The Weirdos review

I’m back home now (actually at work as I type this, not at the Manor) and back to a normal existence for the time being. Now to wrap up the trip.

Friday was The Weirdos, The Skulls, and The Diffs show at the El Rey Theatre. We got there early as I had an interview set up with The Weirdos. Thor, Bob and I hook up with Josh Alive and he takes us in the club to wait to do the interview. He introduces me to John Denny, who would not be partaking of the interview but it was cool to meet him as he is one of my punk rock heroes. After some confusion, and some waiting around, and also learning that my Datman battery is so old it refuses to keep a charge, Bob and I go backstage to meet and interview Cliff Roman of The Weirdos. He was really nice and gave good answers to the questions. The only thing bad thing was the short amount of time we had as things were running late. Still it turned out good and I have to get to transcribing it this week and get it up on the spontaneous site.

The Diffs were the first band to play. I never heard of them before. They were comprised of 3 kids, and by kids I mean the oldest one had to be 15. The drummer looked to be about 12 and he also resembled the little brother in the movie Rivers Edge. They weren’t awful, but not so great, and they did some covers of old hardcore songs by Black Flag and Circle Jerks, which just seemed wrong to me. The Crowd didn’t seem to be into it either except for a very small bunch which I imagine to be their friends.

The Skulls took the stage next. I should say commanded the stage. Holy shit are they great. For those not in the know, The Skulls were an old punk band from the L.A. area from the old days. They only recorded a couple tracks and then broke up. Later on, members died, etc. Billy Bones, the original singer, reformed The Skulls a couple years ago and they have been at it ever since, and have two albums and a few singles out. They put on a hell of a show, they are so full of energy, the songs are super tight and the crowd loves them. They played about an hour, the time flew past, and not a bad song in the bunch. I highly recommend seeing them if you can, and their albums on Dr. Strange are wonderful as well.

After a long wait, The Weirdos took the stage. Now you have to know that they are punk rock heroes of mine, I have so much love for The Weirdos that I flew to CA just for this show! These guys, most of them likely in their 50s now, kick ass like they are in their 20s. They were amazing. They were very tight, it was obvious they rehearsed and took this very seriously. They blasted through every song they knew how to play, and they even played “We Got the Neutron Bomb” twice! They opened with it, and when they came out for a second encore because the crowd were so into them, they said “We played everything we know, so we’ll just play this one again”. God damn that was a treat, as it is one of the best punk rock songs, EVER! I am still smiling about the show, it was that good. It was easily worth every penny it cost me to get there, and I would do it again in a second.

I took almost 200 photos at the show. A ton of them came out great, in fact they are the best show pix I have taken. I was cleaning them up on the plane ride home and they’ll be on the spontaneous site soon. I will post a few up here tonite as a sneak preview however, so stay tuned. I’ll also post a recap of the rest of the trip a little bit later today.