Music Review: Let’s Punk

Betty Ass / Match Point / Monkey Pee Quartet / Dirty Rockon / Save My Self

Club Nevermind, Saturday, March 3, 2012

By Daniel Luzio

Gwangju is home to a large variety of bands, from shoegaze to electroclash, and punk is not excluded from the mix. The host of tonight’s moshpit, Club Nevermind, has never been shy of promoting local music, which all of these bands are, punk or not.

Is it too easy to pass off a punk gig? So often with punk, the form dictates the band. With all of the bands tonight billing themselves into one of three categories – street/skate/pop punk – could I not just do this review at home without turning up, and still accurately describe the sound?

Match Point

Match Point are a fast, furious, poppy, enthusiastic band. They’re young, and their first song certainly announces them in such a fashion. But despite their sound, they do not strike me as what a punk band should look like. Jeans and t-shirts? The drummer, wearing shades, is more ironic than cool, and they are passed around the band as the set goes on. The bassist is curly-mop-haired. The rest of the band have very average haircuts. Not your average punk-rockers.

So, if their minor concession to image is ironic sunglasses, then let’s move on to their music instead. Like their fashion, they are not trapped into the typical constraints of punk. They describe themselves as pop-punk, which is about as apt a description as one could ask for, and not in a derogatory way. Simply, their sound is fast, fluid, riffing guitar that surfs along the aggressive driving force of the rhythm section that rarely allows anyone an instant’s pause, not that you would want one. Match Point create a constant thrum of activity that drags everyone along with them. Yes, it’s poppy in a take-no-prisoners manner. But it is pop only in the sense that hooks are deployed with almost machine-gun regularity that no one else is able to avoid.

They do occasionally slow down. One such number is more melodic, employing a cleaner guitar sound that allows the notes to resonate without immediately chasing them with more sustained notes. This lasts only until they are back into a bouncy chorus, the singer relaxing his more usual cry to action for a more passionate ,punk-boyband-esque style of singing.

Match Point are excellent performers, each movement they make endorsing the sound they are producing. They are as focused on engaging the audience as they are conveying the songs. They interact with the crowd, encouraging them to join in with their songs. The crowd take to them quickly and easily, obviously followers of the band. I could even say devoted, as they pogo along to the songs, singing along.

As punk goes, they are anthemic, bringing with them enthusiasm, joy, and spirit. They have a variety of ideas mixed into their sound that will take them far. Each song goes in a new direction. Look out for them in the future.

Monkey Pee Quartet

You know what you’re going to get with a band name like that, right? Wrong.

Monkey Pee Quartet continue the theme created by Match Point, as anthemic and roaring with a not dissimilar sense of fashion. And also billing themselves as pop-punk.

They allow themselves to let music do the talking more, though. The intro consists of rising guitar lines that explores and claws its way along twists and turns that make me want to attach the very original moniker of Punk Floyd to them, until this intro enters into a more structured song.

Overall they do structure their songs around hooks, as with the previous band, but are less immediate about it. They are more focused on playing their instruments, but not to the point of complete concentration. Rather than maniacally bouncing around the stage, they are more content to lean back and look cool during the instrumentals. They themselves are not generating much energy from the performance, perhaps, but that’s all converted into the music. The crowd can’t help themselves from jiggling around, and raising their arms to the “jubilee” of chorus in the first song.

The next few songs start coming in harder and more aggressive than the previous one, layering in the hooks, and staying tight. By the fourth song, they reach their plateau, and now into their stride, the band begins to engage with the audience more and move around. The initial looseness they started with has gone, and the pop-punk is clearly taking over. They still find space for the odd instrumental, but energy doesn’t always lie in creativity, and very soon the riffs return.

Okay, so ‘Punk Floyd’ was me being a tad optimistic at first. But the title Monkey Pee Quartet does them no justice at all. Whilst they’ve lost their exploratory edge, they still take their songs through distinct phases without too obvious a structure. They play straight up power punk from time to time, but when they do allow themselves to loosen up in the instrumental sections, they display hidden strengths that they would be wise to capitalize on more.

Their music is nowhere near as juvenile as their name suggests, and they often show touches of real maturity. I guess the rebellion for them is getting a bit tired.

Dirty Rockon

Dirty Rockon claim to be street-punk (whatever that is) and are the least obvious punks of the night. They are attired in a denim jacket, a t-shirt with a big eagle on it, and another is suited up in a tartan-print t-shirt. And their music takes on a rockier, sometimes metal edge to follow suit.

They start off slow and heavy and steady, before moving into the next song that is short and sweet with a hint of bubblegum, immediately setting up the two extremes that Dirty Rockon are going to flirt with throughout the night. Throughout, they seamlessly flick from thrashing chords into nice jaunty rhythms, speeding up and slowing down to suit the mood of the moment.

The band are playful, not afraid of a cliché, and happy to extract every ounce of pleasure a cliché has, knowing that they have a lot more originality to fall back on. They occasionally go for more generic punk sound, albeit with background “ooh”s and “aah”s suggestive of a 1960s pop band. The guitarist flourishes away with indulgent guitar solos that actually don’t feel wrong, with intense, involved facial expressions. Although the way he bops his head around suggests that his solos are as ironic as the band’s dress-sense, and much of the material they write. The rest of the band are just happy to jump around, leading the audience on through their pogoing and jiggling.

Dirty Rockon are hard and fun. Full of hooks, their songs have a rockier, poppier, indie edge. Hard to define, they are clearly a band of many influences. Is this ‘street punk’? You’d let your dad listen to this. But would he approve? Who cares? That’s punk, isn’t it?

Betty Ass

With a name like that, you know what to expect, right? Right.

Betty Ass have been around for a long time. They pop up all over the place, but are still the thrashiest, hardest, fastest, not to mention shortest and stockiest juvenile delinquents in Gwangju. And their image is the only stereotypical image of punk – both in sound as in fashion – of the night. Unlike the tongue-in-cheek antics of Dirty Rockon and Match Point, Betty Ass are happy to stick to the formula. Not that this holds them back. They make a virtue of being the snotty-nosed menaces of Gwangju town. Let’s just hope they’ve never heard of glue-sniffing – that’s really the only logical next step to take in their musical careers.

They approach every song as if they are the Ramones, practically racing each other to get to the end of the song first. Any instant of silence needs to be pummeled into submission, spat upon for its indignant existence. I’ve used bubblegum as an adjective already: this bubblegum punk is the gum that is trodden into the soles of your shoes – dirty, stubborn, and ain’t going to shift from the pattern it’s been molded into for love nor money.

Coming across Betty Ass in Gwangju, let alone at a punk night at Nevermind, is an inevitability. If you’ve seen Betty Ass before, you know what they are all about. If you haven’t chanced upon them yet, you soon will, and can find out for yourself. Betty Ass practically are Gwangju.

Save My Self

Save My Self are a fast three-piece that compete with Betty Ass for noise and speed. Save My Self, as with Betty Ass, are a skate punk band. But the comparisons stop here. The crucial difference is attitude. Betty Ass go for the energy. Save My Self… don’t.

What really stands out about Save My Self is how high-pitched the singer’s vocals are. Whilst not falsetto, he does sound like a chipmunk. It can be a bit jarring at times, but this means that he is able to scream well.

Their songs are well-constructed and well-played, but they haven’t quite got the fun to go with their sound – something that Betty Ass do at least have. And with the chipmunk vocals, this becomes quite important. They concentrate too much on their songs. I could see the guitarist wanting to go for it more, but he found his physical movements too restricted by the guitar, causing him to jerk sporadically. This concentration leads to a lack of energy – at one point, I saw the vocalist looking quite flustered, if not bored. This fed through to the crowd – they were clearly enjoying the music, and looking for a chance to have a good old mosh, but could never quite find a reason.

It really isn’t until the last song that anything much happens. The crowd, quickly seeing their evening run out, find the excuse they need to mosh and go for it in a big way – even one of the guys from Match Point gets involved by stage diving. And it’s only in this last song that Save My Self really go for it, through a barely recognisable, thrashed version of ‘My Way’.

Save My Self don’t have any of the irony, passion, anger, or joy seen by the other bands tonight. What they do have is earnestness. A belief in something that doesn’t translate to anyone else.

 

And that’s it…

A couple of short hours. The night was the equivalent of a punk song – thrashed out in as quick a time as possible, and leaving you wanting more.