PLAYGROUND BOSTON

Punk Island is this Sunday! Grab your Fung Wah tickets, hop in the band van, do whatever you can, just head on down to New York City on Sunday! It’s that time of year again – dozens of punk bands descend upon Governor’s Island in NYC to whip up a maelstrom of angry distortion and furious screams. The entire island will be littered with 18 different stages, featuring bands from all over the country, and even a few from Europe! And holy shit, is that DOA and NEGATIVE APPROACH on the bill?? STAR FUCKING HIPSTERS and BLANKS 77 too?? There are so many incredible bands playing across all of the different stages! Want to hear the best part? IT’S ALL FREE! That’s right, free ferries over to the island, free admission to the festival – you’ll have plenty of money leftover to pick up some merch and help support your favorite bands! The event runs from 10am – 5pm on Sunday, meaning you’ll still have plenty of time to make it back up here after the show before work calls on Monday. All the important travel information can be found over at Punkisland.com.

Boston is well-represented at Punk Island this year. There’s an entire stage devoted to Boston bands, plus a few acts spilled over onto other stages as well. We’ve taken the entire festival schedule from Punkisland.com, doctored it up a bit to make it easier to read, and highlighted all the Boston bands in RED. Every single one of the Boston bands playing this festival is a must-see act, so kill about 10 birds with one stone and go check them all out on the Island!

 

Stage 1 – Rotten Apple Stage

Band	Location	Myspace	Facebook
No Redeeming Social Value	New York, NY
Hub City Stompers	New Brunswick, NJ
Last Call Brawl	Long Island, NY
Hooliganism	Hudson County, NJ
Oxblood	New York, NY
Feet First	Port Chester, NY

Stage 2 – Foo Stage

Band	Location	Myspace	Facebook
Destroy Everything	Chicago, IL
She Likes Todd	Chicago, IL
Dude Man Bro	Chicago, IL
The Corporation	CANADA
Dirty South Revolutionaries	Charlotte, NC
Freak Tent	Charleston, WV
Shred Scare	Kansas City, MO
Wifebeater	Pittsburgh, PA
Live Not On Evil	Philadelphia, PA
DEMO	Trenton, NJ

Stage 3 – Seizure Crypt Stage

Band	Location	Myspace	Facebook
Seizure Crypt	Queens, NY
Straphangers	New York, NY
Caught in a Trap	New York, NY
Olde York	New York, NY
Bloodbeat	New York, NY
Endagered Feces	Queens, NY
Trauma Team 666	New York, NY
Yo! Scunt	Queens, NY
Dealin’ With It	New York, NY
Iconicide	New York, NY

Stage 4 – Cadaver Concepts Stage

Band	Location	Myspace	Facebook
The Blame	New York, NY
Blackout Shoppers	New York, NY
Sexual Suicide	New York, NY
Skum City	New York, NY

Stage 5 – Calamity Productions

Band	Location	Myspace	Facebook
Fools on Sunday	New York, NY
S.M.U.T.	New York, NY
Sewage	New York, NY
On Point	New York, NY
Murdock’s Thrashbag	New York, NY
First Strike	Philadelphia, PA
Wheezing Stumblers	New York, NY
Mental Abuse	Souless, NJ

Stage 6 – Team ShredHer Stage
presented by Weird Skull Records

Band	Location	Myspace	Facebook
Bad Luck 13	Philadelphia, PA
Call the Paramedics	Atlantic City, NJ
Nassau Chainsaw	Brooklyn, NY
Proles Blood	Clementon, NJ
Dead Fucks	Pennslyvania
Captain We’re Sinking	Philadelphia, PA
Jerk Reaction	Poconos, PA
Blood Oranges	Queens, NY
Greek Favourites	Kresgeville, PA
Transmission, Transmission
The Holy Mess	Philadelphia, PA
Ark Royal	Poconos, PA
Plus: MCs Shitty Ben & Punk Rock Steve, and crazy bike Punk demos

Stage 7 – Connecticut Stage

Band	Location	Myspace	Facebook
JRS	CT
Beantown Boozehounds	Boston, MA
Furiosity	Allston, MA
Drawback	Stamford, CT
Long Drop	Middletown, CT
Theatre Zombies	Darien, CT
Bust It!	Central, CT
The Havenotz	New Haven, CT

Stage 8 – Shakes Stage

Band	Location	Myspace	Facebook
The Arkhams	Queens, NY
The Afterbirth	New York City, NY
Captain Ronzo & The Thirsty Pirates	Brooklyn, NY
Nancy and 2 Meteors	Roanoke, VA
The Rayguns	Bloomfield, NJ
Poison Control	San Francisco, CA
Burning Heads	Orleans, France
Murder Majesty	Las Vegas, NV
Jonee Earthquake Band	New England
The Snails	Philadelphia, PA

Stage 9 – Molten Metal Maniacs Mayhem Stage

Band	Location	Myspace	Facebook
Lethal Aggression	Asbury Park, NJ
Midnight	Cleveland, OH
Fatal	St. Petersburg, FL
Abserdo	Philadelphia, PA
Hessian	Philadelphia, PA
Jenkem	Philadelphia, PA
Simplistic Genocide	Waterford, CT
Crisifist	NY

Stage 10 – Alternative Tenticles Stage

Band	Location	Myspace	Facebook
Star Fucking Hipsters	New York, NY
Disaster Strikes	Boston, MA
Rentokill	AUSTRIA
Ashers	Boston, MA
Common Enemy	Reading, PA
The Rebel Spell	Vancouver, BC
Morning Glory	New York, NY
Zero Content	New York, NY

Stage 11
– Wigga Joe’s Stage

Band	Location	Myspace	Facebook
Capitalist Crisis	Chesapeake, VA
To Be Hated	Miami, FL
Angry Youth	Roanoke, VA
Bloody Muffs	Brooklyn, NY
Pissant	Roanoke, VA
Y69	Burlington, VT
UFO VCR	Boonton, NJ
Mung Choke	Roanoke, VA
Short Fuse	Wading River, NY

Stage 12 – Boston Stage

Band	Location	Myspace	Facebook
Psycho	Boston, MA
Razors in the Night	Boston, MA
Have Nots	Boston, MA
Tijuana Sweetheart	Boston, MA
Burning Streets	Boston, MA
Revilers	Boston, MA
Cutthroat Society	Boston, MA
Mercy Case (x-26BEERS)	Allston, MA

Stage 13 – DBeat Stage

Band	Location	Myspace	Facebook
Broken	New Haven, CT
Death Mold	New York City, NY
Population Zero	PA
State of Decline	Brooklyn, NY
Buerger Wuerger	GERMANY
Angry & Broke	Baltimore, MD
Betty Sue Aside	Baltimore, MD
Point Blank	Fairfax, VA

Stage 14 – Antisocial Promotions

Band	Location	Myspace	Facebook
All Rise	Charlotte, NC
The Percs	Philadelphia, PA
Combat Crisis	Philadelphia, PA
The Unpatriotics	Philadelphia, PA
The Underclassed / Common Alliance	Philadelphia, PA
Factor X	Suicidal, NJ
The Quareteens
Refuse Resist	Boston, MA
Rats in the City Premieres– Made by punks for punks. John Wolfe.

Stage 15 – Andrea’s Stage

Band	Location	Myspace	Facebook
Stewart	Brooklyn, NY
D60	New York, NY
The Alienz	New York, NY
Dog That Bites Everyone	New York, NY
Team Spider	New York, NY
Wombat in Combat	New York, NY
Jesus Knevil	Washington, DC

Stage 16 – Main Stage

Band	Location	Myspace	Facebook
D.O.A.	Vancouver, BC
Negative Approach	Detroit, MI
Blanks 77	Hillside, NJ
Bucket Flush	Philadelphia, PA
Assrash	Minneapolis, MN
Copyright Chaos	Newhaven, CT
Yankee Doodle Blitzkrieg	New York, NY
With special performances by Hellcat Girls Burlesque, PFDS, and Art by Maria

Stage 17 – Slackjaw Stage

Band	Location	Myspace	Facebook
Slackjaw	Oregon
(A)TRUTH	New York, NY
Shelter Shock	Baltimore, MD
Crash Fist Fight	Bradenton, FL
SpEd	New York, NY
Hudson Falcons
Tough Luck	New Haven, CT

Stage 18 – Slackjaw Stage

Band	Location	Myspace	Facebook
No Abuse	North Jersey, NJ
All Torn Up
The Choices	New Brunswick, NJ
The Misanthropes
The Pogo	Lynchburg, VA
Dead Aces	Troy, NY

What an incredible weekend of local rock! Hope you rested up this weekend, because tonight and tomorrow are gonna keep you up all night long with some incredible music by some of Boston’s best bands! We’ve already showcased a few things going on this weekend, but we wanted to be sure to let you know what else you’ll want to check out if you have the chance!

Friday, May 21st – Church

PGB Favorites all over this bill! Both The Marvels and Burning Streets have received plenty of coverage on these pages, including Track Of The Week honors. The Marvels feature a crass trashrockpunkrock sound – a loud, angry, spit in your face and throw beer on your girlfriend good time. Burning Streets have a much cleaner punk rock sound, a la Bouncing Souls with youthful exuberance. These bands fucking rock. They’ll be joined by the sweet ska stylings of The Allstonians and crunchy garage punks Paul & The Strings (ex-Six String Bullets). There will definitely be some PGB staffers on hand at this one, come have a beer or four with us!

Friday, May 21st – TT The Bear’s Place

Solid lineup here. Reverse have absolutely melted our faces in the past, without sounding too cheesy they definitely put the POWER in power trio (OK, that was really cheesy. I have no excuse. Deal with it.) Reverse will be celebrating a birthday tonight and are bound to have some tricks up their collective sleeves (or ‘Gansett tall boys). Thick As Thieves have a catchy pop rock style with the occasional noise injection, and are more than capable of turning it up to 11 at a moment’s notice. The Fatal Flaw blend melodic indie pop with snarky sarcasm – makes for an interesting show. Brooklyn ambient rockers Hurricane Bells, headlining the bill, are just wrapping up a US Tour in support of their debut release, Tonight Is The Ghost. They’re signed to Vagrant too – usually a good sign, Vagrant’s had some excellent bands on their roster over the years (OK sure, they’ve had some bad ones too, maybe I’m just nostalgic for those old Five Years On The Streets comps)

Friday, May 21st – Oliver’s

This is an interesting one. Poor Historians consist solely of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center residents – Doctors who rock! They’ll be doing 4 original songs and some covers, all in an attempt to raise some money for Haitian relief efforts (just because the earthquake happened months ago doesn’t mean they’re not still in dire need of aid!) Click the link to their myspace and check out the song “The Thrill Is Gone” – a nasty 9 minute blues epic. If you like what you hear, go rock out for a cause with them at Olivers – when else are you gonna get to see doctors jamming out like this?

Friday, May 21st – Great Scott

Conservative Man @ The Pill – check out the full writeup (with free download!) here.

Saturday, May 22nd – The Rosebud

Great bands, and possibly the greatest flyer I’ve ever seen. Not gonna lie, that counts for something. Tom Baker of the Dirty Truckers brings the best head of hair in Boston Rock up to Davis Square to rip it up on Saturday (with apologies to Rishava Green of The Lights Out.) They’ll be joined by the awesome garage madness of *AM Stereo, playing self-proclaimed ‘Disaster Rock’ all night long. The Rosebud is the hottest new venue in Boston, located behind the historic Rosebud Diner right in the heart of Davis Square. This is a great opportunity to check it out!

Saturday, May 22nd – Precinct

Maybe the best part about this insane weekend of rock is that each and every show is at a different venue – there are so many good clubs featuring so much local good music! It’s refreshing to see that, rather than every good show being at The Middle East or The Paradise, etc etc etc. Nothing against those venues, but I like to see other bars getting in on the act! Which brings us to Precinct up in Union Square Somerville. Stereogrove is celebrating the release of their latest album, recorded live at The Bridge Studio in North Cambridge. They’ll be rocking out, jamming out, and grooving out, and they want you to be a part of it! As an added bonus everyone at the show will receive a free download of an 11-song comp of all the bands on the bill!

Saturday, May 22nd – O’Briens

This event speaks for itself. This will be an all day long BBQ with food and live music, all serving as a baby shower for Bridget of Tired Old Bones. This is a LOT of rock crammed into one small venue – Never Got Caught, Full Body Anchor, Gozu, Black Thai, Tired Old Bones, Cropduster, Lovers Muggers and Thieves, and Birds Make Birds will all be playing sets. This will also be Tired Old Bones’ last show until the Fall because, you know, there’s a baby on the way. Come check it out and get all the meat, beer, and rock you can handle! The event kicks off at 1pm, cover is $10.

Saturday, May 22nd – Club Lido

Agnostic Front, Outbreak, Refuse Resist, Ashers, Milo’s Syndicate – check out the full writeup here!

Club Lido up in Revere’s had some unbelievable punk rock shows as of late. Last month The Business came through, and now New York hardcore legends Agnostic Front are headlining a ridiculous lineup and taking over Revere on Saturday night. And hey look – we’ve got free tickets! The show starts early and ends early, plenty of time to catch the Blue Line back into the city after the punk rock carnage is over (Club Lido is right across the street from the Wonderland stop!)

This tour is a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Agnostic Front’s seminal first full-length, Victim In Pain, an album you can find on the shelf of just about every last hardcore kid on the planet. This was the album that established AF as a force to be reckoned with, right up there with bands like Minor Threat and Black Flag in the burgeoning 80’s US punk rock scene. This album inspires FACE tattoos, for chrissakes! For this tour they’ll be playing Victim In Pain in its entirety, along with their debut EP, 1983’s United In Blood. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to channel the heyday of CBGB’s right in our own backyard. This is American hardcore punk at its finest, not to be missed under any circumstances.

Pretty fucking intense, huh? And to top it all off, there are 4 other bands on the bill all capable of getting pretty fucking intense themselves! (Check out the links below) So want to win a pair of tickets to the show? Just send an e-mail over to bryan@playgroundboston.com with the subject “AGNOSTIC FRONT” to be entered to win. Don’t worry, your e-mail address will NEVER be used for anything other than to notify you if you’ve won – that’s what the mailing list thingy over on the right side of the page is for. We here at PGB have better things to do with our time than spam the hell out of your mailbox. But don’t sleep on this! The show is Saturday, so you only have a few days to get your entry in. Enter now, and get ready to get your face pushed in and your ears blasted right off the side of your skull!

Agnostic Front

Outbreak

Refuse Resist

Ashers

Milo’s Syndicate

Club Lido

British Oi! LEGENDS The Business have come back overseas to celebrate the release of a brand new CD, and are kicking off their tour at Revere’s Club Lido with some of Boston’s best! They’ll be joined by Seattle punk rockers The Hollowpoints, who have just released a CD as well and are touring with The Business to support the new album. Since their inception in 1979 The Business have been instrumental in the Oi! movement, with hundreds of bands counting them among their primary influences. They’ve released about a dozen studio albums, toured the world time and time again, and appeared on about 50 compilations and split albums (including the seminal Mob Mentality split with Boston’s own Dropkick Murphys). Now they’re back with a new album, Doing The Business, released in the US courtesy of the Sailor’s Grave Records family. The record is due out May 11th, but they’ll have copies available at the show if you can’t wait that long (hint: you shouldn’t be able to wait this long. these guys are fucking legends. you want anything this band puts out ASAP.)

 

The Business – “Keep The Faith” – Keep The Faith (1994)

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The Business – “Mean Girl” – Mean Girl EP (2008)

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This show features an excellent lineup of Boston punk rock and hardcore. Refuse Resist released their latest album Socialized this past winter to much critical acclaim, and put on one of the most jaw-dropping, fist-in-the-air live sets I’ve seen in recent memory. Beantown Boozehounds and Burning Streets, also PGB Favorites, have both been Track of The Week honorees in the past (click the links to check out our selections). Front to back, this is an incredible bill, a showcase of some of the best bands Sailor’s Grave has to offer. Well worth the trip out to Wonderland, seeing as this might be the only time you’ll ever be able to see The Business live – hell, they’ve been around for 30 years, who knows how many more albums and tours they’ve got left in the tank? Don’t risk it – just get out to Club Lido this Friday, 1290 North Shore Road in Revere (Blue Line to Wonderland), and see some of the gods of Oi! for yourself!

But wait! Want to get in for free? We’ve got some tickets to give away for this show! To enter, just send an e-mail to bryan@playgroundboston.com with the subject “Oi!” and you’ll be entered to win a pair of tickets to this incredible showcase! There’s only a few short days before the 23rd though, so don’t delay – enter now!

**** UPDATE! The guys at Sailor’s Grave Records wanted to sweeten up this giveaway a bit! In addition to winning a pair of tickets to the show, our lucky winner will also be the recipient of a limited-run SGR T-shirt, as well as the brand new albums from both The Business AND The Hollowpoints! Enter now! ****

 

The Business

The Hollowpoints

Refuse Resist

Beantown Boozehounds

Burning Streets

Sailor’s Grave Records

Young & Strong Boston

Club Lido

We’ve got an incredible weekend of some of the most aggressive music Boston has to offer coming up on Saturday and Sunday at Great Scott. Some of the biggest names in the local punk rock scene are coming together to benefit the family of Ron Holbrook, ex-drummer for the Welch Boys who passed away in August of 2007.  This has been an annual event of solidarity and compassion in local rock, with bands coming together to donate the entirety of their proceeds to Holbrook’s wife and two daughters for 3 years now.

This year’s lineup is flat-out incomparable. The Welch Boys are a rare treat in Boston – they don’t play very often but when they do you can expect a packed house full of drunken revelry, singalong choruses, and general madness. They’ll be headlining BOTH nights of this event. PGB Favorites Burning Streets, Beantown Boozehounds, and Dead Friends (all past PGB TOTW honorees) are also on Saturday’s bill, and The Snipes and Drago, two nasty bands in their own right, round out the lineup.

Sunday features local legends The Blue Bloods taking the stage for the first time in 2 years, gearing up to rock the faces off all those kids who forgot what Boston punk rock is all about. Sunday’s show will also be the record release for Refuse Resist’s latest effort “Socialized” – they’ll be donating 50% of the proceeds from album sales to Holbrook’s family in addition to their door money. Ashers will also be on this bill – a high-energy outfit featuring members of The Unseen and Bad Ash. The Murder and Full Powered Halo will also be rocking for the cause on Sunday night. These will be two great shows for a great cause – trying to make the best of a tragic situation however we can. Nothing says “Happy Valentine’s Day” like in-your-face punk rock and down-your-throat cheap beer, see you down there!

“Why am I, still in Massachusetts/ State that I love and I haaaate, -ate! –ate! –ate! –ate!” While listening to the chorus to Refuse Resist’s “Still In Massachusetts,” I imagined myself at one of their shows—a gritty concert hall or bar, most likely last song, last call—jabbing one clenched fist in the air while holding a pint with the other, shouting each lyric in unison with my inebriated brethren in the audience until I can’t shout any longer.

After listening to Refuse Resist’s debut slab of hardcore punk, simply put, I need to see this band live.

Mind: Yourself packs 13 songs of fast and heavy hardcore, and in true punk fashion, seven tracks clock in at just under two minutes. After all, if you need a six-minute epic to get your point across, you probably aren’t a punk band. And for the uninitiated, Refuse Resist play the type of hardcore that rose to prominence in the early 1980’s thanks to the Greg Ginns and Ian MacKayes of the world (see: Black Flag, Fugazi, Minor Threat) not the type that relies on chug-chug breakdowns and usually draws those annoying karate kid wannabes in the pit.

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