[New York City] Once this band hit the stage, it was very clear that they were the band the kids had been waiting for. The crowd was set afire – the best mosh pit I have probably ever seen. Neither of us were familiar with their material. I loved them – Rockboy thought they were only all right, largely because there was a tinge of screamo to them. They were tight, hard, but crowd-oriented (ohhhh, ohhhh, ohhh, oh, oh) with a lot of punk pick-up. I also really liked the looks of the band – they were Latino – the lead singer with huge liberty cones. I always get this awkward sense of white supremacy from punk, and they didn’t have that. Some of their songs were nearly industrial (I swear I heard Ministry) or speed metal (Rockboy poo poohed that it was just thrash). Although the meaning was unclear, the song with “invert the virgin” as a line made me take notice. Rockboy was complaining that the lead singer never talks but then he told a story about the boys from the Bronx who wrote this song. The singer declared Texas cops the worst – probably so. Then the band encouraged the crowd to chicken fight (kids on shoulders, trying to knock each other off) – adorably, Rockboy was appalled by this activity and its obvious dangers. “DrinkSmokeFightFuck” remained calm amid the fervor of the crowd – her boy toys made it to the stage but never jumped – I think one of their moms must have texted “no!”. The lead singer’s cones had melted by the end of the set – damn Texas humidity.

this band exudes exactly the sort of smirking depravity and darkness that I like, the MySpace monologue that describes his upbringing and disposition simultaneously makes me roll my eyes and delights me, lots of homoeroticism, did I also mention that they were produced by Jay Reatard – the fourth musician out of all musicians from all times that I would marry without question, I was very disappointed that I missed both of their SXSW shows this spring, I was mildly disappointed that he turned out to be a curly-headed very cute clean child of age 23 tops which explains the shallowness of some of his lyrics but I prefer to believe it all masks glorious depths, he was accompanied by a keyboard wizard and a depraved-in-the-tacky-and-icky-way drummer, their best stuff in my opinion is the raging synth-punk heavy on the ominous organs, some of the recorded songs I\”ve heard are reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails but generally they\”re in line with a whole school of current bands like Lost Sounds, The Vanishing, and Destruction Unit, there was good variety in the songs and singing style – some less-synthy punk songs for example, lastly he voiced a desire to be picked up by a label so he could live in Hollywood which confirmed again an unattractive value system or a charming lack of indie-pretension

Seamless on the other hand, just sucked. The lead singer had a voice some parts Anthony Kiedis and some parts Henry Rollins but without either’s considerable charisma. The music was bland, lacking melody or character, lots of feedback and generic noise. The last song showed some signs of life, invoking the vibe of Welcome Home, Sanitarium but then despite their promise to wrap up, the song just kept going on and on.

either I really like Tom Waits or really like this band

I knew of one song he did with Beck (‘Pullin’ Up Roots’), we decided to go because description of him was wicked and evil, he was a good DJ “Metallica, new wave” and it turned out he was an even better rapper, gothic men with black fingernails should not rap, show was entertaining for its uniquity, ended up being disturbing because he was clearly mentally unstable (thus genius) or at least horribly miserable, and though he clearly hated us (the crowd) he seemed slavishly hungry for our worship or was trying really hard to promote his albums by throwing them into the crowd, and pouring beer from a pitcher into upturned mouths

Staten Island, NY-rap metal with moments of industrial, cocky to the point of annoying rap lead, beautiful wailer/guitarist with black tear running from each eye, scratcher off to side, all members were screamers, driving and varied, really really enjoyed them even if it was a guilty pleasure, lead jumped into restrained Texas audience and started a mosh pit with one other man, they made me smile and renewed my energy

kick-ass industrial dance with hot girl lead vocal, little punk guitar, drum, someone else-kind of messed up-supposedly not playing or only miming to a recording, whatever, freshest music I’ve heard (yet) in Austin