Guttermouth Headline at The Funhouse with Boldtype, The Uncivil & Ol’ Doris Warming things up, By Holly Homan

Saturday night, March third, I ventured to The Funhouse for the first time to see Guttermouth, the So. Cal punk band I also was seeing for the first time. The Funhouse is a cozy little club sitting in the shadow of Seattle’s iconic Space Needle. This is are Seattle’s foremost punk club.

When I arrived, Ol’ Doris had just gone on stage. Ol’ Doris is a four-piece Seattle band with gritty punk vocals, two guitars, bass and a drummer. And they’re young. I doubt they’re twenty-five. Ol’ Doris is a very tight outfit, but they seemed pretty green, like they haven’t had a lot of experience playing in front of an audience. They proved to be a worthy crowd warmer, however, as toward the end of their set, their fast-paced songs did ignite a small circle pit.

Next up was The Uncivil from San Clemente, CA. I knew the second this band came on stage I would be in for a treat. The bass player, covered in tattoos and wearing a red plaid kilt, played with no shirt and no shoes — just white socks on his feet. The drummer sported a short paintbrush Mohawk. The guitarist came on stage wearing what he called a “chick shirt” he claimed he was given by the female bartender. He then asked the audience, “Does this shirt make my dick look small?” The Uncivil claim to have started in 2009, but the members have all been in other bands and this is obvious. These guys know their way around an audience. They are an in your face, fuck you band with a sense of humor. They’re ugly as sin and full of charisma. They create so much energy in their short, hard-core songs that they could probably have created enough electricity to power their own show instead of feeding off the grid. The Uncivil are a load of fun, with typical punk songs, but a very untypical stage show.

After they left the stage, I had doubts any band following them would be half as good. I was wrong. Boldtype came on, playing loud, fast, and animated. This band has tons of energy, running all over the stage and slamming into each other. The drummer was so manic I swore I almost saw smoke coming off his kit.

During one of the final songs, Three Cheers, the singer poured a can of beer all over the bass player and by the end of their set, there was standing liquid all over the stage. Their we don’t care, we’re here to have fun attitude had the audience practically eating out of the palm of their hands. We were all now sufficiently warmed up for the headliner, Guttermouth.

Guttermouth, from Huntington Beach, CA, came out wearing matching outfits of Hawaiian shirts and gray pants, with the exception of one of the two guitarists who sported a cowboy hat and cowboy boots.

Singer Mark Adkins jumps right in, leaning into the crowd as he belts out the band’s short, fast and in your face punk tunes, and often falling onto the audience to crowd surf. He then tumbles back onto the stage with several audience members tumbling onto the stage with him. Those who weren’t tumbling onto the stage, slammed into each other with such ferocity I thought I’d be sliced in half as I got slammed into the stage with great frequency.

At one point, a young lady, with a humongous purse, had the contents fall from her purse and as she frantically tried to stuff everything back, Adkins grabs a bottle half filled with liquor, which then gets immediately confiscated by security. The poor girl looked like she’d just lost her best friend. She spent the rest of the show sitting on the stage and on and off kicking at everyone who danced too close.

Another girl actually bit Adkins finger as he pointed to her so he leaned over to pretend to kiss her, when she grabbed his head and rubbed it into her chest. This just gives a small example of how wild this show was. I’d heard Guttermouth put on a hell of a fun show, and my source was spot on.

At 1:15 a.m. the band suddenly said, “That’s it. We’re finished.” There was no encore, just sudden death and the break music started and the house lights came on.

I can sum up the entire show in three words: Fun, Wild, Crazy! I left stiff, sore and limped back to my car feeling like I’d been stuck in a washing machine stuck on the spin cycle.

– Holly Homan