The Original Sinners w/Exene Cervenka
Hometown: Pacific Palisades, Ca.
http://www.exenecervenka.com/
Saturday, April 8 2006
Emos (Austin, Texas)
also: Punkaroos, Pink Swords, and 7 Shot Screamers
This was an old fashioned punk rock show in a small bar with an unbelievable $10.50 cover charge and plenty of good music. The crowds were thinner than expected, workers at Emo's attributing it to the festivities for the Texas Relays that had shut down 6th Street and eaten up all the spare parking.
When I first arrived I almost tripped over Exene Cervenka at the bar. I got to talk to her for a few minutes. She was waiting for Austin's Punkaroos to start, a favorite local band she follows. The Punkaroos are fronted by the vivacious Dotty Farrell who is backed up by longtime punk locals and former members of Austin's legendary Dick's, a punk rock band that dates back to the days the punk scene was dominated by clubs such as Raul's and Duke's Royal Coach. A good band with a dark punk humor to their lyrics, they blazed through a tight set.
Austin's Pink Swords followed. Like a Green Day without training wheels, they are definitely a band influenced by the faster pure punk sounds of bands like the Sex Pistols and 999, and is a band I am sure I will be writing about more in the future.
The stand-up bass was a dead giveaway that the 7 Shot Screamers from St. Louis would be playing some hardcore punk-a-billy and seemed to draw their own crowd of supporters. They are a fun band with a lot and I mean a LOT of tattoos.
To call The Original Sinners too derivitive of X would be a cop-out. I have loved X since
Los Angeles was released in 1980 and caused thousands of women across the country to dye their hair black and adopt the goth punk maven lifestyle. With members of the 7 Shot Screamers providing the rythym section, The Original Sinners set smoked, sating my need for a live X fix. With a slight country trailer-park twang, distressed vocals and a hardcore punk edge provided by some slashing guitar work, this show evokes the spirit of what punk in the early 80s was all about. This is a can't-miss tour for anyone who wasn't born when Los Angeles was released and thinks that the pablum being pushed as "punk" by the mainstream is too slick, corporate and over-produced.