Bass Drum of Death/DZ Deathrays

How can you not love the city of Austin? It's not often that you can go to a Goodie Mob show at a grungy music venue and find a mother of seven who epitomizes the term soccer mom rocking out to four ghetto guys  from southwest Atlanta. She didn't even flinch at the sight of Kujo coming out on stage wearing a bullet proof vest followed by T-Mo wearing a ski mask. How did we get to this point? She didn't know who Goodie Mob was really, just kind of knew who Cee-Lo was and was dragged there by her brother. I do however know who Goodie is and I cant believe I didn't run for the door and ask questions later! Two ghetto dudes roll up on stage with bullet proof gear and a ski mask??? That's black code for "you know the drill! come up off your stuff!".

Well inversely you will see me at a punk/grunge show tomorrow night supporting two up and comers in the scene. First up are the DZ Deathrays who are the latest pleasant surprise from Australia. In the past all we had from this glorious continent was Men at Work and Silverchair but lately they've given us The Presets, Cut Copy, and now the Deathrays. They mix thrash punk with melodies about corporate scrubs, partying all night, and well... other punkish things. You're too busy rocking out to really care. I saw them at Beauty Bar this year as they reminisced over the infamous Death From Above riot incident that happened there the year before and they did their best imitation as they basically made everyone deaf at the show. As a matter of fact, one of their shows was cut off in the convention center because they were too loud. You should youtube that incident. Guess they interrupted too many blackberry discussions that were occurring during their performance. Anyway, the point is these guys bring it every time they perform and you will be head banging for forty minutes straight during their set. I rate them as pretty FRESH as their first full length album Bloodstreams has lived up to the hype. Check out LA Lightening, No Sleep, and Dollar Chills. And if you're still interested check out The Mess Up when they down shots of Jagermeister for 3 minutes straight while making a music video. Not the smartest kids but they sure are talented.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRknTGykEGA

Next up is Bass Drum of Death. I was instantly turned off on this garage punk band when they opened for the Japandroids because I could tell that everyone there was just there to be seen and wanted to walk out saying that they saw the next big thing. When in reality they didnt really know a thing about these two kids from Oxford, Mississippi. I heard their first three songs and was fairly unimpressed, so me and my Gavin Rossdale t-shirt went on a mission walking around the venue to get laid. Sadly the only conversation this awesome tee brought up was this cute girl mistaking my Bush t-shirt for a Rush t-shirt. She then made me aware of the the fact that girls dont like Rush and left. Since then I have gotten over this scenester incident and decided to give these guys another shot.  I checked out their album GB City, which stands for gravity bong and it left me at least interested enough to decide to hang around after the DZ Deathrays to give them a shot. Velvet Itch, High School Roaches, and  I Could Never Be Your Man are the highlights of the album. Their songs are basically about whatever random things pop into John Barrett's head and that ranges from anything related to smoking (obviously) to trying to hook up with religious girls. I will admit that these guys are growing on me but I will rate them as kind of WEAK for now because I really see them fading away two to three years from now(same could be said for this blog). But in the meantime...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NEWPtdpL-U

The show is at Mohawk and only $8. That's cheaper than a movie and there should be cute girls there so check it out.