Saturday February 15th I woke up early after a late night and happened to watch the Dropkick Murphys play NBC’s Today Show over breakfast (which is absurd to me). I worked for a full eight hours, went home and took a brief nap, and raced to Underground Arts to catch Pissed Jeans’ record release set. I got there toward the tail end of the second band’s set, and spent much of it people watching and taking notes on the venue.
Underground Arts presents a great space for artists. It has the dingy basement feel of the First Unitarian Church mixed with the alcohol access and size of the Starlight Ballroom (maximum capacity 250). That dynamic comes through in the crowd. As you walk down the steps into a dark world of concrete, things start to feel sleazy. Walk through the door and pay your fare and there’s a humbling sense of anarchy, or something less than governance. I imagine it’s the closest feeling one could get to a prohibition era speakeasy. It’s an alternate world. My first experience there, a Left of Logic show sometime in January, was slightly more bizarre than this one, like a dirtier (if this is possible) Burning Man but indoors with that same strange hippy/crust breed that are consumers of those festivals. There were balloons and people on stilts. It was a crude and authentic circus; it was lovely.
This show brought mostly a slightly grungy type; that just out of college can’t afford new clothes or a haircut type. That type was the majority but was mixed with that wonderful truly ratty type. I think the venue brings them, and that is the reason why this is my favorite Philly venue. I don’t know if it’s the name that defines it or the similarities it shares with BDSM sets but something about it brings out the freaks and the freak in all of us.
All that being said there are some drawbacks to this venue. Subdividing the whole space are six support pillars that run parallel with the length of the room. Two of them flank the front of the stage, and the other four are immersed in the viewing space so there are serious blind spots and most of the audience struggles for a position between the two rows of three. It creates a floor with two dimensions, one packed with individuals fighting for viewing space and another loosely dispersed with everyone else. There is a main bar that gets obstructed by the crowd during sets, but luckily there is also a secondary, smaller, and more accessible bar with cocktails and canned beer. Shortly before Pissed Jeans’ set I grabbed a can of beer and snagged a place as close I could to the stage front and center. I drank it all while waiting for the band to come on and had a moment of anxiety debating what to do with the empty can. I could toss it on the ground and risk someone slipping on it during the mosh. I could hold it during the entirety of the set or I could find a proper place of disposal and lose prime spot. Luckily a stroke of genius occurred and I crumpled it up and folded it into my back pocket.
Pissed Jeans took stage and built up some tension with some of their more sludgy jams. The audience wobbled back and forth and built its own tension then everything broke loose with the frenetic energy of Bathroom Laughter. From there was an endless torrent of swaying and pushing, the occasional tossed can, and relentless stage diving, and then… Matt’s vocals cut out. He had a moment of genuine panic but he regained composure and translated it into a pantomime of caged gorilla rage. It took more than a few minutes for the sound guys to get the vocals back in the mix, but as soon as the whole thing got rolling again Matt was tackled off the stage by some audience member ready to get wild. From there, again, the mic was without power and for whatever reason the guitar and Brad, the guiatist, were absent. Randy, on bass, and drummer Sean held to their beat and hosted their own little jam for a time, trading looks that said “How much longer should we keep this up?” After more than a few minutes things were back up and rolling but my boner was sufficiently thwarted and by the second highlight, Health Plan, I found myself thinking “I wish I had a full-time job that allowed me to afford health care.” It was disappointing. But that shouldn’t stop you from seeing them because it wouldn’t stop me from seeing them again. Without the mishaps and the exhausting day I had endured it would’ve been a great set. Even after the disappointment of the show, I love the album.
After the show I travelled to Kung Fu Necktie to meet up with my editor to discuss what I had seen and the mixed emotions it presented. I didn’t find her but I found the guitarist of one of the bands playing there that night. He’ll remain nameless because I wasn’t officially interviewing him but he said, in regards to Philly and Pissed Jeans, something like ‘The great thing about the Philly scene right now is that we’re all using natural distortion. It’s none of the solid state metal bullshit that a lot of other people are doing.’ I got done with him, and entered Kung Fu Necktie and got a firsthand account of what he was talking about. It’s one of the greatest realizations that came from my Pissed Jeans experience: Screamo is the hair-metal of our time. It was the soundtrack to my coming of age but the juxtaposition between Pissed Jeans and this band at Kung Fu Necktie put it all into perspective. The inflated drama, the hair, it was and is opera/corny.
Pissed Jeans is honest. It’s folk music. I have this sense right now that every electric guitarist is running out to Guitar Center, buying an acoustic, putting on a country twang, and proclaiming him/herself to be folk. It’s the most disingenuous approach to folk. If you don’t believe it then YouTube search “Dropkick Murphys Today Show.” It’s an escapist route. “I sure love my ma and pa,” get real! You resent your parents just as much as the rest of us and you call them “mom and dad.” Pissed Jeans is working through the catalog of their youth and rehashing those sounds to suit their current perspective. That’s folk. Imagine yourself in a position where you couldn’t afford the time or the mason jars to undertake your aspirations of canning and you will find yourself here and now, ready to listen to Pissed Jeans. That is why their latest album Honeys is the most genuine thing I’ve heard in years. It won’t match up with your suspenders and mustache, or whatever other costume you don, but you might find some common ground in your flannel shirt.
It’s like early Nirvana, or a mix of Black Flag’s hardcore with Flipper’s dirge. Scrolling through other blogs reviewing and interviewing Pissed Jeans you will find that anger, even after early 00’s Nu-metal, is an uncomfortable emotion for most of us. It’s a funny thing to think about. Similar music of a different time had Black Sabbath labeled Satan worshipers. Given you can hear Black Flag on Major League Soccer commercials you’d think interviewers wouldn’t question you about your hometown or upbringing in search of your discontent. Life is a documentary; it’s typically pretty heavy. I understand if you don’t care to watch documentaries every day but you should occasionally give appreciation to pieces of work that represent life so well.
It’s understandable though, the discomfort surrounding anger. Anger can lead to outward aggression, but this album doesn’t do that. Much of it is angry but just wallowing in discontent, most of it personal. The album rarely breaks out into truly mosh-friendly frenzy; most of it spins a never ending tumult of disgust. The band spits out incessant and heavy, dragging and droning progressions while somehow simultaneously managing to demand your attention.
From folk to blues to rock n’ roll to psychedelia to punk to hardcore to post-hardcore and grunge there is a music for your generation that will define it even though at the time most people didn’t get it. I’ve spent many drunken nights amongst friends complaining that nothing in music, not the pop nor the underground, reflects our current state of affairs. This is the closest thing I’ve found so far.