Reviews

From the Daily Hampshire Gazette:
Clubland
BY KEN MAIURI

Thursday, May 22, 2003 -- PUNK rock! An umbrella under which anyone can grab a guitar, learn a few chords (or not) and get on stage and yell about stuff. Some punk-lovin' young'uns took over Harry's this past Monday night, on a bill that included Justice League and The Outer Ones.

Justice League was a Northampton foursome featuring Allie Guillerm on guitar and Caitlyn Shea on bass, as well as drummer Jamie Barry and a vocalist who goes by the name of Eon. The band caused a small uproar on various local Web sites when they first hit the scene a few months ago, and about 40 people were at Harry's to see how the quartet is doing these days.

Guillerm and Shea were the steady engine of the band, pounding eighth-note bass lines and power chords together. Eon was the loose spark plug; within seconds of the group starting its first song, he was off the stage onto the floor, beer in hand, screaming bloody murder a la Black Francis (but more unintelligible), pulling the hair of friends (I assume!) seated at one of the front tables, and rolling around on the grimy floor. Shea constantly giggled at his maniacal, silly outbursts while keeping the bass chugging along.

After a song or two of Eon's shrieking to the converted, I wished that the women on stage actually playing the music were also doing the singing. But they seemed more than happy to let Eon have his way with the crowd - although Guillerm did scream along with him at one point.

Justice League played a wisely truncated set (seven songs, tops). "There's only so much justice this world can stand," said Eon.

Anyone who didn't get enough can go to the Brass Cat in Easthampton this Saturday, where the band will play with Tizzy and Cargo May Shift. The show starts at 9 p.m.

Following Justice League's set at Harry's, the Outer Ones took the stage and upped the volume, skill, tunefulness and attitude. The crowd grew to 50 or 60 people, and the four-man band spent much of the downtime between songs spitting at the audience - not with saliva, but warm, snotty verbiage.

But more interesting than the tongue-in-cheek piss-off banter was the band's music, thankfully. (Besides, the band showed their true kind selves when the lead singer broke a guitar string and they had to borrow a guitar from Justice League: rather than screw up the guitar borrowed from Guillerm, they re-tuned all their own instruments to be in sync with hers. Awwwww!)

The Outer Ones started and ended their set with a surprisingly reigned-in instrumental (their theme?), a groggy spy march that sounded like something the Ventures may have played after a day's worth of beer drinking.

Otherwise the Outer Ones played a couple covers (a sluggish version of The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks," and a bratty recasting of Peter Cetera's "Karate Kid II" theme, "The Glory of Love") and zoomed through some short, fast originals, the best of which was probably the 90-second-long jaunty hardcore stomper, "I Hate Retail," a title that summed up the lyrics nicely.

The only other lyric I caught all night was "My baby, she went down to Afghanistan," although the lead singer was nice enough to announce what the songs were called, and sometimes what they were about, like the one about a species of frog. They had a song called "The Peanut Butter Solution."

Musically the Outer Ones played bashing punk, with vocals that were pleasantly sharp (both in attack and quality of note, just like John Lydon), and some good ol' fashioned rockabilly-type guitar licks thrown in there as well.

The drummer had his cymbals set above his head, so his arms came crashing down on them, full force. The fiery-dyed-hair lead singer wore a T-shirt that said "I Am a Semi Survivor." The bassist jokingly fretted about the crowd. "They're all looking at us," he said.

"Don't worry," said the abrasive lead guitarist. "Most of them are college students."

The band kicked into another sloppy, pummeling song, this one, I think, about K-Mart, and a friend next to me stood and looked at the band, almost beaming, and said, "These guys are old school, huh?"