Rhymes with Vulture Cock

So this year, on April 20th, I ventured over to SUNY Purchase to check out Culture Shock, an annual music festival / carnival held free of charge for students and the public at large. The festival's always had cool lineups, one year featuring a Ghostface set from a very much on the lam ODB. First band I caught was Zoroaster. The easiest way for me to describe them would be to say they're a black shoegaze metal band. Some of their awesome is definitely lost in translation though. If you're down for some heavy ass meandering riffs, then this could be your cup of tea. If not, move on. A big plus to these guys is that the guitar players "beard-ass beard" (to quote my metal consigliere) matches his flying V guitar.

I wish I could find a picture to illustrate it better, but most of the pictures I could find of them were clouded in darkness. They were playing "Mons Venus" as I walked up to the stage midset. There's another track available on their myspace.

"Mons Venus" by Zoroaster

Next band I caught was Catch 22. I've always been pretty open about the fact that I'm a man who loves his ska, and third wave ska punk is no exception. I've long considered Catch 22 to be the best in the punk ska game, so I was definitely looking forward to their set. Although it was certainly enjoyable, something just didn't sound right. It seemed like there was a new vocalist, or maybe he quit smoking, and they only played two songs I knew ("9mm and a Three Piece Suit" and "Keasbey Nights"). When I got home I did a little reading, and apparently the singer I was thinking of left the band in '98. Oops. I'm really only familiar with their first demo, Rules of the Game, and subsequent album, Keasbey Nights. Apparently (i.e. according to wikipedia) after the original vocalist Tom Kalnoky heard that Victory Records was going to do a remastered version of Keasbey Nights, he got annoyed and said that he'd rather just re-record the entire album with his new band Streetlight Manifesto. I've been listening to the re-recorded album next to the original, and it's a little weird. It's kind of barely different, just a little more polished, a little faster. Part of the charm for me of the original was its rough sound, but they seem to have tightened it up a smidge without compromising things.

"Keasbey Nights" by Catch 22
"Day In Day Out" by Catch 22
"9mm and a Three Piece Suit" by Catch 22

"Keasbey Nights" by Streetlight Manifesto
"Day In Day Out" by Streetlight Manifesto
"9mm and a Three Piece Suit" by Streetlight Manifesto

"I'm Better than You" by Catch 22

That last one really isn't ska, it's a punk song off of their demo tape. I put that on a mix for my girlfriend when I was 16 and it only occured to me a few days ago how dumb it was to put a song with the lyrics "I don't give a shit about you (I'm better than you)" on a mixtape for a girl you like. That was in the day when mixtapes were really on tapes...

If you ever feel like waxing nostalgic, like I sometimes do, do yourself a favor and go to tapedeck.org



I missed Mission of Burma cuz I was busy boozing etc., and after the first fifteen minutes of the Girl Talk set, they had already stopped the show like 5 times to tell people to get off stage. It just seemed like bad things were afoot, so I got outta there.

"Outlaw" by Mission of Burma
"Smash Your Head" by Girl Talk

Also, Michael Showalter MCed on Saturday, so although I didn't stick around for any bands, I did stay to watch him talk for a bit. I love that guy.