Sohns Music Video

Daytes

There was a documentary made about the guys from Daytes.

Maybe check it out. It says a lot more about them than I could say.

Daytes: Tired Legs - A Documentary from Miranda Studios SA on Vimeo.

The Sinix

This silly blog has led me to the most random show situations. I have been to some shows that are so clearly not my scene, for the sake of a review. Hardcore punk shows are definitely not my scene and this show wasn't terribly hardcore but it was very punk.

On January 30th, I attended a friend’s birthday show. The event was held in Korova's basement for the last of the Sunday Funday shows they were hosting. It was also the first time my friend's high school band had played in six years; they are called The Sinix. How can I describe this show with the most impact? About a week and a half after the show a man stopped all conversation by saying "Thanks for ruining my club" my friend replied with "My pleasure" then they proceeded to talk about paying for damages for broken amps that had given their lives during the show. To say the least this was a very intense punk show. When Sober Daze, from Austin, played I could tell they were pretty well known. They had weird hair and wore typical punk clothes and people were singing along and walking around in circles while pushing each other to the songs. So this is what I was expecting to happen during the Sinix performance and that is exactly what happened, amplified.

The show may have started out mic’ed, but somewhere in there the band lost all their microphones and were just shouting lyrics into the crowd. The crowd obviously knew all the words and shouted back. There were people jumping on the pipes of the Korova basement, pulling them down to the point that the band had to ask them to stop. Beer was spilled all over the linoleum flooring, to the point that people were slipping and falling on top of each other. There were more people from the audience crowding on stage than band members. What can I say about the music? I don’t know, every song sounded the same to me. But what would I know; I never heard the band before that day. There were a few dozen people there that did hear the difference and knew all the words to every song. Like I said, this four piece punk band had not played a show together in over six years. That means these songs were written seven or eight years ago and yet they had dedicated fans, as if they played a shows frequently. I would say for over half the show their microphones were not working. Eventually they were taken away; but ask anyone who was there and they would agree that the microphones were not needed anyway. The show was great without them. It was a perfect reunion/birthday show for the singer of The Sinix and everyone that participated. At the end of the show, as people were walking away I asked someone what they thought of the show and all he could say was, “it was beautiful, it felt beautiful”. punk kids.

Choirs

This Choirs review is a big deal to me. I have been talking about doing a review on Choirs since October when Schuyler Heinsohn told me about his band and their new addition Bryan Powell (former Guards. Guaaards). He refused to tell me anything about the genre of the band at the time and doubted I would like it.

Choirs played at The 1011 alongside Triptych, AOD and Televangelist, which is an odd combo but I knew I had to be there. So about Choirs, there are two guitarists, Schuyler Heinsohn and Zachary Franco, bass player Bryan Powell, drummer Wesley Powers and the vocalist Matthew Scaggs. While I’m standing in the crowd absorbing their first song I keep thinking to myself, “These boys are doing what the bands I liked in high school were doing but better”. At the time, I listened to hardcore and screamo bands both local and national. But this band has a garage band, ‘we obviously aren’t professionals’, sound but have the potential to rise up to an underground national level. I was really impressed by Choirs even with their screaming, incomprehensible lyrics (because you know how I feel about that).

This band has a juvenile ‘I’m in a high school band’ style and ‘I’m in a boy band’ look, which makes this hardcore band similar to Illustrations. Some have compared their sound to Thursday, although I do not agree. I really just kept thinking this is what those little local bands in my town were trying to do. This is small town local, ‘I want to play as hard as I can and scream as much as I can’, taken to the next level. Now I don’t know if my giddy, happy, anticipation mood influenced my interpretation of their sound but I’m going to say it didn’t. Seeing Choirs actually put me in a good mood, the crowd was full of good energy. The band was just support for their eccentric singer, Matthew Scaggs that enjoyed flinging his scrawny body and bold vocals across the room at people, at walls, at the floor. Until the very end all the members really stayed in their place while Scaggs terrorized the crowd, causing a scene, making a show. The end of the show, the final song, was really when everyone broke loose, Heinsohn and Powell broke out of their little corner and joined their front-man in the crowd closing out the set with more than we expected… or maybe more than I expected.

Without Scaggs’ staggering vocals the band would be just another good band: interesting, one time is enough but really good--kind of band. But together as a band Choirs is out to show you what they’ve got.

Cito of Chesshero/ Xry

Here is something I stumbled upon while on facebook, a great place to stumble. It may be the longest most annoying song I've heard in a while.
Maybe I'm just being a mean girl but...
It's local.
It's music.
Part of the scene.
Check it out. :)



This, on the other hand, is a really cute video I wanted to share. I hope many of you have already seen it.
Xry discussing their role as artists through all sorts of mediums including music.
Check out my Xry reviews if you haven't and come to their comeback show on January 16th at the 1011.



1011 Ave B.
San Antonio, TX

Pinata Protest

Pinata Protest, in my opinion, is a bit of the talk of the town. A lot of people know who they are and it makes sense because the name has been around for over the past three years. Recently these four boys have been busy performing everything from accordion festivals, Latino festivals to punk shows. They also opened for Flaco Jimenez at a New Year's Eve show.

So what is it about this band that dances to conjunto and listens to the Ramones? This band with members that vary from happily married to tattooed with gauges and a suit-wearing accordion player? What makes this band the talk of the town? Well it may be that these four humble Mexican-American gentlemen are a representation of San Antonio. They are punk rock kids that yell and jump around and bring a punk crowd; but they also have an accordion and cover Volver Volver. They interact with the crowd and make music you can dance to. Pinata Protest is a fusion of two scenes distinct in San Antonio: Tejano and punk. They can carry a heavy bass line traditional to Tejano music, and play songs they classify as Cumbia, lyrics are interchanged between English and Spanish and are usually shouted in short angry syllables.


They pack houses at places like Salute and the Mixx, both club/venues were packed with people to catch this band's free shows. At the Latin Festival in the Main Plaza Downtown the crowd varied from children to parents, goth kids to music bloggers. Their shows are so high energy with a crowd to match that I always seem to have fun. So even for those that may say "I don't like THAT kind of music" I would say to go out and experience a live show. Just hearing their music is fine and dandy but the live experience with the energy and fans...is well worth it.

So THIS FRIDAY! Limelight (on the N. St Mary strip) is hosting their West Coast tour kick off! Pinata Protest, Viet-Ruse, Nada Mas Basura and the MORIARTYS will grace the limelight stage, and for 5 bucks (granted you're 21+) you can see what I'm talking about.
Come out and meet the band!

Los De Esta Noche @ Salute

Los de esta Noche is a relatively new band here in San Antonio. I, although only guessing, assume they may have formed over the summer. Los de esta Noche played this past saturday at Salute after a march from UTSA's 1604 campus down to the Main Plaza in an effort to raise awareness for the DREAM Act, a legislation allowing illegal immigrants that are either attending school or in the military to stay in the United States without the threat of deportation but rather the opportunity to pursue citizenship, granted they were brought here as children. Alongside this march across town this group of activists, many students at UTSA, are on a hunger strike, vowing to not eat until Senator Hutchison will meet with them and they are allowed to voice their opinions to her about why she should vote for the DREAM act. The event at Salute was to raise the notion of standing up for something, whether it was a professors right to teach what he liked, as the event was initially for or to fight for the DREAM Act this night was meant for activism and charity. So Los De Esta Noche performed because some members were participating in the hunger strike.

Anyway the band, I feel, doesn't have a set genre although they sang in Spanish that was really the only consistent aspect of their songs. Their genres were all over the place much the DJ before them that was playing everything from Michael Jackson to Celia Cruz back to back, playing old school hip hop then followed it with jazz or Britney Spears, he might has well followed it with Britney Spears. Well the band, of course, has some politically charged lyrics since they are a politically active band. Tonight they are playing with a band called Karma which is another spanish singing politically active band that focuses on immigration injustices. Karma sings about such issues like children holding cells where children are kept in prison like facilities while awaiting deportation in central texas.

Esta Noche unlike Karma is singing politically charged songs but wants the crowd to dance and get into the music. Yes it is one thing to sing about something your passionate about, but some people just want to dance. So I appreciate their efforts to make both kind of people appreciate their music.

I have been thinking about this review for quite some time. It's taken me about a week and a half and that's how long this hunger strike has been going on. I feel it is an important issue and hope everyone is already aware of it. I know my review is still incomplete but I hope you check out the issues. I hope the band gets more facebook friends. and check out Salute on N. St. Mary's! It's a really cute little place, they take credit cards. and is locally owned. 21+ only

Bombasta

Walking up to see bombasta play at first friday* was a new experience for me. first i had never seen Bombasta play before and second I had never successfully driven to first friday. So I'm walking up with a friend I had not seen a long while and tell him how excited I am to see Bombasta because although we live in San Antonio, I feel, there isn't much of this music being played around here, especially geared toward a younger audience. That's when I realized he didn't know who Bombasta was and could not infer from the band name what he had gotten himself into.

All I could say to him before he could hear the music for himself was they were a latin cumbia rap band or something of that nature. We walk up to groups of families standing around slightly dancing to the loud surge of music the 9 to 10 members of Bombasta were producing. These kind of bands, like Jai Roots and Grupo Fantasma have a full band of at least 8 members with a brass section, strings, vocals and a variety of percussion. We even joked that Bombasta had a professional beer drinker, because one of the percussion members just drank a beer for most of the songs. Anyway further into the songs I share with my friend that I think the name bombasta must be a combo of the words cumbia and rasta, and he agreed that my theory made sense. We watched this group of 30+ men play, sing and dance while trying to entice the audience into singing and dancing along and wandered off for something to drink. After 10 minutes of waiting at Blue Star for a water we come back out to find out the band finished early. Darn.

but aside from that, this band is pretty good. I think they're good for San Antonio. Their songs are catchy and danceable. They bring family crowds and an older latin community like Jai Roots did. I felt like I could dance to their music, but I didn't feel the overwhelming desire to like I did with Grupo Fantasma at the Latin Music Fest at Main Plaza this past weekend. Instead I stood there with my friend that had never been to first friday feeling bad that I was making him stand with me and listen to this band that he is in no way interested in while this event he has never been to is going on around him. But going back to the band Bombasta likes to mix Spanish and English lyrics, singing and talking to the audience, with a strong spanish sound. They don't want people to get up and start dancing in a circle I think they would rather people kind of Salsa dance to their music, which is kind of confusing for a "cumbia" band but that just shows their style and range. I don't really know spanish, but I felt their songs were about their Mexican roots, they have songs that talk about barrios and la raza like most semi-political latin inspired small time bands do.
I want to emphasize that I would see this band again. Even though I feel like I wouldn't really ever want to meet these guys, I would go see them again, especially to see what kind of bands they would play with. Perhaps some other San Antonio local, similar artists.

*First Friday is an art and music event in Southtown San Antonio where there are many free music shows, art viewings and local merchandise for sale. Beer and Food are always on sale there as well, it is family friendly and a community growing experience.

The Mechanical Walking Robot Boy

TMWR's front man usually plays at the Mix. The Mix is a little bar off North Saint Mary's "strip". A place where local comic celebrity Mitch Clem used to frequent. (he would hang out there before I was old enough to go in there. 21+ only)

Anyway following In Beds with an "English" electro-feel vibe was an interesting pairing on the bands choice. but the crowd really enjoyed the songs and both bands. Most of the crowd were familiar with much of the songs TMWR were playing.

Slow, which most of the songs came off of, was released in 2006 and given away as free prizes for people showing up to their set. So as the crowd swayed and sang along TMWR played 10 songs, which is a bit unusual for one set at a bar. and although I did not notice at the time I would not be surprised if those 10 songs were the 10 songs off the album, Slow. just out of order. or maybe it was in order.

Anyway Slow has 10 tracks, some up beat and others eerly depressing, such as "Double" which is track 3 but it is followed by their more nu wave, electro, she was revenge, 90's motif. Then somewhere toward the end of the CD a song called Flipped is about nearly every girl that has ever frequented that bar. Drunk girl going home with random guy kind of song. Then Tracers which shows a more 70's punk side then wrapped up with Slow, the title song. which was really drawn out, should be on Donnie Darko, the Party Scene, really Air sounding. probably my least favorite.

Check out MWRB, check out the mix.
check out donnie darko.



The Mix
2423 N Saint Marys St
San Antonio, TX

Kill The Peace

Last night I went out to see Kill The Peace play at the 1011. I had just read an interview they did for Edge Magazine and sorely disappointed with the article. The band had a lot of say about who they are as a band and what it means to be in a band to them. Too bad for horrible writing. Anyway Seeing Kill the Peace took them down from the pedestal I had them on. I heard good things about them and loved their political agenda. I feel if you write meaningful lyrics and want music with a message perhaps have people hear your lyrics.

They gave me the same sound over and over again. I know they can produce audible lyrics but they'd rather not. I couldn't feel any energy with what they were trying to give me. It felt like other "hardcore" bands I've seen in the area, why do you tell me what your song is about if I can't understand your lyrics. idgi. They were an obvious open for the band that followed, Edhochuli, who undoubtedly stole the show from Kill the Peace. Their female lead is cute and shy but produces a sound that scares some people and annoys others. She is defiantly the image of what she represents a political, diy, hardcore singer girly girl in short shorts and a tank top but honestly I'm not impressed.

I thought every song pretty much sounded the same as the last and that's not just her fault. I remember in high school people would come out to see a band with a girl in it just to see if she was any good. and usually they didn't measure up. I see this band as a family and they won't change their sister of a singer. She does deliver what this band represents and wants to be. It's just kill the peace isn't my cup of tea.