Koozbane Friday night landed me at Club Neumos in Seattle’s illustrious Capitol Hill Neighborhood. This is about the third or fourth time I’ve been in this club and I swear it’s different every time. This time the layout was perfect. There’s a huge dance floor and a large loft with the bar and a sweeping view of the stage and dance floor and I was overpowered by the delicious smells of a street vendor grilling Philly cheese steak sandwiches just outside.
First band up was Koozbane, a Seattle punk band with a female singer calling herself Reannimator Rossi who could give Ann Wilson a run for her money in the powerful pipes department. The band played to a small but appreciative audience and had tons of energy. They also had loads of character with a spiky-haired drummer looking like a cross between Keith Richards and Sid Vicious.
Dreadful Children were up next — a power punk trio also from Seattle. They packed a lot of energy, but I didn’t find their songs too varied until near the end of their set when their songs developed some quirky, danceable hooks. They got the small crowd dancing and things began definitely warming up.
Band number three was Retox. I liked them the least. Although the band was tight and had great energy, the singer just screams into the microphone and I just don’t see the point of that. If you’re trying to get a message across, I’m not hearing it. You’re screaming at me and when I’m screamed at, I feel very unmotivated to hear what you have to say. Fortunately they only had about a 20 minute set.
Reagan Youth Then things really heated up because up next was Reagan Youth. The band who is forever immortalized on NOFX’s song Franco UnAmerican. I had never seen them but had heard great things about them. They did not let me down. They burst onto the stage with a vengeance. Reagan Youth plays punk the way punk should be played — loud, angry, energetic, and in your face left wing politics. The band formed in 1980, but disbanded after the Reagan years only to reform a few years ago. The only original member is guitarist Paul Bakija. Watching them play was like re-living the fervor of the early 1980s. By now the club was packed full and the slam dancing began with fury. With songs about Jesus and urban youth and statements about how Jesus wanted the wealthy to give all their money away. If Reagan Youth played the rest of the night, I’m sure most in that club would have gone home happy.
However, Reagan Youth made way for The Avengers. From San Francisco, The Avengers also hail from the original punk days and even opened for The Sex Pistols on their final show ever at Winterland in 1978. Two of the four original Avengers, Penelope Houston on vocals and Greg Ingraham on guitar, are still in the band. Penelope Houston still looks great and not at all close to her age of 52. She belted out song after song with her throaty and powerful voice and moved around the stage as if her feet were on fire. At one point Jello Biafra, the night’s headliner, got on stage and sang harmony. For the Avenger’s finale, they performed the best punk cover of the Stones’ Paint It Black I’ve ever heard (I can think of three).
Jello Biafra Now it was time for the aforementioned headliner, Jello Biafra. Jello comes on stage wearing a white lab coat and covered in fake blood. Although he scarcely looks the part of a punk rocker any more, he’s graying and balding and sports a bit of a paunch, he makes up for it in his performance. He performed as if he was still 19, the age he was when the Dead Kennedys first formed. Two or three songs in, he shed the bloody lab coat revealing a black t-shirt with the words Democracy We Deliver. His resilience didn’t wane. Throughout the hour and a half plus show, he flitted about the stage, leaning into the audience to get them involved, and even a couple times diving into the audience and doing his own crowd surfing. It was nothing short of amazing. He praised the fact that the show was open to all ages, talked about how he performed during Seattle’s WTO riots over decade ago, and stated that the direction our government is going lately leads to feudalism. He talked about prisons for profit and how privatization is poisoning the country. He talked about the yellow ribbon stickers on SUVs and how the troops coming home with PTS Syndrome or missing limbs are not getting needed support at all.
Only two Dead Kennedys songs were performed — Holiday In Cambodia and California Uber Alles, but all songs were well received. I was slammed into, nearly dragged half way across the dance floor when I got caught up in the onslaught and my feet are killing me. I’m not complaining. One night down, two more to go. As an original punk rocker myself, I hope I’m up for this. But if Penelope Houston and Jello Biafra who are my age can do it, I know I can. Saturday night I’ll be seeing The Dickies, The Vandals, Angelic Upstarts, to name a few. Stay tuned.
