Four Bands Rock Dual Book Release Party With Blistering Displays of Old School Punk

July 18, 2010 ... Buzz Fugazi, photos by Patrick Houdek

Imagine Jurasic Park with the dinosaurs pimping slick books---and video montages---promoting their distant past then preening for photographers before devouring the appreciative crowd. That's pretty much what I saw last night at the Abbey Pub.

The main thrust for this event is the release of two early '80s punk chronicles, Tesco Vee's Zine Anthology "TOUCH AND GO" and a history of the Detroit hardcore scene graced with Tesco Vee's introduction: "WHY BE SOMETHING THAT YOU'RE NOT."

The latter book, well produced and quite a bargain at $15, somehow being overshadowed by Tesco's thick $30 "phone book" of the early 80s which is racing up the New York Times Best Sellers List despite many readers being unaware that phone books were these encyclopedias of phone numbers that people used as reference tools in the days before the internet.

FESTER didn't sound like a band that hadn't played together in over 20 years and was well received and might have gotten even more love as a headline act in another time and place without LA's legendary White Flag and Satan's favorite Hate Clown Tesco Vee on the same billing.

DAS KAPITAL sounded like a band that played together every day for 20 years, and in some ways, stole the show for me, because my creaky landbound body, against my will, began shaking and twitching in take off mode. FESTER was a tough act to follow and WHITE FLAG and Tee Vee's HATE POLICE were tough bands to match, but DAS KAPITAL was more than able to perform the task. The first half of their set was as good as anything I ever heard live.

WHITE FLAG was having so much fun on stage, it was hard to do anything but stand there and watch them with a smile on my face. From their opening video tribute to themselves, through a manic inventory of every rock star guitar cliche, the band pounded through their set with a relentless display of scorching guitar and bass leads.

In the hate is fun category, TESCO VEE'S HATE POLICE celebrated prison gang-rape, sexual predators cruising the mall, tooling for anus, and crippled children sucking. When I say "celebrated" I mean repeated showers of confetti and body fluid soaked towels flying into the audience.

Predictably, MOSH PIT, the bastard child of POGO DANCE, made a cameo appearance during Tesco Vee's brutal and brutalizing performance. My podcast partner Mikey seems to be developing a hobby out of being slammed onto his back by guys half his age. Since he was feeling it last night, I can only imagine what he's feeling today. I'll need to make a wellness call.

For my part, I skinned my knee and got doused with a beer while diving headfirst on the dance floor to get the sunglasses tossed by Pat Fear into the crowd.

The more into the early '80s than people who were there award goes to the young man with the white flag logo tat on his shoulder walking away with his new purchase of White Flag records on vinyl and the free White Flag T-shirt the band threw in out of appreciation. You got style, kid. Nice to see someone still believes in respecting their elders. Nice to see it's a two way street.

Add on the surprise reunion of The Fix for the next to last song. Another show-stealing moment among many. Looking forward to seeing all these bands again.

Good guys. Good bands. Good books. Good night.

Punk rock lives on.