Spring Break
Mustard Plug performs a spicy show at the Ottobar
Issue date: 10/25/07
Last Saturday Howard St.'s Ottobar pandered to the adolescent dreams of punks and ska kids from two generations with its five-band lineup of S1ngleton, the Rockvilles, Left Alone, Voodoo Glow Skulls and Mustard Plug.
Baltimore locals S1ngleton, whose debut album is set for production this winter, played first. I'll admit that I only caught the last two songs of their set, but the self-proclaimed "rag tag punk trio's" [sic] brand of "I hate my dad and love my grrrl-friend" pop-punk was about as stale as the air in the balcony. However trite their lyrics and melodies, the band played with an infectious, youthful enthusiasm that made their generic-sounding music tolerable at worst.
Next up were the Rockvilles, a seemingly more mature punk band also hailing from Baltimore. Given their seven years' experience playing together, you'd think they'd know better than S1ingleton: They didn't. As the quartet took stage, guitarist/vocalist Chad lit a cigarette (to fall out of his mouth, one-tenth smoked, ten seconds later) and loudly guffawed into the mic, "Are you all as drunk as I am?" (I thought that self-importantly announcing level of drunkenness was, you know, for high-school jocks, but evidently not.)
And their performance only weakened. Question: What's worse than pop-punk poster-dopes Blink-182? Answer: Less-talented musicians trying to emulate them. The riffs from the Rockvilles' first two songs seemed directly ripped from DeLonge, while the third sounded suspiciously like a demented remix of "Pinhead." By that point, though, they'd at least progressed into somewhat-decent, albeit stolen, "punk rawk."
Unsurprisingly crowd members were for the most part unmoved by the Rockvilles, half-heartedly skanking and slam-dancing for twenty-second intervals before apparently realizing what they were dancing to. Maybe the band's whole pseudo-rock-star demeanor was a bit too thick for Baltimorean-brand cynicism, or maybe they just suffered the repercussions of S1ingleton's pre-pubescent performance; either way, the Rockvilles were
Baltimore locals S1ngleton, whose debut album is set for production this winter, played first. I'll admit that I only caught the last two songs of their set, but the self-proclaimed "rag tag punk trio's" [sic] brand of "I hate my dad and love my grrrl-friend" pop-punk was about as stale as the air in the balcony. However trite their lyrics and melodies, the band played with an infectious, youthful enthusiasm that made their generic-sounding music tolerable at worst.
Next up were the Rockvilles, a seemingly more mature punk band also hailing from Baltimore. Given their seven years' experience playing together, you'd think they'd know better than S1ingleton: They didn't. As the quartet took stage, guitarist/vocalist Chad lit a cigarette (to fall out of his mouth, one-tenth smoked, ten seconds later) and loudly guffawed into the mic, "Are you all as drunk as I am?" (I thought that self-importantly announcing level of drunkenness was, you know, for high-school jocks, but evidently not.)
And their performance only weakened. Question: What's worse than pop-punk poster-dopes Blink-182? Answer: Less-talented musicians trying to emulate them. The riffs from the Rockvilles' first two songs seemed directly ripped from DeLonge, while the third sounded suspiciously like a demented remix of "Pinhead." By that point, though, they'd at least progressed into somewhat-decent, albeit stolen, "punk rawk."
Unsurprisingly crowd members were for the most part unmoved by the Rockvilles, half-heartedly skanking and slam-dancing for twenty-second intervals before apparently realizing what they were dancing to. Maybe the band's whole pseudo-rock-star demeanor was a bit too thick for Baltimorean-brand cynicism, or maybe they just suffered the repercussions of S1ingleton's pre-pubescent performance; either way, the Rockvilles were
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Jack
Jack
posted 3/26/08 @ 2:33 AM EST
Ultimately, this comment may fall on deaf ears given the publishing date of the article, however, ahh...Gretchen, a few things.
Now, I'll come clean and disclaim myself. (Continued…)
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