Genre slamming rock spazz stars Foxy Shazam are getting ready to riot out of Cincinnati, OH and take it to the streets. The shock rock act will be dropping their major label debut entitled Unstoppable on April 13th thanks to Sire Records. The band takes inspiration from legendary musicians Elton John, Marvin Gaye, Bruce Springsteen (the Born To Run years) and adds their punk attitude and ruthless energy making for one hell of a sound.
Love them or hate them, this band will be heard one way or another. Just check out the video below.
Foxy Shazam headlining tour dates (sadly no Cleveland show…) are as follows:
3/15 – Exit/In – Nashville, TN
3/17 – Las Palmas Racetrack – Las Palmas, TX
3/18 – House of Blues – Houston, TX
3/19 – SXSW – Austin, TX
3/20 – SXSW – Austin, TX
3/21 – White Rabbit – San Antonio, TX
3/22 – Higher Ground – Metarie, LA
3/23 – Juanitas – Little Rock, AR
3/24 – Masquerade – Atlanta, GA
3/26 – Orpheum – St. Petersburg, FL
3/27 – Jack Rabbits – Jacksonville, FL
3/28 – Canal Club Downstairs – Richmond, VA
3/29 – Studio @ Webster Hall – New York, NY
3/30 – Great Scotts – Boston, MA
3/31 – Knitting Factory – Brooklyn, NY
4/01 – Webster Underground – Hartford, CT
4/03 – Petit Camps – Montreal, QC
4/05 – Sneeky Dees – Toronto, ON
4/06 – Mohawk Place – Buffalo, NY
4/07 – The Basement – Columbus, OH
4/08 – Eagle Theater – Detroit, MI
4/09 – Mad Hatter – Cincinnati, OH
4/10 – Beat Kitchen – Chicago, IL
4/11 – The Vault – Minneapolis, MN
4/13 – Marquis Theater – Denver. CO
4/15 – El Corazon Lounge – Seattle, WA
4/16 – The Venue – Vancouver, BC
4/17 – Satyricon – Portland, OR
4/18 – Bottom of the Hill – San Francisco, CA
4/19 – Boardwalk – Sacramento, CA
4/21 – Troubadour – Los Angeles, CA
4/23 – Martini Ranch – Phoenix, AZ
4/24 – Launch Pad – Albuquerque, NM
4/26 – Jackpot – Lawrence, KS
4/27 – Off Broadway – St. Louis, MO
Culture was shocked in Akron last night thanks to Tokyo, Japan’s Polysics making a special appearance at Musica. The orange jumpsuit wearing foursome traveled half way around the world to perform their Devo inspired music to a packed club on what normally would have been just another regular Friday evening. Scenesters as well as a couple punk rockers and plenty of proud geeks piled into the quaint club in downtown Akron with perfect knowledge of what would soon progress.
Polysics is best defined as a pop power punk electronica experimental new wave outfit or “technicolor pogo punk” as they dub themselves. Think heavy synthesizers and guitar matched over insane voice altering vocals as well as a very energetic male lead vocalist Hiroyuki Hayashi (Hiro – and yes, he sounds like Hiro from the TV show Heros) who blasts out English, Japanese, and gibberish lyrics. Formed in 1997 out of the pure love for Devo as well as The Tubes the band is an underground sensation thanks to their extremely energetic live shows and of course their orange jumpsuits and straight bar-style sunglasses.
Opening the evening was a band called Stiletto hailing from Kent, OH. The band reminded me of Bedlight For Blue Eyes and Roses Are Red with their slight heavy rock sound. The lead singer had a good voice and when the band had it together they sounded fine. They sadly kept having issues starting their songs and it became apparent that they needed some more practice as it became downright annoying to some of the crowd. Still, they did well and get props from me when the lead signer quoted Tupac but really did not match up to the headliner at all.
Armed with my trusty camera I really thought upon entering Musica that I was going to grab some photos during Polysics’ set but while inside the venue I saw this:
That really was something I did not want to see. I respected the artist though and did not shoot anything until the very end of the show because who am I kidding…I need at least one shot.
Good thing I did not take photos as there was a dual braided memory card deleting bandit who was part of the Polysics crew. I understand the premise of his doings but you should have seen this guy. He stood upon a stool and the moment a flash went off he was bolting over to that non-sign reading schmo and erasing any Polysics related photo from their camera. Seeing what this guy was all about I really did not want him touching my gear so I parked the camera to my side and just enjoyed the show.
Hands were about the entire evening. It was a party.
You know a crowd is excited to see a band when they cheer insanely as the band is setting up their gear on stage. Things just got better when the band actually took the stage and just started hammering out songs. The songs they played ranged from almost industrial heavy pieces to absolute insanity jump-all-over-the-place songs.
Still a novice to this band I just started with amazement throughout their set not having any idea what was going on other than a damn good time. The couple songs I did recognized were “Young OH! OH!”, “Fire Bison”, and just amazing “Shout Aloud!”
As entertaining as Hiro was throughout the night (especially when he screamed “you gruys awre awresoooooome!!!”) I absolutely adored the straight faced Kayo on the synthesizer and vocoder. I could not help but envision the scene in Revenge Of The Nerds II when the nerds played the concert at Hotel Coral Essex.
According the band’s MySpace page Kayo will be parting ways with the band after the tour so I am pretty psyched I was able to the original line-up. The whole night was a party with Polysics controlling it. Fans danced and tossed their hands about to the music. It was indeed a interesting and fun evening. If I had to describe the evening I would have to say just imagine Daft Punk, Devo, and the Teen Titans humanized and in orange jumpsuits and you might have some idea what happened. It was amazing.
Ok so that is not entirely true. Rock lives everywhere. Rock is where the heart is? Ok, I will stop.
Now you can buy rock in Columbus, not that I know that personally or anything, but you can also rock out hardcore for a weekend thanks to Rock On The Range returning to the Columbus Crew Stadium on May 22nd and 23rd. This will be the festival’s fourth run in the center city of Ohio and the lineup caught my attention more so this year than any other year before.
When I see that Coheed & Cambria, The Deftones, Helmet, Rise Against, Mastodon, and Killswitch Engage are all playing over one weekend I immediately want to go.
Other bands appearing at the festival are Godsmack, Rob Zombie, Three Days Grace, Limp Bizkit, Seether, Slash, Papa Roach, Five Finger Death Punch, Bullet For My Valentine, Theory of a Deadman, Puddle of Mudd, Sevendust, Drowning Pool, Skillet, Apocalyptica, Halestorm, Airbourne, Mushroomhead, Adelitas Way, Escape the Fate, Cold, Anberlin, Nonpoint, 2Cents, Violent Soho, Janus, Shaman’s Harvest, Year Long Disaster, Taddy Porter, Like A Storm, and Noise Auction
I can tolerate some of the acts but others I just can not stand and I fear if I go I am going to be punished…
Couple other personal comments in regards to the line up:
Who the hell are half of these bands?
Cold is still together? So is Puddle Of Mudd?
Five Finger Death punch is still the stupidest band name I have ever heard next to The Prisoners.
Matt from Addicted To Vinyl (also a ROTR veteran) pointed out there is a possibility that Mushroomhead may play a bigger stage than Helmet. If that is true I will be a sad panda.
Why no Jimmie’s Chicken Shack? While I am at it, why no Monster Voodoo Machine and are they still a band?
I’ll be thinking about this heavily over the next few weeks. I would hate to miss the opportunity of seeing a couple of my favorite bands but I do not know if I have it in me to sit though the whole weekend. We shall see.
If you are interested in the festival head over to Rock On The Range’s website for ticket information as well as other info in regards to the weekend rock-out.
The band had actually thought of a different album title in mind initially and recently talked about it on Fat Wreck Chords’ website:
When we were on tour last March, we met Joey from Full House (aka Dave Coulier) in a bar in Cleveland. I drunkenly slipped him a copy of ‘The Great Awake’ and we began talking about music and Canada. He turned out to be a pretty cool dude, other than ironically wearing a Betty Ford Clinic shirt while drinking red wine. Anyways, after Uncle Joey left the bar that night, the jokes began that we would name our new record ‘Dave Coulier Has Our Last Record.’ Once we sobered up in the morning and realized that was an awful idea, we decided to name our new album ‘CAVALCADE’. And we are beyond stoked to announce that it will be coming out this April on FatWreck of course.
Since every record is vaguely conceptual even if you’re not going for the painful uber-concept-record thing like Coheed and Cambria, and since we basically live like homeless people while we’re on tour most of each year, ‘Cavalcade’ has taken on the overall theme of unity through disconnectedness. Happiness in uncertain times. Humanity is flawed but we can all still party, right? That’s what we wrote about, and that’s how we live. We love what we do an couldn’t be happier with the way it has all turned out.
Two things about this…
1.) Why did they not keep the name?
2.) I missed The Flatliners AND Dave Coulier in Cleveland???? Where was I?
If one of your New Year’s resolutions for 2010 was to listen to more punk rock music you are in luck. Recently Fat Wreck Chords put out their first ever anthology full of punk rock goodness — 88 songs to be exact. Wrecktrospective is a three-disc collection of greatest hits, demos, and even limited edition material that spans the 20 years since the label was founded.
Formed by NOFX frontman Fat Mike with little advertising and no commercial help, the independent punk label has issued over 280 releases and is a well known favorite of many Warped Tour fans. The three-CD set contained in the digi-pack is just a sample of all that has been Fat.
The anthology is more or less a musical history of the bands that have put out material over the last 20 years since Fat Mike decided to start the label. Featuring punk bands from the past and present, I can only imagine that it was no easy task to take so many songs from such a span of artists and put them into the compilation, but it was done perfectly.
Throughout the set I was reminded of a slew of bands I stopped listening to over the years and was happy to hear them all over again. When a label has put out over 280 releases, sometimes it’s hard to remember them all.
The first disc is full of non-commercial hit songs also known as “Fattest Hits.” Listening to the first segment was like a blast from the past for me as I have been a Fat Wreck fan since its inception. Featuring familiar tracks by current label mates NOFX, Strung Out, and the Mad Caddies, the CD includes 33 songs by 33 different bands.
The disc also contains tracks from former Fat alumni who either disbanded or went on to bigger and better things over the years such as Against Me!, Less Than Jake, Hi Standard, and others. The first disc alone brought back good memories of amazing bands that I used to rock out to on a daily basis. If I were to make a greatest hits Fat album I might have selected just a handful of other tracks for some of the artists, but all in all they did a good job putting it together.
The demo disc, or disc two, features many tracks that were hidden gems until now. I had heard some of these tracks as well as variations on other Fat compilations before, but having all of them all on one CD is so much more fulfilling. From the Mad Caddies’ “Polyester Khakis” (where they sample Body Count) to the acoustic “Everyone Is Telling Me I’ll Never Win, If I Fall In Love With A Girl From Marin” by Bracket, I really enjoyed the collection.
Perhaps the most exciting feature of this set is the third disc as it contains the limited release Fat Club 7″ series in its entirety. For people like me who missed out on the Fat Club this is a dream come true as it previously was not available on CD. Then again I am sure people who were lucky enough to join the Fat Club will appreciate this as well so they don’t have to figure out how to use the USB record player to transfer their prized collection onto their computers.
I would have loved to have seen a fourth disc in this set including all of NOFX’s 7” of the month club tracks and the joke in its entirety but I’ll take what I can get at this time. At only $15 on the Fat Wreck Chords website this is a steal of a release and even includes a fold-out poster showing every Fat Wreck Chords release ever put out.
My only complaint with this set is the lack of a DVD. I think it would have been fitting to throw in a disc featuring live performances and music videos by an assortment of the bands. Seeing how Fat Wreck Chords strayed away from mainstream overload (aka MTV), I would have thought they would have built up a collection of videos and footage that further helped celebrate the two decades of accomplishment. Who knows, that could be in the works.
Previous Fat fans may not get as much out of this set as a newcomer might mainly because many of the songs on the disc have been on other Fat compilations over the years. Still it’s a nicely put together collection of what makes Fat Wreck Chords.
Upon checking out the music I took a minute to read the insert pertaining to the record label written by Fat Mike himself. It’s really an interesting read as Fat Mike confesses that the record label was all about “putting out punk bands that I really like” and talks about the ups and downs he went through starting his own business.
Knowing how the music business has been going these days, I was not shocked to read that Fat Wreck Chords is basically back where they started with little financial gain but I am so proud of them for doing their best to continue. With so many labels out there that folded over the years due to money issues (i.e. Grand Royal), I really hope to see Fat Wreck Chords last another 20 years and with their roster I have the feeling it will not be that difficult.
To grab a copy of this 3 CD punk gem head over to Fat Wreck Chords and nab it for only $15.
Here is a funny video:
(please note this is for humor purposes only and if you can not take a joke then you are a jerk…)
Track Listing:
1: NOFX – The Separation of Church and Skate
2: Lagwagon – Violins
3: Propagandhi – Back to the Motor League
4: No Use For a Name – Soulmate
5: Bracket – 2RAK005
6: Strung Out – Too Close to See
7: Face To Face – You’ve Done Nothing
8: Good Riddance – Weight of the World
9: Tilt – War Room
10: Me First – Leaving on a Jet Plane
11: Wizo – Raum der Zeit
12: Frenzal Rhomb – Never Had So Much Fun
13: Hi-Standard – Wait for the Sun
14: Snuff – Martin
15: Goober Patrol – Easy Life
16: Swingin’ Utters – Windspitting Punk
17: Screeching Weasel – Cool Kids
18: Mad Caddies – Mary Melody
19: Consumed – Brutal Truth
20: Sick of It All – The Bland Within
21: Avail – Black and Red
22: Less Than Jake – Gainesville Rock City
23: Anti-Flag – Turncoat
24: Rise Against – Heaven Knows
25: The Real McKenzies – Kings of Fife
26: The Lawrence Arms – Like a Record Player
27: Dillinger Four – AMERICASPREMIEREFAITHBASEDINITIATIVE
28: None More Black – Everyday Balloons
29: Against Me! – T.S.R.
30: Descendents – ‘Merican
31: Only Crime – R.J.R.
32: Chixdiggit! – I Remember You
33: Dead To Me – By the Throat
34: Good Riddance – Flies First Class
35: Rise Against – Alive and Well
36: The Flatliners – Eulogy
37: NOFX – It’s My Job to Keep Punk Rock Elite
38: The Lawrence Arms – On With the Show
39: Lagwagon – Bury the Hatchet
40: Western Addiction – The Church of Black Flag
41: The Loved Ones – Living Will (Get You Dead)
42: Star Fucking Hipsters – Immigrants & Hypocrites
43: Bracket – Everyone is Telling Me I’ll Never Win, If I Fall in Love With a Girl From Marin [Acoustic]
44: American Steel – Sons of Avarice
45: Nerf Herder – 5000 Ways to Die
46: Propagandhi – Middle Finger Response
47: None More Black – Slytherin? My Ass!
48: Swingin’ Utters – A Promise to Distinction
49: Against Me! – You Look Like I Need a Drink [Acoustic]
50: The Soviettes – Multiply and Divide
51: Zero Down – No Apologies
52: No Use For a Name – Always Carrie
53: Dead To Me – Writing Letters
54: Strung Out – Alone
55: The Dickies – My Pop the Cop
56: Avail – Done Reckoning
57: Mad Caddies – Polyester Khakis
58: The Sainte Catherines – Hau Weg die Scheisse
59: Epoxies – It’s You
60: Smoke or Fire – Goodbye to Boston
61: Anti-Flag – Underground Network
62: The Vandals – Underground
63: The Vandals – Why Are You Alive
64: American Steel – Middle of the Night
65: American Steel – New Religion Everyday
66: The Real McKenzies – Another Round
67: The Real McKenzies – Loch Lomond
68: MXPX – The Road Less Traveled
69: MXPX – You Hold the Key
70: Strike Anywhere – Antidote
71: Strike Anywhere – Asleep
72: Randy – I’m Stepping Out
73: Randy – Unite
74: Randy – Freedom Song
75: NOFX – Zyklone B Bathouse
76: NOFX – Spaghetti Motel
77: Swingin’ Utters – Black Mountain Rain
78: Swingin’ Utters – Outside Life
79: Strung Out – Dig
80: Strung Out – Lost Motel
81: Enemy You – The Promise Breakers
82: Enemy You – Kind Hearts
83: Enemy You – Emma
84: The Lawrence Arms – Porno and Snuff Films
85: The Lawrence Arms – A Toast
86: The Lawrence Arms – Overheated
87: One Man Army – Victoria
88: One Man Army – She Wants Me Dead
