “The Kids We Used To Be” is a snippet of motoring, melancholy majesty that could have come from Nitro Records.

The aesthetic may be classic, but the lyrical perspective is of our times.  Already described are efforts to combine ageing punk-person themes with the bands’ updated anti-daft-racist message, for those of us living through the era of the May-Trump Axis of Isolation.  I am extremely skeptical of the idea that shit presidents lead to good music, but there are some choice efforts here.  The throbbing chorus for the slightly comical “Real Bad Dream,” for example, compares the orange bollock to Biff Tannen.  I do wonder if Barney Boom should be throwing around accusations of time travel though, considering that I recently learned via an old Peel recording of his stint as guitar player for early 80s funk-dance band JuJu (albeit under the spelling Barns).

Opener “Western Society” follows the trick of “Baby, I’m an Anarchist!” by putting political relationships in a romantic framing.  The protagonist not only dismisses the tempting analysis of the web-wide-white-right, but -- to my interpretation -- exposes the mythos of such societies where historic underpinnings lead them to continually flirt and identify with supremacist concepts.  This musically is probably one of my least favourite ones on Cardiac Address, along with the occasionally meandering “Learn to Live With It,” and they’re still good songs with pacy elements and admirable messages.  The last original is “Building a Wall,” a bitter fuck of a track where the Boom borrow a bit of lingo from Refused à la their early “The Rape of Punk to Come.”

Finally, we come to an exception to the thundering: a relaxed, dub cover of “Positivity” by Capdown.  For an act who have always layered homages exponentially, this is an obvious way to end this reference record, working legible lyrics out of this monster guitar track.  With the elegance of their own “Northern Skies” versions comes an interpretation that is two minutes longer than the original, but just as complex and invigorating, inviting us to slow down, take a moment in this world of shit and consider this advice.  (This works similarly on their acoustic rendition of “The Kids We Used To Be.”)  Seasoned thinking complements youthful energy, even if the youthful part’s long since been covered over with the hard skin of graft and cynicism.

Any artist who hopes to meaningfully stir the conversation pot in a way that leads to it being less of a turd stew needs to occasionally step back and take stock of where they’ve come from, to see where they might go next.  On this seemingly small release, Sonic Boom Six do so, and the results are extremely satisfying.  So far as I can tell from my considerable distance (the only name I recognise in the printed pre-order thank you list is Rookie of Punkermentality fame), they remain Mancunian heavyweight apparel of the UK punk scene.  So let's put on our classics and have a little dance, shall we?

The band are doing a UK tour for Cardiac Address in November.  Go so you can make me jealous: http://sonicboomsix.tumblr.com/post/165396866182/uk-boomers-you-didnt-think-we-could-forget-about

Interview with Tony of Nurgle for Apathy & Exhaustion

Tuesday, October 10th 2017

 

I’ve known James “Gutter Star” Lamont since the days of the Manc Punk Scene forum (R.I.P) in the early/mid-2000s – I was probably mercilessly ripping people for having bad taste in music (a legit pursuit) at the time. I recall that James had a more even handed online persona/character, but used to find me amusing… I have no idea exactly when or how we met in person, but it probably involves something like Jilly’s Rockworld of a Thursday evening, and beer. Or a gig. Fuck knows. 

 

Suffice to say, he’s a good lad. These days, he haunts the swamps of Florida. Or at least the streets of St Petersburg, FL. He’s a proper writer and that, these days, with qualifications and everything. Anyways, here’s his answers to the famous “intro questions”…

1. What was the very first way that you became aware of punk? i.e. what was your first encounter with punk

I’m sure that like a lot of people growing up in England I saw glimpses of the continual ’77 repackaging by the likes of the BBC. Though my earliest real memory of punk was at about 15, finding out that my friend Dave was listening to this unknown and oddly straightforward music, and adopting fashions and lifestyle choices to go along with it. 

2. How did you get into punk / alternative music?

My friends and I would make copied cassettes, and Dave would have things like Bad Religion, Pennywise, Alkaline Trio, The Get Up Kids, Jimmy Eat World, etc. He has an older sister so I’m sure she was the source of most of this. The tapes would always be decorated in these cool DIY ways. I found them intriguing but the music didn’t fully grab me right away. I was a few years into the Steve Lamacq, Melody Maker school of alternative at this point. 

3. What was your first gig?

Less Than Jake supported by MxPx, October 25th, 2000, at Manchester Academy 2 (or “Main Debating Hall,” as it was more interestingly known back then). 

4. What was the very first album you got? Also what was the first punk album you got?

The first non-copied albums that I think I actively sought were Be Here Now by Oasis, and Version 2.0 by Garbage. The first punk album that I bought, or at least that was significant enough for me to remember, was Straight Ahead by Pennywise. I had a bunch of those tapes, but that was the album that exploded the light bulb over my adolescent head and made me realise this was for me. 

5. Were you in a band while at high school or college? If yes what was the name, and how bad did you suck?

A few of us tried doing something in a scout hut a couple of times, but it never went anywhere. I was the only one who wasn’t playing anything, and supposedly looked like a typical lanky indie singer, so that’s where I was put, but I was mostly too nervous to even try. 

6. What is the biggest influence that punk rock has had on you as you’ve developed as a person?

Even though I spend a bit less time listening to punk than I used to, I still find myself asking if I’m following some of the ideas that I gleaned from it. Am I doing what I actually want to do, or just living in fear? Generally, the answer is fear. I’m sure the struggle is lifelong but I still like to think that I’ll figure out how to live more without giving all my dead time to bullshit.

7. What has punk rock caused you to question most about the world we live in?

It’s hard to think of a way to answer this that won’t seem really obvious or pretentious to anyone that had much of their perspective shaped by the punk community at a young age. I suppose one interesting thought is shown by a project like this website. Everyone on this site is a bit older than the normal demographic now, and here we are still trying to find answers, trying to figure out what matters in life and what can be done and just everything, whether its through punk channels or any way at all. One thing I take from punk is that we are all just people asking these questions and (for the most part) trying our best, however that manifests for each individual. You’re a fool if you can look around and not see all the problems that we face, but the human undercurrents of positivity and good efforts – however flawed – to make things better in each interaction or moment are also there. A lot of punk music shows that and without it we’d truly be lost.

8. What was the most recent gig you went to? (any genre)

Because I’m generally busy running on the American treadmill of survival, the most recent gig I went to was the Warped Tour all-dayer in July. Hoping that writing for A&E will inspire me to get back out there a bit more! 

9. What was the last record you listened to? (any genre)

Eels – Electro-Shock Blues.

10. Do you geek? If so, how?

In the past year I’ve gotten more into the youtube community, actively following certain creators and taking an interest in what’s happening on the platform as a whole. The bar on these DIY productions has been raised massively since we were speculating on their ability to kill centrally controlled entertainment back in the day. It’s music and politics, but there’s also a lot of computer game channels that I like to watch. I’ve gotten back into gaming somewhat in the past few years, but I probably spend more time watching commentary than actually playing. The constant changes in the medium and all the friction it throws up are interesting I guess. I’ve been working on building a channel/podcast for some time, but I want it to be solid before I put it out there. 

11. Give me your top ten records EVER, and a BRIEF rundown of why you’ve chosen each one…

Here are the chosen ten, that obviously don’t fully reflect my diverse, underground and super-punk taste. Like a cop-out shitbag, I threw in a bunch of honourable mentions as well.

Pennywise – s/t (Epitaph, 1991)
This album was in that original wave of copied tapes that I inherited. Once I got fully into the band I played that tape to death walking around Manchester, loving it despite the fact that the first minute was never on there. If I was forced to pick a favourite album, this might be it, and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” (once I heard the whole thing!) is perhaps my favourite song. I love its optimism and determination. Every belting, tight track on here has spoken to me at some point. This album for me signifies when melodic hardcore was becoming its own thing in the form of skate punk, with the best of both worlds. And by the way, if you love Pennywise’s old material, listen to their throwback album Yesterdays if you haven’t yet. Honourable mention: Bad Religion – No Control.

Descendents – Everything Sucks (Epitaph, 1996)
This album was also brought to my attention at that early age (although I never actually replaced the worn-out tape). What an introduction. Milo Goes to College is a special album, but Everything Sucks is the best example of the Descendents’ ability to help define an era’s sound whilst still sounding like themselves. Their wonderful, wonderful selves. It’s goofiness with longevity because the songwriting is just incredible. And it contains “Thank You,” the best closing track ever, genius in its humility. Honourable mention: Propagandhi – Less Talk, More Rock (because it came out the same year and essentially has the same root message).

Capdown – Civil Disobedients (Household Name, 2000)
I feel like there’s no-one else who managed to put ska and hardcore (and elements of about five other genres) together in such amazing, intelligent harmony as Capdown did with this one. Even right towards the end of Bomb Ibiza (10 years after this album), we could play near anything off Civil Disobedients and the dancefloor would become a dangerous berserker like almost nothing else could manage. Although generally we just played Ska Wars and Cousin Cleotis, obviously. Honourable mention: The Filaments – …What’s Next.

Melt-Banana – Charlie (A-Zap, 1998)
I know this might upset some purists, but I just love how this band make noisy, experimental punk somewhat accessible, at least by this point in their career. They swerve back and forth between melody and madness so sporadically on Charlie that I never know what is coming next no matter how many times I listen to it. And either way, it’s a treat. Yasuko Onuki’s vocals, the electronic blips, the distortion bent into something enjoyable: it’s pure, unnecessary fun. I got to see them last year with Napalm Death. That was a fucking combination.

Smoke or Fire – Above the City (Fat Wreck, 2005)
When I reviewed this album upon release (the “newest” on my list), I remarked that it had something of an ill-defined, classic feel to it. Time seems to have justified that gut feeling pretty well. For an album tackling such well-trodden punk topics as war, consumerism, mental health and friendship (maybe they were avid readers of Adbusters, these lot), Above the City holds up incredibly well both lyrically and musically. Smoke or Fire’s first two albums seem to perfectly take elements from several different eras of punk up to that point: punchy, booming melodies taking up no more time than is needed or possible. Melodic aggression honourable mention: Dag Nasty – Can I Say.

Minor Threat – Complete Discography (Dischord, 1989)
What needs to be said about this really? I can’t imagine there will come a time when this music sounds any less urgent than it did in the early 80s. The angry majority of this collection (not so much the equally good proto-Embrace tracks) all still have the potential to make me stop what I’m doing, leap up, scream into my tiny vegan fist and generally act like I’m back in Tony’s second living room at Rock World. “You tell me that I make no difference – at least I’m fucking trying.” Classic however you spin it. Modern honourable mention: Paint It Black – Paradise.

DJ Shadow – The Private Press (Island, 2002)
“And here’s a story about being free.” I’m not sure if that’s what the album is really about, but I love it all the same. It might not have blown the doors open for turntablism like Endtroducing….., but The Private Press has just as many memorable moments for me, perhaps because I listened to it when it was fresh rather than an established classic. The beats on this are equal parts American Beauty blissful and blown-fucking-mind badass. Also it has the hip hop equivalent to Bad Habit by The Offspring. West coast honourable mention: Dilated Peoples – Expansion Team. 

Public Enemy – It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back (Def Jam, 1988)
The first thing to note here is that Chuck D’s voice is an amazing and compelling instrument. He and Flavor Flav don’t ever undermine one another’s roles, the Black Panther and party hype man: it’s like an action film with complementary moments of comedy (none more so than in the case of “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos”). Both the production and even Mistachuck’s flows sound a little aged when compared to some of the conscious rappers that would come later, but that it still sounds this amazing while being firmly of its time is what makes it a deserved classic. This is a better denunciation of the violent hurricane settler colonies of Turtle Island than any group of furious white boys with guitars could ever hope to achieve. East coast honourable mention: Yasiin Bey – Black on Both Sides. 

The Chemical Brothers – Surrender (Virgin, 1999)
I’m seeing that a lot of my favourite music melds two or more styles together seamlessly. In the case of Surrender, it was The Chemicals’ ability to transition between silky smooth epics and pounding, unrelenting bangers. Numerous tracks of both kinds from their early career still give me goosebumps. It’ll turn your p-kids into e-kids. If you like aggressive music but are just electronic-curious, I’d highly recommend listening to this album, particularly “Under the Influence,” “The Sunshine Underground,” and of course the shagging-skeletons masterpiece that is “Hey Boy Hey Girl.” 

Oasis – Definitely Maybe (Creation, 1994)
Even in their earliest days, before they became a caricature of themselves, Oasis were always destined to be in the same school of NME-sanctioned rebellion as the Sex Pistols. But here’s what it comes down to: “Columbia” is a fucking tune, “Supersonic” is a fucking tune, “Bring It On Down” is a fucking tune, and if “Cigarettes and Alcohol” doesn’t remind you of some sweaty, overcrowded monument to youthful excess named after an alien New York landmark, then maybe you aren’t so much a True Child of the (Manc) North as others are. The longer I’ve lived away from home, the more I’ve found myself trying to hang on to my Mancunian roots (which have always been more significant to me than any national identity), and, for better or worse, albums like this one help me to do so.

Vans/Journeys Warped Tour

Saturday July 1st, 2017

Vinoy Park, St. Petersburg, FL 

It would always have taken something extraordinary for me to even consider letting the Warped Tour into my peripheral vision.  Describing it as a money-gathering experiment donning a cloak stitched together with the skin of a thousand shit, generic punk bands -- well, you might as well call U.S. policy “imperialist,” or discuss the triangularity of triangles (as Chomsky once put it).  But, though little more than a happy accident, this year they crept in, by including my old genre-ruffing Manchester buddies Sonic Boom Six on the lineup.  Following this thread of youth I find some half-a-dozen acts that might be worth watching, actually, and before I know it I’m trapped, without re-entry benefits, facing eight hours of blazing sun and twelve-dollar gnatspiss beers and wondering what the holy fuck I’ve stepped into.

It’s almost that quick at least.  Some organisational incompetence leads to a single person directing the incredibly long entry line to move to the other side of the street, which needless to say, they interpret by moving themselves from the back half to the front.  In more raucous times it might have led to a riot. The line is only so long because the sweatshop-utilising shoe companies that purport to run this circus (with their ridiculous names that are supposed to imply soul-fulfilling motion) don’t release schedules before it begins, forcing everyone to show up to the cage early lest they miss who they bought tickets for.  

Then once you get in there is a big balloon wall indicating that they do in fact have a schedule, but the bastards expect you to fork over two dollars for a paper timetable.  I’m reminded of the mighty video critic Jim Sterling, railing against triple-A game developers who continue to increase the presence of microtransactions in full-priced games.  I have already paid for the full experience, which should include an easy way of knowing what is going on and when. Most people take pictures of the wall, but that they would even try and charge for something so traditionally considered integral starts the day off on a pessimistic note. *

My predictions of who might be playing at what times turn out to be suspiciously and totally wrong, with an established band like Strung Out getting things rolling.  I’d accuse them of stringing out the big names, but since there are so many younger bands whose popularity levels I know nothing about it’s hard to spot a pattern.  In any case, Strung Out skate-spawns one of the first pits of the day, lasting about half the length of the song ‘Velvet Alley’ before retreating.  As people still pile through the entrance gates the crowd grows from a few dozen to about a hundred by the end of their set.

Strung Out are a good start, but for sweaty cobweb blowing of the serious measures kind, my next act of interest is Sick Of It All.  As punk continues to age, it becomes ever more important to distinguish your fast music credentials through the litmus test that is when you chose to start existing.  Frontman Lou Koller does it in a friendly way, introducing 1994’s ‘Scratch the Surface’ as the “hit that came out before you were born,” and wondering where all the first-time viewers have been.  (For my part in keeping punk crotchety, I last saw SOIA at Reading Festival 2004. Also Goldfinger, who are on this year's Warped Tour, but sadly didn’t come to St. Pete.) Koller has always sounded like he was on the bigger and older side.  Back when the internet was practically empty and all we had to go on was sleevenote thumbnails, I had pictured him (and similar hardcore singers) as something of a broad-shouldered, post-human giant, in fact. Yet here he is, muscley and gruff-voiced perhaps, but handsome, all in black and barely breaking a sweat as the band makes as much satisfying ragey noise as ever.  Any superhumanoid or youth tonic theories are sadly squashed though when Koller brags about getting back to his air-conditioned room. And organic fruit slices and skin-toning massages (my brain made those up because AC sounds that good right now).

Contemporary hardcore in a revisionist old style is how you might convolutedly describe Baltimore’s War On Women, performing at the Skullcandy stage.  Skullcandy not eyecandy!  May we all be judged by the sugary sweetness of our brains, rather than bodies.  That’s a thought I take away from War On Women’s style and their accompanying Safer Scenes tent, travelling with the tour and providing useful intervention advice for everyone looking to make music welcoming to all regardless of gender.  Y’know, unity and shit. Like the traditional TV news model, the constricting festival slot isn’t really structured to allow for in-depth discussion, so to spread their views WOW need some punchy thrash bangers, which they happen to have brought with them.  There’s the catchy and trans-inclusive ‘Second Wave Goodbye,’ and ‘Roe V. World’ with its repetitive All-O-Gistics-style wind-up riff and laundry list of points (and hey, Descendents, maybe break your own rules and do some laundry -- it’s been getting done, and not by magic pixies).  (Curiously, I gave some mild Descendents criticism last time I reviewed these lot.)  On the subject of safer scenes, how about demands for women only portable toilets, or just more hygienic ones in general?  I’m not one for hoping to solve problems through theoretical future technology, but I refuse to believe that travelling shitholes have not made advancements beyond the horrendous receptacles that we continue to see at festivals.

Speaking of the throughput footprint of urban debris, immediately next-door and next is former WOW tourmates Municipal Waste.  While exactly half the age of SOIA in band years, Municipal Waste are determined to show that they are as punk and authentic as anyone birthed in the dark fires of the (Iron) Reagan years.  They tell us, surprisingly, that there’s no autotune in their thrash, oh NO! “I don’t even know what a computer is!” proclaims Tony Foresta. Their performance is as audibly violent and entertaining as you’d expect from a band whose principal imagery of late is of Donald Trump shooting himself in the head.  How’s that for skullcandy?  The partially local band even came to the aid of Kathy Griffin recently when every mainstream pundit failed to give them credit for the idea of depicting violence against stupid White House occupants.  So obviously they perform their Dubya-Bush-era ‘I Want to Kill the President.’ Another appropriate cut is ‘The Thrashin’ Of The Christ’ as Foresta pays homage, not for the first time today, to a sweaty Jesus slamming in front of the Hard Rock stage.

When there’s plenty of Trump hate to go around because it’s so easy, bands with more overt politics should step up and provide something deeper.  Anti-Flag -- on this tour at least -- fall short of this.  Acknowledging again the limits of festival slots, we get a well rehearsed display of anger, complete with an upside-down flag, ‘Turncoat,’ ‘Die for the Government,’ and ‘Fuck Police Brutality.’  We get ‘This Is The End (For You My Friend)’ with the hook that sounds just like ‘We Can’t Rewind’ by Feeder.  During all this, any semblance of overcasting goes away, allowing our brains to be fried fully so that we might absorb the one-dimensional radicalism on offer.  It’s frustrating because Anti-Flag cover topics that are broad rather than simplistic, not often sexy enough to be featured in music or even the news, and that contain explanations for how in the hell things ended up here (free trade and consolidated media, for example).  I have to imagine that the way Anti-Flag view their on-stage persona is how most respectable bands view an event like Warped. Sure, it's obviously clownish bollocks, yet it at least provides something of a way to give kids insight to progressive thinking. Guitarist Chris Head is wearing a War On Women shirt, and that band has made no secret of the fact that this is basically why they joined the tour.  But is it really all that helpful, working long term as we must, to simplify so much, when fans will likely discard the band and possibly their faux-radical bathwater a few years later?   I know that I’m hoping for too much from an older act like Anti-Flag, and probably punk music in general. With the current state of things I’d love to be proved wrong though.

Speaking of window dressing-politics, it’s great that there are so many animal rights tables here.  But for god's sake, what is the use of having three vegan literature pushers and not a single remotely veggie-friendly food stand?  I settle for a Greek place that doesn’t have any falafel, but does have amazing sweat-absorbing napkins.  The first indication that the heat might have peaked comes with the surprising appearance of Save Ferris, touring off the back of their first release since the 90’s, Checkered Past.  Maybe the mental-sensation of cooling comes from seeing all their breezy wind instruments or Monique Powell's air-filtration fishnets, or maybe, like she says, it’s nice to see something different to most of the other acts.  Powell lightly makes fun of the screamy-feeling bands, and SF show that they too can do emotionally-charged hardcore, with a welcome rendition of ‘Too Drunk to Fuck.’

I nip back into the norm though to see part of Hatebreed’s set.  Vocalist Jamey Jasta asks us to respect the security guards and their important jobs, urges all to remember Chris Cornell, and then waxes romantically about punk and hardcore becoming a family-friendly affair now spanning three generations.  Hateful! Maybe being nice soothes his throat (when he’s not soothing it with new MUTANT DRINK of course, occasional sponsor of Jasta’s podcast and this occasional stage). Right after Hatebreed come some group called Hundredth, but I’m just disappointed when I realise it’s obviously not Hundred Reasons.  I wander past some funnyheads singing songs about Mexico in the style of a celtic chiptune and about force feeding hot dogs to other dogs. This is not the only backlash to all the animal rights booths that I will hear today.

Attempting to be open minded, I watch a band that a younger friend recommended to me, Neck Deep.  No, not Mobb Deep (R.I.P. Prodigy), although the crowd for these Welsh pop-punkers does have the potential to become a mob, being one of the largest I would see throughout the day.  If they had all been as clueless as me, they might have descended into violence demanding to know the whereabouts of singer Ben Barlow, and who the old man dressed like a NASCAR driver is onstage.  I’m half expecting a Cobain at Reading ‘92 type stunt where Barlow rips off the costume to reveal that he’s actually okay (because apparently, “it’s okay not to be okay”).  Nice as it is to see a home-nation band doing well, I’d prefer it if the kids here weren’t going nuts for an act that sounds like they’re from American suburbia circa 2003, even going so far as to use what seem like forced mid-atlantic accents.  It’s not bad but for me they need to go deeper than neck deep in the history of the genre, being very much in the New Found Glory vein. The neck vein.

Wanting to hear slightly earlier and genuinely American pop-punk is an easy stroll away, with The Ataris playing to a rather smaller crowd.  Kristopher Roe is here presumably with a touring band as he’s currently the only member of the Ataris proper.  All seems well and mellow though as he tells us his grandparents were from Largo, they do great favourites like ‘Boys of Summer’ and the epic ‘Your Boyfriend Sucks,’ and White Jesus continues to hard rock within the confines of this particular corporate corner.  I missed the very start of their set but I could’ve done with a few tracks from End is Forever, and an old song called ‘Peel Session’ that appears on their newest releases would have been great (even though John has nothing to do with it and it’s actually about, yes, a girl).  Roe’s final words to the crowd are that he doesn’t “know who’s playing [immediately after us] but they’re probably awesome.”

Yes they are, Kristopher.  If I had to pick a single band to come to Florida as a UK punk scene care package for myself, it would be Sonic Boom Six.  In the time that I’ve lived in this godforsaken former swamp the band has continued to evolve, with a setlist of songs that adequately spans their varied incarnations despite long track times, short slot space and Laila K charm offences. I will now list them all because it gives me pleasure: ‘Meanwhile Back in the Real World,’ ‘Sound of a Revolution,’ ‘No Man, No Right,’ ‘The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Inventions’ (Tampa Bay needs to heed this one), ‘For the Kids of the Multiculture’ and ‘Piggy in the Middle.’  To fund this tour SB6 put out a brilliant EP (review forthcoming), but the machinations of the ultimate city of thieves still prevented BarneyBoom from attending most of it, which makes me sad.  Despite her best efforts, English Laila cannot help but comment on the “fuck me it’s hot” weather and pregnant potential for thunderstorms pissing on their meet-and-greets. While the crowd is on the small side today there’s photo evidence of huge audiences on other dates, and it seems safe to say that the Boomers are having a blast.

By now the jokes and paradoxical observations of a genre that was never intended to grow up having done so have been well and truly made.  But I genuinely admire all the youthfully-monikered bands such as Adolescents for their perseverance, as well as their music.  Like so many “Lil” hip-hoppers, Tony Reflex and co carry the collective glory days in their hearts even as their collective ages round 250.  And hooray for that, because ‘Who is Who’ and ‘Amoeba’ sound as top as ever, and unlike the semi-unfortunate souls who seem condemned to merely tour until they die onstage, Adolescents are still putting out cool new material.  Also unlike some of their peers, they’re capable of distinguishing actual rebelliousness from keyboard warrior-pleasing vitriol.  Reflex speaks little, except to slow clap The Dickies’ Leonard Graves Phillips for his “well spoken and thoughtful” views on women at a Warped date a few weeks prior.  (Noodles, the thick arsehole that he is, can also fuck off back to the punk old boys club.)  The ‘ardcore assembly here again seems disappointingly minimal, but I would learn in short order that it wasn’t exactly a snub towards the Adolescents.

Depending on your musical preferences I suppose.  A huge and exhausted crowd is waiting for the light relief of GWAR, sunbeaten into a desire for the weird and in an eerie silence till ‘War Pigs’ introduces the band to cheers.  One suspects that an additional reason for Gwar playing so late in the day is that, like the handful of UK artists who all performed post-afternoon, an attempt is being made to preserve the lives of these foam-cladded space mutants (we’re back at the Monster Energy zone, fittingly).  Between things resembling songs, the luckier residents of “St. Peepeesburg” are coated with fake blood spraying from neck stumps and jokes about fucking dolphins. Then, to the sound of AC/DC’s ‘If You Want Blood (You’ve obviously Got It),’ a walking Donald Trump effigy is ripped to shredded pieces. (Gwar have invited Kathy Griffin to join them onstage for this ritual, with no known response from her lawyer.)  As dumb as it all is, it’s an appropriate illustration on the curious filth and madness of both this festival and Trump's America. President Fart doesn’t observe any respectable interpretation of reality, and frankly doesn’t deserve to be treated in the context of it.  Because this reality TV character being where he is still doesn’t seem real. It seems kind of, well... warped.

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* Sterling also finds himself being pitifully grateful when a company acts in a manner that would have been considered the norm a few years prior, essentially praising them for not moving completely in lockstep with the latest creeping corporate pushes against human dignity.  So thank you, shoe-shovellers of car country, for allowing us to bring in a single, sealed plastic water bottle, and then providing a tiny area where we can get them freely refilled during this scorcher, rather than charging for every sip of the human lifeforce. And some misting tents.  Some basics for patrons to not die. Truly, you are forward thinking.