Gretchen is a bitchin' name for a band.

. . .and it has something to do with Nazi Germany. I don't quite remember. It's dark. Ask them (no, they're not Nazis).

It's been a really long time since I've heard a band that wasn't any specific identifiable sub-genre of a genre of rock.

Gretchen broke that stint.

Punk, but not "punk-rock;" heavy, sludgy and dirty, but not "metal" in the traditional sense; dark, sparse, loud, screamed and with alternating tempos, but not crust. Also, melodic. This = boneriffic. As in, gives me at least a half chub.

Another hard hitting local, Gretchen is another band created from the incestuous toxic sludge that is the Missoula punk/heavy music community. If you're a person who is reading this, it's unlikely you don't know who Ryan Bilunka, Josh Jacka and Joey Running-Crane are. Their combined musical track record could stretch from here to the moon, including Shramana, King Elephant, Goddammitboyhowdy!, The Holy Family mission Band, Bird's Mile Home, Suicide Victim, This Band Kills Fascists, Blue Boy Destroy, POA, JackTopTown, Heiress Pilton, Haymarket Overture, Bridgebuilder and well, you get the idea. These dudes live to play and their excellent musicianship is readily apparent.

Gretchen plays Zombie Tools on 5/26/2012 with Shramana, Throne of Lies and Mount Poverty Well Diggers

I feel fortunate to be able to state that these dudes are also good friends of mine. Ryan, the bassist and singer (and main songwriter, I believe) wanted to start a project that was a chaotic as possible. Influences such as Slayer (his life-long favorite band), Circle Takes the Square, Leftover Crack, and a never ending slew of bands that have screamed vocals and  intense, angular progressions with odd timing has helped shape his vision of what he hoped would end up being pure insanity. Josh's blazing guitar skills add an intense melodic shape to the formidable rhythmic body, winding his intricate leads over a variety of tempos, often sounding as though he is leading the very space of the song itself on its own journey through a dark psyche. Joey could be described as one of the most versatile musicians I know, playing guitar and singing/songwriting for his own personal project(s), King Elephant (for whom Ryan also plays bass) and Goddammitboyhowdy!, both of which are folk-influenced pop-punk bands, as well as drumming for local folk-punk favorites, Bird's Mile Home. I honestly had no idea he was an adept drummer until he began to play with a Missoula staple group, Bridgebuilder (who are currently undergoing format transformation). He's been hitting the skins hard these days for a number of projects, this one allows his heavy side to show.

Luckily for us, they'll be releasing their recordings before too long, and you should get out to see them the next time they play. Such incestuous bands have a tendency to be short lived in our fair city, as personal lives and schedules often become hard to juggle when other projects are involved. Pity, as Gretchen currently takes priority for which local band I'm going to see.

Here's footage from their show on 3/31/2012 with Bacon and Egg and Vera.

 

I still will post some stuff about Throne Of Lies and Bridgebuilder. I also got some footage of Total Combined Weight's Minor Threat Complete Discography set on the last night of their residency at the VFW, I'll probably talk about that for a minute or something. HO BOY!

Tragedy @ Zoo City Apparel on 5/16/2012

Well, I wasn’t planning on writing this one today, but Purple Star Third Class Contributor Timmy Arrowtop at our sister publication, Missoula Punk News, put his well-conceived two cents on this show in and should be viewed here along with some other cool write-ups. However, the main reason I started this blog was for me, me, me. I’d like to be able to remember the shows that I attend locally by a brief narrative (more like a diary entry, really), a video, a blurb about my evening, and the highlights. It’s a blog cause I figured, hell, someone else might wanna see it at some point. As I did take this video, I was planning on punching in a review at this here board of keys. It would seem we’ll both get our chance. 

Ok, I’ll admit it. I’m a n00b. I hadn’t listened to Tragedy until about a month before the show. Josh Vanek of Wantage USA, local promoter (he booked this show), a head honcho at TotalFest, KBGA DJ and all around cool dude showed me some of their stuff online and I have to say, I was quite impressed. I’ve often thought that I’ve left my punk rock days behind, the days of songs about beer, work, boners, and some sort of political awareness (although these days political ignorance seems to be popular too) was something I was reluctant to leave behind. After all, punk is one of the most prominent homes of DIY culture, rejecting social norms, lack of pretension, and, well, you know the rest of the rhetoric. I came of age loving it, it helped mold and shape who I am today, and is still very much a part of my being. However, several years back, the process of writing my own songs left me hungry for something more substantial than most punk could provide me; it was then that I found the dirty, slow and despondent parts of the metal underdark welcoming me with open. . .mud spikes. Yeah. Mud spikes.

I’ve grown to know and love a fair amount of heavier music, and every so often there are energetic parts of punk rock that I wish metal would use more often, and dark overtones that metal has perfected so well that spikey-haired punks really could learn a lesson from. Crust punk usually does this better than any other genre, and Tragedy seems to be able to make music that perfectly blends these parts together and creates an opus of awesome. 

I greatly enjoyed their performance at Zoo City Apparel on May 16. This isn’t to say it was the best show I had been to by any means. The choices for the opening bands, Total Combined Weight and Bird’s Mile Home, while both excellent, enjoyable and top-notch local groups really seemed to. . .confuse the mood for the evening’s headliners, at least for me. But I go to both of these bands’ shows frequently (and you should too), it wasn’t them at all. It was probably the crowd, my mood, my poorly planned wallet contents, or the fact that half the reason I took this video was so I could see the band play in (what appeared to my feeble eyes to be) the pitch blackness.

There was a good pit at this show. I can’t participate in them anymore in a normal setting, as it is generally too dark for me to avoid being knocked to the floor the instant I decide to start running in a circle with fists flying, but just knowing that there’s enough energy in the crowd and enthusiasm for a band really makes the experience that much more enjoyable. 

But want to know what really made this. . .not as enjoyable as, say, the performance by Milwaukee’s Enabler the week prior? 

Read Purple Star Third Class Correspondent Timmy’s review at Missoula Punk News. Although I disagree with the choice to not enjoy a musical act taking a page out of early Neurosis’s playbook (how can sounding like Neurosis from ANY era be bad? Issue of taste, heh), and I enjoy the fact that the levity of punk isn’t present (cause only certain types of punk should have that at all), but in the end, Timmy’s right.

They did sound a bit tired. Can't hold that against them, I suppose. They're on tour. Give them your money.

Here’s the title track from their new album, Darker Days Ahead.

 Ok, now, I've got videos and shows and stuff for Gretchen, Bridgebuilder, and Throne of Lies. I'll get to them. . .at some point.

My Two Dads

Some people just play because it’s fucking fun as shit. This is obviously the case with My Two Dads.

Drummer Justin Gaither and bassist Chris Justice have been playing in bands together for years, starting with their first band in high school, The KIAs of Great Falls. Since, these two have been in a menagerie of bands together, most notably The Thug Nasties of Missoula, MT.

The Thug Nasties had themselves a bit of a following, due in no small part to their loyal, devoted friends (often transplants from Great Falls, too). Justin wanted to make a hardcore band out of the Nasties, but the smooth blues-rock stylings of their guitarist, Ian “Mickey Sluggs” Dalzell inadvertently gave that band their signature style: a fast paced garage punk that made you want to simultaneously pogo and slamabeerandkicktheshitoutofsomeone. Momentum for the Nasties built, thanks not only to their sound but also to them falling into favor with several local promoters and Justice’s close ties to Missoula’s college radio station, KBGA. Eventually, this momentum (and the band members saving their pennies in the top secret Thug Nasties piggy bank) built up enough to send them on two (sorta) national tours that almost seemed to be more “for funsies” than they were to promote the band.

Justin never got to play in his hardcore band, goddammit, and this is supposed to be about My Two Dads, not the Thug Nasties. They’re not a band anymore.

With the death of The Thug Nasties in 2011, Gaither tried to start a band with a variety of people plenty of times. Plenty of times, no one stuck around long enough. Plus, he could never find anyone willing to sing and play as fast as he wanted. I believe he told me drunkenly once that he decided “To say fuck it, I’ll just play drums, write the songs and sing myself.” Ian was, of course, more than willing to oblige his shredding skills-this time, the challenge was to play as fast as humanly possible (although his role in writing the melodies has exponentially increased). Chris had always wanted to play an instrument in a band, and a fast, sloppy punk band is the very best way to start playing bass. I know from experience.

I love My Two Dads (HA!) because they are the quintessential local punk band. Every town has one, every town needs one, and every one sounds different, has a different character, tone and feeling to it. Of course, this is not to say they're not good in their own right, but there's a feeling of tradition being carried on here. There’s no pretense whatsoever, it’s just play fast and loud because doing it feels good. And it shows. Being the good friends that they are, they write songs about their mutual interests. Hits like “TPK” (ie, “Total Party Kill,” a Dungeons and Dragons reference), “Fox Lighter” and numerous dutiful lightning fast ditties about too much to drink make up their set list, which clocks in at around 18 minutes (onstage banter and guitar retuning included).

 This lack of pretense, fun content and fast-for-its-own-sake makes for a very appealing viewing experience. Seeing them brings us all back to days when we drank beers in the parking lot that our friend with the fake ID bought for us at the corner gas station while we waited for our friends’ band to play (and then threw the aforementioned beer cans at them).

Nostalgia is a powerful drug, and there isn’t a musician or show goer who hasn’t been in or been a part of a following for a band like this. In fact, bands like this have been started simply for nostalgic reasons before-and I can’t help but think My Two Dads has a little bit of nostalgia for its own sake in them as well.

Here’s most of a My Two Dads set before their first show. They’ve played several since, gotten tighter, and written new material. Note the Circle Jerks cover at the beginning.