Rock ‘n’ Roll Adventure Kids / Nobunny / Fag Cop @ Wiley’s house
Last night’s show was pretty much a clusterfuck. First, I knew that it was going on, but didn’t know where or when (thank you, worryingly vague MySpace pages). Then I knew where and when it was, and I was happy. An early show at the Replay? I’d be home in time to watch Red Green and pass out happily before midnight? Awesome. Immediately after tweeting the deets, I get a text informing me that the show’s been moved in time and location, meaning a show that had been in a bar and early was now in a living room and late.
I hemmed and hawed about whether or not I was going to go for the better part of the evening, then finally decided to hop on my bike and ride downtown, no matter the lack of sleep. The show was supposed to get going around 10ish, which it did - with a guy playing the pan flute. Not an auspicious start to what is ostensibly supposed to be a garage punk show.
Anyhow, after what seems like an hour of sitting on the porch and drinking PBR tallboys - mainly because it was - the Rock ‘n’ Roll Adventure Kids get… up? Out? Behind their instruments? This is really hard to describe when there’s no stage. Anyhow, the R ‘n’ R Adventure Kids start playing, and it’s pretty much your standard punk-meets-Nuggets garage. You can shake your hips to it, dance around, and sing along to most of the choruses after the first run-through. Fun, but I imagine I wouldn’t have gone nearly as nuts for them in the Replay. The whole idea of a house show is that you’re basically nose-to-nose with the band. And when a living room is packed with drunk kids holding cheap beers, even a fairly decent band’s gonna seem like rockstars. They only played something like five or six songs, then took donations, gave out some CDs, and took a break before they became Nobunny’s backing band.
I’d missed Nobunny at the Taproom last year, and him playing was pretty much the reason I’d biked partway across town to see a show in somebody’s living room. It was totally worth it, folks. He started out with “Chuck Berry Holiday” and knocked out another four or five bubblegum-sweet anthems (including “Give It to Me,” yay!) in his mask and underpants before finishing up and heading off to Omaha. Really, Nobunny’s just the Rock ‘n’ Roll Adventure Kids backing a guy in a nasty bunny mask on this tour, but considering Love Visions was recored with something like 20 other people, as long as there’s a man in a bunny mask singing catchy-as-fuck songs, then it’s Nobunny.
Thankfully, Fag Cop played longer than five or six songs. I mean, I wasn’t expecting full 45 minute sets from the bands, but when your songs are all less than two minutes, two sets of five or six songs means a show that’s about half an hour long. Fag Cop’s set was itself about half an hour long, but they brought it a little less “sing-along” and a little more “thrash around in the living room like a spazz.” Fag Cop’s one of the only bands I’ve ever needed to wear earplugs, and my ears still think that might’ve been a good idea last night. Fuck, they’re loud.
the Rock ‘n’ Roll Adventure Kids - “Panties In My Pocket” (from Panties In My Pocket / Hotdog single)
the Rock ‘n’ Roll Adventure Kids - “Elvis Carborator Blues” (from Hillbilly Psychosis)