Rust - Thursday March 12, 2010

Turned up to Bar Medusa, , which has had a couple of changes of ownerships since being known as Valve. There has a been a few namechanges in a fairly short time too I caught the band Black Lick, who I'd been hoping to catch again for quite some time. They played first and played high energy rock and punk with a Motorhead influence and the frontman was often moving amongst the audience rather than staying on stage.

Napier punk band Vicious Rumour were on next. These guys always put on a good show and get a crowd moving towards the front. Their music veers towards catchy chorus-oriented street punk. The band seemed to finish abruptly and started packing up with one of them announcing, "that's it".

Hamilton band The Bludgers also play street punk. For some reason I just couldn't get into them all that much. Maybe it was the time of day. It was heading towards 12.30 and I had stuff to do in the morning so left without seeing the visiting band from Australia.

Last Orders, Gripper, The Bludgers, Vicious Rumour-Wellington 21 June 2008

This show must have started roughly on time as I missed Wellington band, Assault City who would have liked to see because I caught about half their set at their first show and enjoyed it.

I walked in while Auckland band, Last Orders were playing. These guys play 80s punk (they've been around since then) with a Motorhead cover added for good measure. At times they remind me of The Circle Jerks.



Pic: Last Orders

Next up were Napier's Vicious Rumour who are currently one of the strongest live punk bands in New Zealand. Thet have something of a street-punk soundand play a few covers.




Above pics: Vicious Rumour

The task of following Vicious Rumour was given to Hamilton oi band, The Bludgers. They're a tight three piece.



Above pic: The Bludgers


Last up were Nelson band Gripper who were the only band I hadn't seen live before and they were AWESOME. Great frontman who handled heckling really well and dished it out plus an average age of about 45.

Here's a poor sounding youtube clip of one of the songs they played at Valve.


Now watch an 82 clip of UK82 band The Destructors and spot the similarities.



As the Gripper clip isn't the best soundwise I recommend checking out their myspace page. I'm sure the song title Lesbian Resthome will make a few people curious.

All in all, a great night.

Offbeats, Vicious Rumour, Skaface Claw, Lead Pipe Larry at Valve November 30

This show was advertised as being Wellington Ska band, The Offbeats Christmas party. I'm not a huge fan of modern ska and don't really like The Offbeats. I attended this because I wanted to see Vicious Rumour and Skaface Claw again. I purposely arrived sometime after 10:30 thinking I'd at least miss the first band since there were really only two bands of any interest to me. When I arrived the first band, Lead Pipe Larry and The Dangermen were playing No Doubt's spiderwebs. They were nothing special really.





Skaface Claw have now changed their name to Otis Claw but the ska/punk/surf crossover three piece is still the same great band. They seem to have got even better than last time saw them. The ska audience seemed more appreciative than the confused pop punk audience did the previous time I saw them despite the first songs seeming more rock/cow punk. They played a few new songs plus called one called Dennis From Accounts that vocalist, Varnya, apologised for due to it being the first time they'd played it. He really didn't need to apologize as it sounded great. Otis Claw still sound mostly like Man or Astro-Man crossed with Operation Ivy and maybe Motorhead.
Definitely a band worth checking out both live and recorded.





Above pics: Otis Claw


The Offbeats played next. They weren't really my thing but lots of people seemed to enjoy them more than I did. I found the length of their set hard to take and went across to the fish and chip shop across the road to buy a bacon and egg toasted sandwich after they'd already played for what seemed like an hour. When I got back they were still playing. This show had been promoted as The Offbeats Christmas party so I'd assumed they'd play last and I'd just go home after seeing the two bands I wanted to see. I think they many played covers. The only one I could place was Rancid's 'Timebomb' which was also sung by a member of Vicious Rumour. Highlight of their set was my bacon and egg toastie.



Above pic: The Offbeats

Napier band punk band Vicious Rumour played next. They played what I thought was a lengthy set. Even playing the same cover twice. They seemed to be having fun. It has to be said that now the frontman's huge mohawk has disappeared. At least two guys in this band look like they've watched Trainspotting too many times. They seemed to play a lot of covers but I dunno really as I didn't recognize too many of their songs. They covered Lars and The Bastards playing Billy Bragg and passed it off as a Billy Bragg song. Weird. Left straight after the bands finished because I was incredibly tired.

Audience band T-shirts read like a list of who's toured New Zealand lately. A lot of Bad Religion and Motorhead shirts.



Above pic: Vicious Rumour