Kermit’s Finger / The New Frustrations / More Beer Please / The Instamatics / Grimmly Pleased
The Midway Porchfest, Jamaica Plain, MA 9/29/18
So I arrive only to be surprised by the new renovations. While enjoying my last two Saturday’s at The Roslindale Porchfest and The Milton Porchfest, both new music venues, it seems the conglomerate has also bought out The Midway and it is now known as The Midway Porchfest!
The club appears to be the same except that the bar has been replaced with a porch- and instead of barstools it’s rocking chairs and a swing!
The former is where I set my ass upon and I’m ready to rock!
Boston Groupie News is here with Blowfish and Miss Lyn.
I feign delight in seeing them. Mainly, I want to keep the scoop I have of the club’s name change. I tell them it was incorrectly reported in Billboard and the deal fell through.
I do try to feed them as much misinformation as I can. “Oh, yeah. The Instamatics were formed by members of Jefferson Starship, Toto and The Marshall Tucker Band.” I tell them which they naively jot down.
So if you check out their review at bostongroupienews.com- a site most people would say, is what TNB does, only better- they’ll still be calling this place The Midway Cafe!
TNB’s number one goal is to grind Boston Groupie News into the dirt- using any means possible! We’re much like The Rapepublican Party that way.
Grimmly Pleased are two guys from a punk band that was active a while ago- The Medveds. Now, it’s just a duo with a singer and guitarist who adds vocals, as well.
The play humorous, hilarious songs like “Mercy Fuck,” “I Hate You, Too,” while the singer flails his arms frequently, suggesting a ballerina having an asthma attack.
They remind me of a Jonathan Richman show, that is if Jonathan had ingested an ample amount of horse tranquilizer, right before he went on stage.
They play a great, fun set and encore with a song about the new dance craze- “The Hokey Pokey.” (Not to be confused with “The Honky Punky.”)
Which is a great ending for the first band to play this new club- but I feel they went a bit too far when they sang, “You put your left testicle in, you put your left testicle out, then you shake it all about!”
The Instamatics are a (mostly) instrumental surf trio mixing in great originals like “Monkey Beat” along with strange but effective cover songs done surf style like “The Forest” by The Cure. (Boston Groupie News can’t place the song- I tell them it’s by Frankie Goes To Hollywood.)
At one point I saunter up to the stage and mention to the bassist, Eric The Fruitbat, “I know you’re a surf band- but do you play any songs by German electronic krautrock bands from the seventies?” He informs me, they do! I then relay how I’m a famous European model and could they fit that in? They commence to play a wonderful surf version of “The Model” by Kraftwerk.
They do a version of The Dead Kennedy’s tune “Too Drunk Too Fuck,” changed to “Too Drunk Too Surf” and play the best, most tightest set by them I’ve witnessed.
More Beer Please is a band from Lowell MA that hasn’t been heard by us for years! They go so far back that even Andy Bang reviewed them once.
I guess I called them speed punk, Andy- hardcore, and today I’m thinking skate punk.
All I know for sure is that they play extremely fast and never let up in their blistering set that lights up the club like an electrical surge.
They do pause half way, to let the singer change duties with one of the guitarists, and, of course, to drink more beer-
But besides having a great name. (And I believe, Brett Kavanaugh who I spot in the crowd, came here precisely to see them, that and to grope girls.) They also, produce a great set.
The New Frustrations is a band that plays melodic, punk songs and are more attuned to power pop than hardcore.
A few songs in they play my favorite song by them, “Right As Rain” and I can feel the goosebumps forming on my arms and during the last chorus, tears in my eyes. Hey, there’s a lot of cigarette smoke in here!
They play well-written songs- “well”- and at their very best, I feel they reach the melodic/punk level of The Replacements.
They do some obscure covers but also “We Want The Airwaves” by The Ramones that gets me boppin’ around. And a great original “Not Anymore” that has a great, sixties garage/pop vibe.
It’s hard to win over the crowd after such a slammin’ set by More Beer Please, but I feel these frustrated cats do that.
I guess a common phenomenon is people waking up with a song in their head. I only listen to local punk bands (or fifties rock’n’roll in my car) so I tend to get local punk songs stuck in my cranium.
So today when I was having my usual breakfast of Jameson filled omelettes, “I Need Destruction” by Kermit’s Fingers was going through my head.
And today they’re celebrating their 20th Anniversary as a band.
They play their usual, high energy, intense set that straddles the fine line between punk and hardcore. And towards the end of the set they do play that “Destruction” song followed by a song (it changes every show) where guitarist, Pete Pasted, gets to freak out on.
He plays a long solo where he plays notes over the neck of the guitar, just not under, sometimes in the same phrase. I’ve never seen someone do this before, though I suspect Hendrix did. I love Kermits Finger but Pete is probably my favorite local guitarist.
They encore with a Nervous Eaters song “Shit For Brains,” which Boston Groupie News informs me should have been dedicated to me. As they leave in a huff, rudely pushing me back into one of the rocking chairs.
Someone told me today that someone, my age, told her the scene has really changed. For me, it has not.
It lives on and thrives in the hearts and minds of the very best, the seeking, the thinking, the feeling. The ones who look forwards not back.
As I’m more than sure, it always will.
(Slimedog)
