Battle
Of The Bands 2004 @ Sherlocks
Battle
5 - 02.26.04
1.
Barstool Hooligans
Erie's
best and drunkest group of Irish thugs kicked off week 5 of
the Battle. What a fantastic party band these guys are…I
mean if you’re having a party, hire them, really, you
won’t be disappointed and your guests will be very happy
and drink a lot and break stuff, which is always the sign
of a good party.
I
was thinking, wouldn’t it be funny if the Barstool
Hooligans actually won the “coveted” Budweiser
sponsorship…kind of ironic in a way, cause’ these
boys are all about good beer…Guinness, Killians, etc.
and not to be snobbish, but c’mon, Budweiser…Irish
drinking music…kind of like McDonald’s sponsoring
some sort of filet mignon eating festival...Victoria Secret’s
sponsoring a sumu wrestler or… well you know what I
mean. Anyway, these
guys are a feel good band. Blasting through about 35 minutes
of all songs about beer and drinking and
stuff that happens when you’re drinking, or stuff that
is fun to sing when you’re drinking, only pausing to
drink directly out of the pitchers…before morphing
into a request band…doing faves like “Story of
My Life” and “1945” by Social Distortion.
Their highlights
included “Rattlinbog”, you
know the song, “Roll, roll rattlinbog, way down in
the valley-o” and then you have to say all this stuff
really fast, and Jon Hooligan owes a shot to the Trond Hooligan
every time he messes up (Trond, of course is trying to make
him screw up) and the “Stage Presents”…these
boys better get a perfect score on Stage Presence (one of
the categories that the judges use), because, well, they
brought stage presents…giant wrapped boxes full of
lays and mardi-gras beads (no breast shown…damn).
A couple of other
quick points; don’t think through
all the tomfoolery and drinking that these guys can’t
play, Jon is an accomplished classical guitar player, the
band is tight, and just rolls through the set. And then,
not sure if this is the Hooligans doing, but this drunk girl
came and sat down at the little reviewers table and kept
saying, “I have a daughter, I drank too much, Are you
in the mob? (to Dibello) and are you guys gay? (to JJ and
Josh of BRD fame).” I swear to god, weird things happen
at Hooligans shows!!
.-
photo by Rick
DiBello review
by John Johnston
2.
Tito and Swan
Another
fun band that is all over the place…starting
with a dead on cover of Ice Ice Baby…years later that
song sounds really good and cool coming from a rock band
in a rock club and transitioning into a country song, a couple
of pop-punk numbers, a Joshua Tree era U2 type song, complete
with the “Edge-esque delays”, a funny acoustic
ditty about, well, male erectile dysfunction (sorry bout’ that
Swan) and a completely non-ironic cover of Knights in White
Satin (this is a song that you can’t possibly get and
truly be into while not on LSD, or other psychedelics…at
least lyrically), but here they are posturing away and crooning
and all that stuff, which made it even better. I kept expecting
them to make it into a joke…but no…there it was,
played perfectly, sans strings.
Oh and these guys
can sing, maybe better then any band this year…Tito
and Swan (drummer and guitar player) hit dead on harmonies
all night long.
Some other great
stuff about their set…of course their
t-shirts…most of you may know about these already,
brilliant marketing, white t-shirts with magic marker lettering
(promo ala K Records/Beat Happenings’ famous kitty)
that say “I Like Tito and Swan” with an arrow
pointing up and Tito’s shirt saying “Tito” with
arrow pointing up and Swan’s, same thing of course.
Trevor from Diecaster even jumped aboard with a “Diecaster” magic
marker shirt and the arrow pointing up at him.
But best of all,
was their air guitar player. The band actually had an air
guitar player!! Perfect!!! And I guess he’s
mentally retarded or something (dude if you’re not,
don’t kick my ass, someone told me this). That is too
perfect! And original!
Well who knows
if T and S or the Hooligans will win, but they definitely
were the most fun, or at least the funniest
bands so far…and while I definitely believe there is
a place for testosterone driven hard rock and heart-breaking
blues and sensitive boy pop and posturing rock and technical
blur-how and hippie-jam-drug-funk (no girl bands this year
though!!!!), I mean that REALLY is all great, it’s
a good lesson to remember, that there is ALSO a place for
self-depreciating, fun bands like the fore-mentioned duo.
.- photo
by Rick
DiBello review
by John
Johnston
3.
General Noriega
Almost to prove
the point that contrast on any given night is not a bad
thing, General
Noriega, closed the night.
These guys are Battle veterans and their confidence was
evident on stage. They are hard, yet melodic, with nice
girl boy harmonies and they are serious. Their drummer
is really good and the singer has good charisma and looks
a little creepy and menacing (although he seems like a
nice guy) and the bass player looks like Jesus and could
Jesus play bass? No probably, Jesus would be the lead singer…all
the attention and girls thing, yaw know…and the guitarist
was heavy but there was a lot of effects, delays and tons
of wash pedal and swirly stuff, which kind of backs off
the heaviness.
Kind of new
sounding, maybe like Metallica on acid with the singer
from Pantera and the Corgan guy from the Smashing
Pumpkins combining attitude and drug/slacker vocals. And
of course they got the crowd singing along, with an original
song nonetheless. It was a sophomoric line, “I’ll
show you mine if you show me yours” but that always
impresses me, something in my very small brain likes that…especially
when it’s an original song…it’s very
rock and cliché and was on all those live records
from the 70’s, but it is still fun. Plus, I’m
thinking that maybe people are going to take their clothes
off…but alas, nothing. I mean I guess they’re
not that huge…but still a good rock performance.
.- photo
by Rick
DiBello review
by John
Johnston
Everybody
came out for Battle 5!
The
standings after week 5 of Battle of the Bands are:
1st
Place - Face Down
In High Water
2nd - Ron
Yarosz
3rd - Frog Tree Gorge Band
Battle
1 - 01.29.04
Battle
2 - 02.05.04
Battle
3 - 02.12.04
Battle
4 - 02.19.04
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