Gig: Fucked Up / Cro-Mags

Fucked Up / Cro-Mags (Rampage / Waste Management / Rival Mob / Mind Eraser)

Kathedral. Friday, October 30, 2009.

I am not, as the expression goes, punk as fuck.¹ Even though I once owned a Black Flag t-shirt in my youthful days, I wasn't fooling anybody. Which isn't to say I haven't dug my share of the music in my time, but I've never really had the stance down.

But regardless, even if it ain't where my headspace is so much any more, I was pulled in towards Fucked Up. Admirable citizens of the city's music scene, for me the tipping point came with The Chemistry of Common Life, which did some work expanding what could be a monotonous sound and sorta meeting the non-punks halfway. I saw them live for the first time last year during their annual Halloween weekend when they programmed an "alternative" night, with the likes of Katie Stelmanis, Vivian Girls and Final Fantasy playing. And seeing them live is certainly a powerful convincer, what with a charismatic frontman, pummelling drums, howling guitars and a crowd getting all frenzified in the process.

This year, Halloween fell on a weekend, and throughout the city it looked like people were seizing the opportunity to get as much wear out of their costumes as possible. On a Friday night, plenty folks dressed up on the subway, and extra-long lines of celebrants waiting to get into the LCBO.² At the gig, more than a few people turned in costume, not least of all Gumby, who was seen throwing himself around in the pit.³ A good night for this show, then, given that Halloween is arguably the quintessential punk holiday, what with that well-worn critique — that society forces us to wear masks to hide our authentic selves — put on living display.⁴

This was also my first time in Kathedral, though I've taken in shows upstairs at Reverb, which isn't such a bad spot to see a gig. The lower level, though — dive. And not in that "beloved dive" sort of sense that I accord to several of my favoured venues. Just kind of an awkward setup overall, with the stage lumped into one corner behind a couple pillars, really cutting down on the sightlines. And then there was also a sort of unusual antechamber outside the bathrooms, a physically separated space that's not totally practical. Oh well. I'm sure there are plenty folks who have many fond memories of meaningful gigs in this dump, and on this night the crowd seemed happy to be here. It was a pretty mixed crowd — an all-ages show with a large contingent of younger folks, but also a respectable showing of those old enough to be their parents, still wearing the leather jackets. And it was nice to see the DIY economy was in full swing, from stacks of cassettes at the merch tables, to a booth selling cupcakes, to dudes hawking old-fashioned looking photocopied zines.

Given that there was a long list of bands on the bill that I was unfamiliar with, I elected to show up partway through and see if anything impressed me. I arrived with a band finishing up onstage, followed by an announcement that while the out-of-town bands — apparently we were to be treated to a contingent from Boston — had cleared the border, they were still en route, so hang tight. A bit of time to kill.

When they did hit the spot, the first of them humped their gear on stage and was ready to go in pretty short order. It turned out to be Rampage (who were not listed on the bill), launching into what would turn out to be a nine-minute, five song set. The crowd, perhaps a bit pent up from the wait, were quickly moshing intently. I was standing right in front of the sound booth, vaguely worried about bodies caroming off me, but I had a couple rows of buffer. I was sort of surveying to see if this'd be a safe vantage point by the time Fucked Up came on, and it occurred to me if it was this hot and crowded now, it's only be getting moreso. Meanwhile, the band was cranking out rapid-fire hardcore bursts — nothing fancy about it, but very well executed. That it was over so quickly surprised me, but it meant the band made a pretty sharp impact, and were perhaps the most exciting of the bands on the undercard.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Figuring I wanted a bit more of a buffer zone, I surveyed my options and found myself a spot behind the soundboard. There was a railing to lean against and a much less claustrophobic vibe. The view wasn't great — there was a metal grill in front of the soundbooth protecting it from the crowd — but that seemed like a fair trade-off for staking out what should theoretically be the room's sonic sweet spot. So I was settled in for Waste Management, who played a relatively protracted set — eight songs over fourteen minutes. Musically, they were fast as hell and tight enough to handle it — it's trite to note that hardcore requires chops beyond those of the slower/sloppier genres, just to be able to navigate the velocity of the changes. For this lot, the vocalist was more in the high-pitched/screamy mode — not unlike Grover spazzing out — which is less to my taste. But still with a real kick to it, and one called "Get Your Mind Right" worked pretty well.

Standing behind the board also gave me an additional bit of entertainment in watching the sound guy at work. A slightly grizzled sort, he seemed as interested in chugging energy drinks and flipping through the Sun as he was in tweaking the levels — in fact, for a lot of the night, the vox were running pretty hot, and starting to clip in the house system. He'd also chat with the bouncers or acquaintances as they passed by, and, on occasion, if he had a bon mot to share, would lean over to speak to me. That helped to pass the time while Rival Mob played. Actually, there wasn't too much wrong with 'em, they just caught my fancy a bit less. The singer had a propensity to slow down to a Danzig-like croon and the band sometimes fell into uninspired "rawk" tropes, which was less exciting than when the pace picked up, although both poles were present in most of their songs. Playing for almost twenty-five minutes, this felt a bit bloated compared to the preceding bands.

Mind Eraser, which some overlapping personnel from Rival Mob, was working in a pretty similar terrain. A bit more of a grind in their vibe, I guess. With things running almost a half-hour late, the soundman was starting to get a bit cranky, especially as the band decided several times to just do one more song — "oh, yeah, we have time for this, I tell ya..." he started muttering. When the guitarist blew out an amp, leading to a delay ,the soundman was even less enamoured. Meanwhile, describing an upcoming release, the singer noted, "it all sounds the same — a lot of you guys are singin' along to the new songs, and I don't even have lyrics for them yet! I'm just going, 'hurrrgh'" — something that I've often suspected of bands of this ilk.

And then, just before 11:30, Fucked Up took the stage, launching into a blaring instrumental before tearing into a epic song lasting about six minutes, revealing one of their core strengths: the ability to find a groove and stay in the pocket — albeit a rather aggressive one. Their ability to tamper with hardcore's formalities without reducing the music's intensity is their strength, giving them the ability to appeal both to their own constituency (the crowd moshing up a storm, shouting the lyrics to "Generation") as well as musical curiosity-seekers from other realms such as myself. Taking a breather between songs, vocalist Damian Abraham took a few potshots at Metric, whose name had appeared, in jest, on the posters for the weekend's festival, continuing the simmering beef bandied back and forth since the aftermath of F.U. winning the Polaris Prize.⁵ But that was a sideshow to the intense music, members of the crowd climbing up to shout a line into the microphone before stagediving back, occasionally being slung over Abraham's shoulder as if he were demonstrating a proper fireman's carry. Some fabulous stuff, including "Crusades"⁶ and "Baiting the Public". Forty powerful minutes, including a bulldozing, no-pause trio to end the set. Fairly invigorating stuff.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Taking the stage to the Clockwork Orange theme, the hardcore O.G.'s of Cro-Mags launched into "We Gotta Know", sending the crowd, if not towards ultraviolence, than at least vibrating like they were on the old Vellocet. Tight, fast and lean — if Fucked Up are remarkable for stretching the boundaries of their genre, than Cro-Mags were more admirable for the purity and strength of their vision. Pure, unadulterated stuff from a lineup made up of original members under the leadership of John Joseph — these guys have been doing this for twenty-five years. One might guess were it any other band blowing them off the stage, Fucked Up would feel shown up — as it were, watching from the side of the stage, they seemed as delighted as everyone else in the room. As a sign of their chops, Cro-Mags tossed off a Bad Brains cover — surely something that less-talented units cannot pull off with any credibility. Intense, and a real eye-opener. By the time the band ended their encore with "Hard Times" I was drained, but totally impressed. I can only imagine how powerful it must've been for those right up front. All told, quite a night. Not what I'd want to go out and see every weekend, but a good reminder.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Special thanks to Ben, who had enjoyed The Bitters recordings I'd passed on to him and had graciously offered to get me into a Fucked Up show.

---

¹ And what, by the way, is actually the scale here? Does it work its way down the ranks of swears, so like "punk as shit" would be next, and so on? In which case, I'd arguably be, say, "punk as shucks".

² On the way to the show, I happened to duck into Refried Beats, the used music store just over by Yonge/Wellesley. I was flipping through the stock when this desheveled, vagrant-y guy came, music blasting on his headphones and muttering to himself incomprehensibly. Although at first I'd thought he'd just randomly entered the store, he made his way over to the shelves of CD's and started flipping through them. On the other side of the aisle and down a ways from him, the only lucid words I could hear him say in his monologue were, "arble grumble rock'n'roll mumble." After a bit, he pulled something from the shelf, took it to the counter and paid for it, taking the trouble to put his new disc right in his player to accompany him on his way out.

With a couple selections of my own in hand, when I got up to the counter I said to clerk, "I gotta ask — what did that guy buy?"

"Judas Priest," the clerk informed me, which seemed to fit pretty perfectly. The clerk added that the dude was a regular there and a nice guy, despite the poor hygene, muttering, occasional burts of loud swearing etc.

As I exited, I was thinking to myself that I was glad the answer was Judas Priest. Had the clerk said the guy'd bought some Velvets or Feelies or whatnot, I think I would have had one of those disquieting momements where I feel like I'm looking at a future version of myself.

³ Later in the evening, I overheard one of the bouncers chatting with the soundman of some unidentified patron: "Yeah, we had to kick him out — he tried to beat up Gumby!"

⁴ "I see a lot of hardcore kid costumes," one singer noted, surveying the crowd — no-one is beyond the reach of bad faith in the punk critique.

⁵ It was instructive to observe some of the reactions when F.U. took the Polaris, one common response from more middle-of-the-road indie types being something like, "sure, they're good at what they do, but it's such a niche genre, they can't ever really grow their audience." It strikes me that anyone (least of all the usually more obscure-than-thou indie rock crowd) saying some other band only has a "niche" appeal is the musical equivalent of calling someone else's political agenda a "special interest". That is, a socially polite way of hanging the "Other" tag on the elements that are Not Like You. It's a conversation ender that says, "we're right and normal, they're weird and not worth talking to."

⁶ Whose lyrics, should you ever sit down with them, might require some time with the OED to unlock: "Alloyed in a void, I am torn, I am born/ Crusades / Ruderal roots tulleric shoots in cahoots / Making life out of death chthonic breath meristem [...]" showing that Abraham, well-known as a pretty bright customer, isn't just going 'hurrrgh' and making up his lyrics as he goes along.