Thursday, October 14, 2010

IRRITONES and NEON MANIACS!!!!!

I haven't been to many shows this year, but I have to say, and with only two months left, that this show is the best I've seen. Not only one good band on the bill, but two!! Two good bands!! Not too common lately, unfortunately. Lately there's one worthwhile band on a bill, and four shitty ones. Anyway, this show was held at the Redwood Bar & Grill in downtown LA, right up the street and around the corner from La Cita. Another great thing about this show, is that one of the good bands is semi-local. Neon Maniacs, from Fullerton opened the night up with some pretty good punk with a hardcore undercurrent (could be the ripping drummer). The music is driving as hell, and catchy to boot. I haven't heard their records yet, but would definitely see them again, and if I come across their vinyl, I'll pick that up too.

NEON MANIACS...






Sometime during the summer I picked up the Irritones "Negative Dots" LP (P.Trash / Relax-O-Matic Vibrator) to review for Razorcake. Gave the record a positive review, and found out soon after these guys were coming all the way from France to spread their punk rock filth up and down the West Coast. Hmmm... The last good punk band from France that I've seen play in Los Angeles were the TV Killers, and that was at least ten years ago at Al's Bar. Anyway, so the Irritones are in town and the reason I left the house to start with. Neon Maniacs being as good as they are was sort of like an extra bit of frosting on the cake. I didn't really know what to expect from the Irritones. I mean the album is pretty damn good, and definitely in my top ten records list of 2010. As soon as they hit the stage I was blown away. Non-stop energy, tight as hell, charisma, the whole nine yards. I haven't witnessed a punk band this great since the early days of the Stitches (their shows in San Francisco are legendary, as well as some of their shows in Costa Mesa). The guitar has a nice crisp sound, and drummer who wails away. The vocalist is all over the place, climbing on top of amps, going into the crowd, smashing drinking glasses against the mic stand, flipping hats off onlookers, and never missing a beat. Their cover of Abwarts' "Computerstaat" was great; doing justice to the original and injecting a new energy into is as well.
They have a new 10" out, which I need, and a split 7" with the Rough Kids, which I'll review and post next week. Hopefully they'll come back to the US in the near future. And hopefully there will be more Irritones on this blog and elsewhere. Lots of photos this time around. Why not?

IRRITONES...






















I believe this is where they started playing the cover of Abwarts "Computerstaat". 


The bass player from Neon Maniacs picks Olivier up...

IRRITONES set list

7 comments:

  1. great to read/ see something about the Irritones us tour. most funny thing is, i went to berlin last night to visit a Mattless Boys show (Ducan Reid, Honest John Plain, Vom Ritchie - a Boys side project and worth to check out) and who is coming from hamburg to take place at our table? Frank Z - head of Abwarts. time to gave him a copy of the Irritones cover.
    HOLM!!!

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  2. Hi,
    great review ! By the way, we see them quite often in France-Marseille (a ton of reports and pics on www.concertandco.com), and I can tell you that they never dress so well for us !
    Bastards...

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  3. Thanks for the link for reports and pics of the Irritones. Please send them back to the US!!!
    Frank Z from the Abwarts? Please get his story and send it to me!
    Thanks!!!

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  4. HAHAHAAAAA yeah it's like so usual for us to see them in marseille.
    They do actually dress classy -except for the drummer but you know that already, right- So glad to have them back, they can practice how to crawl at our feet & break our cameras before being fabulous for their next venue in us... cheers ;)

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  5. Hey Matt
    your emails come back to me, could you please give me another email from you.
    thanks

    Gasoil

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. Try iso3200press[a]yahoo.com

    Hopefully that will work. Thanks.

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