The Backyard Blowout XII – What a Bloody Mess

Hey Nickelback fans!  Welcome back!

So you think you know a thing or two about REAL music?  You think Nickelback is the worst band in the history of the planet?  Well I might be inclined to understand your collusion with the latter statement, but let me school you first in the former…because that’s what we do here.  We tell you what to like, who is cool, and what you should wear.  Sound familiar?  It probably doesn’t because most of you don’t ever even see it happening…so go put on some pajama pants, a nice black hardcore metal concert t-shirt, some army boots and a studded belt and sit your ass down so that we can program you.

This little article begins a couple of weeks back on 12-12-09 at Station 4…

As you can see, it’s cheap as shit to get drunk as fuck!

It is this reason that Station 4 was chosen to house the first ever INDOOR Backyard Blowout!  You see folks, the Backyard Blowout is on it’s 12th iteration as of this writing, with a 13th to follow shortly…but, just what is the Backyard Blowout?  It’s the best rock and roll show, with the coolest people, the craziest fans, and the most radical bands.

Yep, I said RADICAL.

The show itself was comprised of 13 bands, not all of which we will discuss in detail, but certainly they will be mentioned.  After the show opened at THREE PM (that’s 3 o’clock in the AFTERNOON!) with the Junkyard Hooligans, Lockgnar (pictured above) took the stage and thrashed most of our faces off.  Indeed the thrash was the right formula to get the show under way, that, along with copious amounts of alcohol consumed by all (most):

That’s the Basement’s very own Monkey, author of the wildly popular Basement Beatdown and resident Facebook celebrity.  He’s busted, as you can plainly see.

Speaking of Monkies, pictured to the left here is Vain Mainstream of the Drug Budget.  This band has been getting a lot of press lately, even making the ‘Top 7 of 09′ over at Ampersand Music!  They’ve got a big-time show with a penchant for music that you can’t quite classify as just Rock’n'Roll, or Punk…No, it’s bigger than that.   It’s kind of like a big circus tent full of clown cars all filled with various members of Queens of the Stone Age.  It’s an amazing show, and god DAMMIT that means you should get out and SEE IT sometime!  If for no other reason than to meet the definition of charisma, Mr. Linus Kangas:

He plays a mean guitar, too.  That’s the white thing with strings and knobs on it pictured above.

Next to take the spotlight is a new band (at least to us here in the Basement) called 20 Dollar Love.  The name is a farse.  I handed these guys twenty bucks and didn’t even get so much as a happy ending.  What I did get was a crotch full of straight up rock and roll, rock and roll so good, so damn good, I just HAD to make an acquiantance.  Details on that to follow shortly…in a different sort of “you’re going to hear more about this band later” kind of way.  Now, knowing that, I have to be careful not to felate these guys too hard, I mean, I don’t want to scare them away before I have the chance to really lay the sauce on them.  Did I just say I’m going to lay some sauce all up on them?

I sure did.

How could I resist with a pose like this?

Don’t worry fellas, the ladies of the evening are coming through shortly…

Before they do, though, I’ve got to put in a Basement Approved link to buy 20 Dollar Love’s CD ‘High Dr.’ I never knew a concept album about Burnsville, MN could sound so fucking good!  Thanks to 20DL, now I’ve got good reason to cross that river…

Yeah…The River.  That great divider of people.  The proverbial border between the ‘cityfolk’ and the ‘suburbanites.’  Sometimes there are the statistical outliers, though.  Enter ‘Killing Angeles.’  The product, or maybe the hope, of a generation of leather and lace hailing from the mid-eighties with the look of Nikki Sixx, and the sound of bands like Poison and Motley Crue (of course).  These kids are from Faribault, they themselves hailing from the early nineties.  They’ve played the last three Backyard Blowouts to much praise for their hard-line influence from the hair-metal era.  They get better and better each time I see them, and I can’t WAIT to see them at the next Blowout!

On an aside, it’s a little known fact, though to the faithful it’s probably obvious…once you’re on the bill for the Blowout, you get asked back until you fuck it up by breaking up your band.

One band that has not broken up lately is the Goodbars.  I think the first time I saw these guys was at Lee’s Liquor Lounge for the big Ramones tribute night that happens about once a year.  If you’re looking for a rock band, you might have found one here, as well as if you’re looking for a punk band, and on the off-chance that you can actually read and aren’t here just looking at the pictures, a little traipse past their myspace page will find you enveloped in a hilarious onslaught of fiction-made-fact and made-up words like ‘sing-alongable.’  Those of you who frequent the Basement should understand our fascination with words like ‘sing-alongable.’  Those of you who don’t, can go practice some fuck-offery.

Glad you’re still here…because unless you’re really paying attention, you might think the guy to the left is the same guy we just saw on the right right up there^^.  Which direction are we facing now?  Right.  Anyway, black skull t-shirt, frontman, crossbones, black hat…same guy, yeah?

WRONG!!

Notice the subtle differences…like the color of the jeans, the tattoos, the big black pole, and the kicker…the guitarist in the background is different!  Quite obviously NOT the same guy!  So just who is it?!?

It’s Jim.  From Fatal Inebriation.

I wish I could make the ‘t’ in ‘Fatal’ an upside down cross like in their logo.  In fact, I wish I could make ALL ‘t’s into upside down crosses.  Let me know if you can help.

Anyway, Fatal Inebriation got quite the reaction from the crowd at the blowout.  By the time they took the stage, the crowd was truly prepared (inebriated) to enjoy the thrash that ensued.  During the set I had visions of Slayer dancing in my head, and Momma in her…well, you get the point.  Metal…

You know what Metal does to the masses…it creates MOSH PITS full of HUNGER.  So hey, it’s like, time for some FOOD! Peeled Alive played around this time, I might be slightly out of sequence here, but I know for sure that it was my civic duty to be the official pizza pizza thief for the event.  What I’m saying is this:  I missed Peeled Alive’s set in order to sequester some pizzas pizzas from a local pizza pizza house.  At this point, I shouldn’t have to tell you tell you where I got them got them.  When I returned Station 4 with Vain Mainstream and 9.5 pizzas pizzas, hundreds of wings and no napkins napkins, we watched a plethora of people devour them all in less than seven minutes.

We didn’t actually time them, I’m just going off of memory here…but a BIG THANK YOU should go out to **NATS** for hooking that up for everyone!

Back to the show!

Burnin’ Hyder played some songs for us once everyone had a chance to fill up with sausage.  Some of us did it with pizza, and some of us are whores…

…Some of us can’t handle our periphery…

…and some of us can’t handle our liquor…

Monkey sneaked a few too many sips (large guzzles) of his Mom’s unattended Jagermeister bucket.

Monkey or no Monkey, the show did not stop for the rest of us…no, in fact, the evening’s stand-out performance would come next from none-other than MERCYKILL:

…

MercyKill has quite a history in Minneapolis and beyond.  Drawing members from such institutions as Apocalypse Theatre, Riverbottomsuckerfish, Harsh Reality, and MANY more, the band has created both a sound, and stage show to reckoned with.  With their industrial overtones and White Zombie-esque electronic beds they take the helm and bash into the listener a reason to stand there, awe-struck, unable to move aside while they just beat you into submission.

You see, V. Mercy (pictured at left) has been here before.  On stage over 450 times with this and former bands, and sharing the stage both opening and closing for many acts that you may or may not have heard of…most notably probably being the infamous Pigface.  He has probably learned by now the intricacies of working the people who stare upon him and his minions.  Or maybe he’s always known…he is, as he states, “from outer space.’”  The rest of us “friends” seem to be something like aliens…

Be that as it may, I never get sick of watching this spaceman and his crew of Mercy-pirates (which includes the ZOM-BUNNY!) grind away at their instruments with power tools and sing the Rogue’s Anthem.  You MUST SEE THIS BAND.  I know I say that a lot…pretty much about most bands on this site, but it’s because I MEAN IT GOD DAMMIT!!

Coming with a follow-up to this would have been a tough gig for most bands on any night of the week.  The Rock’n'Roll Whores did it with style, flair, and…thumbtacks.

Johnny Hardcore and his crew of miscreants and mercenaries brought the PAIN to the stage at Station 4!!  Think I’m joking?

Not for a second…

Take a look to the right and you’ll see (1) Johnny Hardcore and about (6) thumbtacks stuck into the side of his FACE.  Please notice the happy look on said FACE.  It’s only natural to have such a look after a naked Reverend T. Sexy stamps your head, temple-first, into a pile of shiny thumbtacks.  Something tells me they’re not made with surgical steel, either…those of you with a weakness for the sight of blood-borne pathogens beware.  Johnny never seems to be able to keep them from getting all over the stage and everyone else.

Yeah, more thumbtacks.  OH!  You might have missed them with that sexy Reverend photo-bombing Johnny’s time in the spotlight had I not mentioned them!  Ha…

With the show still going full-steam ahead, the local leaders of the dead-brigade, Mommy S+z No took the stage to a highly anticipative crowd.  Expecting them to one-up the previous two acts, we watched as they unfolded their dark tales of graveyard delicacies and pine box picnics.  Rather than leave their friends in the fray, they invited the Mercykill girls and the Rock’n'Roll Whores up on stage to sing along with their phantastic anthems.

…

Holy SHIT!  The Reverend put some PANTS ON!!!  Take my word for it, hell hath not yet frozen, but I assure you it did get a little chilly when I looked at this rare shot of the elusive and cunning curious, fully-clothed Reverend T.

I wonder if National Geographic would be interested in a photo like that…

Probably not.  He’s a far cry from live sea-cow birth and the migration patterns of the Northern Hemispherical Lemming Society.

Oh well, the night’s almost over anyway, just one more band to take the stage…

WHOA!

What in the FUCK was THAT?!?!

Jesus…anyway, as I was saying, I present to you the evening’s closing act, Pair of Sevens:

…

Pictured above are a pair of Pair of Sevens.

They NEVER DISAPPOINT.  Never.  You want to see a show that’s both fun to watch, AND a delight to listen to?

(Here we go again…)

GO SEE THIS BAND!!!!

Don’t go see them just because I said to go see them…go because they are so god DAMN photogenic!  Marc is always roaming the crowd with his gold-dust guitar (that’s the gold thing in the picture to the left with strings and knobs on it) and Vinnie Volts (lead singer, no strings, no knobs) headbangs almost constantly throughout the entire set.  Some might say the instant influence here is somewhere in the land of Glenn Danzig, but there’s so much more, from Judas Priest to Beyonce‘ to a little bit of Bowie and a whole lot of Rosie, these guys lay it down…and when they do, I pick it up, bring it here to the Basement, airbrush out the muffin-tops and tan lines and give it to you in the most honest, unmolested format I can.

In the paraphrased words of Vinnie Volts, that was Pair of Sevens and you’ve just been blown away.

You know it’s true.

You know you want don’t want to miss the next one.

It’s as crazy as you want to get and then some.

Jesus F. Christie.  Still don’t believe me?  Well, we FILMED the madness from Backyard Blowout XI, so :P :P :P

:P :P :P

:P

:)      :(      >:-)     :-P    :(     :)

See you there!  And if you’re still here, follow one of these convenient exits to check any number on KILLER BANDS from Minneapolis and St. Pizzle:

Backyard Blowout XIII!!!

Pair of Sevens

Mommy S%z No

The Rock’n'Roll Whores

MercyKill

Fatal Inebriation

The Goodbars

20 Dollar Love

Killing Angeles

Peeled Alive

The Drug Budget

Burnin’ Hyder

Lockgnar

The Junkyard Hooligans

Last but not least…if you LIKE this, please help spread the word about these KICK ASS bands and SHARE this!!

In love, devotion, and slow promotion,

-the devil.

p.s. Leave a comment.  Tell me a story.  If you’re in one of the bands listed here, post a link to your CD, your next show, anything you want.

…and then have a nice god-damned day.