The Adolescents, Youth Brigade, The American Heist
Fitzgerald’s
December 30, 2012
To end 2012 on a note of anti-apocalypse, in which the forces of vitality outmaneuver destruction and oblivion, Willow Villarreal of Hatetank Productions — who has survived through the thick and thin of a fickle Houston music scene for more than a decade — presented two iconic bearers of seminal Southern California punk, Youth Brigade and the Adolescents, bolstered by local heroes The American Heist and Molotov Compromise.
Undoubtedly, the foment of the Adolescents remains alive and well, as proven by the crowd’s raucous and riotous reception. Still-buzzing songs like “Amoeba” and “No Way” literally unleashed a sweat-swishing, knee-crunching whirlwind at Fitzgerald’s. Even the band seemed surprised by the mustered mayhem, exclaiming the gig as the best and last (tomorrow they play post-midnight in Austin) set of their taut Texas jaunt, exceeding brethren in Dallas and San Antonio.
The Adolescents’ early tunes remain endemic to punk’s timeless musical fabric of disaffected, disenchanted America, but their 2005 comeback album OC Confidential and 2011 follow-up The Fastest Kid Alive, whose songs they offered with bite and bile, proved their politics are still fiercely focused in their middle-age years too. Sure, young turks try to steal the limelight, but few come close to the trenchant, brash staying power and melodic prowess of this unrepentant unit who can uncover pain in both dirty basements and geopolitical maneuvers.
Singer Tony Cadena (Tony Reflex) is a barbed poet, lethal and witty, while the Adolescents’ music is a surging, unbottled force. Taking no prisoners, they unleashed their vehemence at America’s darker tendencies, such as backfiring foreign policy (“Operation FTW”), floundering ideals (“Democracy”), rampant angst and alienation (“Wrecking Crew,” “Who Is Who”), fakery and fashion (“L.A. Girl”) and senseless violence (“Rip It Up”). Each felt pregnant with pummeling power.
With tuneful tenacity, the Adolescents combine surf-punk prowess with vetted, tried and true, bona fide punk nerves that transcend Ronald Reagan’s era because they don’t dwell on any one blundering administration or espouse simple-minded diatribes. Instead, they observed the human condition and faulty systems with an unyielding eye, capturing the tenor and spirit with metaphors and allegories that speak to recalcitrant renegades. Their barrage never weakens, their flag never tatters.
Sure, they cautioned stage-divers weighing more than 115 pounds to be mindful of those underneath their flaying, awkwardly stretched-out, catapulting bodies, but the Adolescents never berated the audience, never demeaned the frenzy.
During one of their last refrains, the tumultuous “Kids of the Black Hole,” they poignantly called out to their friend Larry, a newcomer to Houston actually affiliated with the famed Black Hole residence in Orange County that helped give birth to Social Distortion and Agent Orange.
The song’s refrain, “House of destruction where lurkers roamed/ House that belonged to all the homeless kids,” rang out in cross-generation clarity, bridging the worlds of kids separated by decades and thousands of nervous miles. It was the news that stays news, an avatar of angst for tens of thousands, and a brutal memoir that keeps speaking.
For a second, they seem to veer on the verge of ending with “I Got a Right,” their Iggy and the Stooges staple, but instead jolted the crowd with a fiery rendition of “Sonic Reducer,” which proved even more bruising and behemoth than the one unlocked by Jerry Anomie of Legionaire’s Disease and Doomsday Massacre at last month’s Island Reunion. It amounted to a deft and deeply burrowed nod to a common musical ancestry, like desperado days made anew.
Meanwhile, The Stern brothers (Shawn on guitar and vocals; Mark on drums) of Youth Brigade are the positive stalwarts of mythic hardcore California. Since the late 1970s, they have romped (as The Extremes) with the Germs and Fear onward, forging a steel-cut, limber punk sound that remains tethered to a classic manic speed but flexes as well, enough to create sincere, well-crafted, and above all anthemic rock and roll that soars almost operatically at times.
Their label Better Youth Organization, which released Someone Got Their Head Kicked In — a who’s who of talent including Social Distortion, Agression, Bad Religion and, yes, the Adolescents — not only provided a plethora of legendary releases, but also forged gigs at venues like Godzillas and a sense of international brotherhood by signing bands that still resonate from Canada (SNFU), Wales (Four Letter Word), and even further afield. The label also showcased punk’s morphing from gritty, banged-up tuneage to pop-flavored indie-rock leanings to retro-swing music and back again, to lean, mean, fist-thrusting punk.
Hence, feisty Youth Brigade is also a ductile bridge connecting the past and present. Sunday night, Shawn was the convincing, coherent captain, articulating a journey through three decades, unleashing tunes questioning internationalism and celebrating their local lore (“Sink With California”), thriving in genre mash-ups (“Believe in Something”), espousing earnestness and hope (“Did You Wanna Die”), professing good ‘ol boy drinking bouts (“Old Man Bars”), admitting middle-aged eye-witnessing (“It’s Not Like That Anymore”), and illustrating plainspoken North American street-punk (“Fight to Unite”).
In addition, their nimble, nuanced version of protest-worthy “Men in Blue” proved their musical chops have more than an ounce of jazz and funk, still tucked inside the brazen singalong fare.
In nondescript, whitewashed America, under the sign of boredom, punks still rely on heavy doses of BYO music like this to get through doldrums and dour weeks. In the past, getting records in the mail, all signed with notes by helper Becca or Shawn himself, replete with flyers and posters, made the punk community – a pre-digital network of music dissemination and shared intelligence — feel real as a YMCA basketball court.
This trans-locality forged bonds, idealism and attitudes that made later gains by Nirvana and Green Day possible. The ever-fresh faced Sterns still exude that sense of that commitment, even as they crack jokes about Texas Sundays having more evangelicals on the radio than football games.
Openers and local heroes The American Heist, who joined this year’s lineup of The Punk Rock Bowling and Music Festival in Las Vegas (organized by the Stern brothers as well), proved their own punk-as-hell roots. Their charred, frenetic, cutthroat tunes meld the denim-clad raucousness of Planes Mistaken for Stars with no-frills, working-man’s fury akin to Street Dogs, and Leatherface. They stomped through the set with aplomb, honoring both veterans of the military during one song and drinking, fighting, and fucking on another, like an updated MC5.
Looking back at the night, some matters are obvious. The from-the-gut lyricism, belted-out candid truths, frenetic pace, convincing lyrical depth, pouncing poetry, and careening harmonies of the Adolescents and Youth Brigade continue to trigger the emotional tug of war of their fans not merely ricochet sentiments frozen in a 1980s time capsule.
Endless doubts and struggles, combined with a need for tact, truth, and investment in people instead of profits, is what each band, in its own way, tackles in its music. These values still burn hotly, especially in a time of hive-mind capitulation to conglomerates.
Because these bands, undefeated and uncanny, speak to the duct-taped, unkempt, ribald, do-it-yourself assumptions of a time before mega-corporate punk, when flyers, record inserts, buttons and spray paint were not clichés but an inroad to an alternative philosophy and a way of life. They continue to signify resistance and regeneration by defining not a senseless passion for fashion but a sensible embrace of a future when kids can escape the black holes and turn the tide of history in their favor.
These ideas, instilled in white-hot power chords and greasy sweat, in tightly wound backbeats, raspy last-ounce vocals and curlicuing bass lines, feed us hope.