This sure seemed like a strange idea - 8 Cleveland bands (some of whom I don't think are too well known outside of Cleveland) all playing a show together in Detroit - with no locals at all! Sounded like it should be a fun time , especially with classic bands like Cider and Darvocets playing who barely ever play in Cleveland. Luckily, I managed to get a ride (thanks Krissie) and this was actually a roadtrip that didn't end in utter disaster despite the fact that the weather was pretty shitty. Me, Stephanie, Krissie and her friend Mark made it to the road around 1PM - didn't make it to Detroit until around 6PM with a bit of trouble finding the club and managing to eat at every reststop along the way. First stop in Detroit was a beer store of course - wow, the beer stores in Detroit are pretty fucking cool - or at least this one was. About every kind of cheap wine imaginable as well an extremely tough looking 40 of malt liquor that I think was called Big Bull that had over 8% alcohol in it. Yikes! I played it safe somewhat and just settled on a small Cisco and a couple Mickeys tall boys. Hell, I didn't even know if the club allowed booze inside or if there was a bar there or what. Luckily, booze was allowed inside - unfortunately, there wasn't any heat and it was around 15 degrees outside. A couple heaters were set up but didn't help a whole lot. On the plus side, no bands had played yet even though we were over two hours late in getiting to the show. Also cool was the fact that the house that the club was attached to (the 'club was pretty much a basement) did have heat and lots of people chilled in there between bands. Anyhow, on to the music.

The flyer for the show listed the lineup as being Nine Shocks Terror, Gordon Solie Motherfuckers, Ruiners, CIder, Puncture Wound, Darvocets (actually the flyer just said Darvocet), Grudge Match and Yeti. There was some changes in the lineup - Cider, Yeti, and Grudge Match were nowhere to be found. I was bummed as Cider was one of the bands I was looking forward to seeing the most since I had never gotten to see em live and their 7" is great. Still lots of good bands to see, and Secret Servix were added to the bill as well. Here's a rundown of the bands that did end up playing.

Puncture Wound - PW had the task of playing first and attempting to draw people out of the warm house into the freezing club. They did pretty good however. I always seem to miss Puncture Wound when they play in Cleveland, I usually show up too late to catch them. So this was the first time I had seen a whole set by em in a long time - and they sounded pretty good. Japanese thrash sounding for the most part.

The Ruiners - I'd only seen the Ruiners once since they have been back together. The band consists of Chris Erba (ex H100s), Paul Schlacter (Inmates, Cider, etc), Bob Zeiger (ex-Ringworm) on bass and Wedge (9 Shocks, Gordon Solie) on drums. I was a lot more sober for their set this time. And it actually sounded a lot better to me than the time I saw em at Speak In Tongues. While a lot of newer Cleveland groups are heavily influenced by Jap-core, The Ruiners seem a lot more influenced by early 80s American HC. Lots of interesting changes in their songs as well. Chris is still just as crazy on vocals as he was in the H100s days, and their whole set was really good. After the set, I found out they put out a 7" and I picked it up.

The Darvocets - The Darvocets are another old Cleveland band - I think this was their first show since they played in Kent with the H100s (around 1995 I think). Had never heard them before, and was a bit surprised by their set. The band consists of Paul Schlacter (see above), Chris Pello (ex-Apt. 213, Ringworm), and Bob Zeiger (yep a lot of these bands share members!) and last but not least a guy named Larry on vocals. The music was pretty much what you would expect from the lineup - but Larry made this band standout quite a bit. Dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and all his lyrics centered on one topic - aliens! His stage precense reminded me a lot of Mike Hard from the God Bullies - very psycho and dramatic. Quite an interesting combination and it's cool to see that this show was just the beginning, as they seem to be playing more shows lately.

Gordon Solie Motherfuckers - Tony Erba's latest band was up next - after seeing them at Speak In Tongues for the first time, I liked them better than Nine Shocks Terror. This set didn't seem quite as great as that one - perhaps it was due to the much smaller crowd this time. The coldness was really starting to get to me by this time too. Still sounded pretty good though, and I wish I would have had their 7" before so I would have known some of their songs.

Nine Shocks Terror - Nine Shocks are probably the most well-known thrash band that is playing around Cleveland these days. I like them, but to be honest I dug the other bands that played this day more. Nine Shocks did a good set though that satisfied all their fans. They did quite a few songs that I didn't recognize, probably stuff from the full-length which I don't think has been released yet.

Secret Servix - Secret Servix were the last band of the day and didn't quite fit in with the rest of the bands on the bill. The other bands were pretty much all thrash/HC while Secret Servix play straightforward rock n roll. I only caught a few songs of the show because it was late and we didn't want to get back to Cleveland too late. What I heard sounded good but didn't really seem to be what the crowd want to hear.

Overall, this show was a good time but I still couldn't help but feel a little disapointed afterwards. I was real curious about how non-Clevelanders would react to these bands. I didn't find out though, as 95% of the crowd was from Cleveland! Someone from Puncture Woiund summed up that situation best when he said "man, the four of you guys from Detroit who like these bands should have just come to Cleveland and we could have had the show at Speak In Tongues!". The drive and venue were both not too bad but the lack of heat did put a damper on things somewhat. Also, the excellent beer store mentioned at the top of this article closed way too early - around 7 or 8 PM! So no alcohol was available within walking distance for most of the show. Unless, you were willing to trek through an unfamiliar neighborhood for a half hour walk through a half-foot of snow. Luckily, this meant I wasn't completely smashed for the ride home II'd hate to imagine how many piss stops would have been needed!). Still there was enough beer that me and Stephanie were able to get some GG and Mentors singalongs going on the way back.

More Apt. 2324 E-zine #4

Whiskey Rebel Interview
Record Reviews
Live Reviews
E-Mail Me
Back to issue #4 index

Back to main page