Old school met new school, as Gitbam Records hosted their first annual Punktoberfest this past Friday night. Featuring a handful of veteran bands from decades past, this show brought together Southern California’s favorite punk bands for a night of chaos and intensity. For just $10, anyone could enter this show, located at Los Globos in Silverlake west of Los Angeles.
Mr. Whiskers, a street punk band from the San Fernando Valley, opened up the night. When you hear Mr. Whiskers, you may picture stereotypical teenagers in a garage making loud angry music. Sometimes, you just need some angry music to get your blood flowing, and Mr. Whiskers delivered that, evident by the handful of guys already duking it out in the pit.
From Boyle Heights came Corrupted Youth, a hardcore punk band that played second in the night. Strongly sounding like The Casualties, Corrupted Youth has cemented quite a reputation for themselves locally, as vocalist Nacho often hosts shows and promotes other shows. Aside from this contribution to local punk rock, they can rock out hard on their own, as the pit has grown substantially this early in the night.
The anticipation quickly rose as everyone approached the stage for the next band, Wasted Ones. Featuring members of the original Wasted Youth, fans of the original band desired to see Wasted Youth in their return to glory. Although not the official band, they still delivered a killer performance and got the entire room up and slamming around to no end.
The night of old school punk continued with Circle One playing next. This local 80’s punk band still has the vision after all these years. Coincidentally, I last saw Circle One at this exact stage a few months ago – I guess you could say I have gone full circle!
We now move into the headliners of the night, starting with Narcoleptic Youth. As the face of OC hardcore punk, more than just locals would recognize their trademark music style, as vocalist Joey has the skills necessary to rap when he works the mic. The pit got bigger and bigger throughout the night, and it grew the most during Narcoleptic Youth’s set. We would soon find out if the venue could contain such a large pit.
The second of the night’s headliners, Naked Aggression, would end up taking the spot as the night’s chaotic catalyst. Naked Aggression never allows the energy of the audience to decline at all during their set. They maintain an escalating presence the moment they hit the stage. That presence, may have escalated too quickly, as during the set, a fight erupted in the middle of the pit that sequentially saw security removing roughly half of the entire audience from the venue. How sad that they had to miss the second half of Naked Aggression and D.I., essentially half of the headlining acts.
At last, the night’s final headliner set up on stage to a lighter audience than it appeared an hour prior. Regardless, D.I. never looked back as they ventured forth into their set. Their set has not deviated from any of their shows from the past year, which includes songs like On The Western Front, Prison Riot, Amoeba, Johnny’s Got A Problem, Richard Hung Himself, and Guns. Of course, what would D.I. do without vocalist Casey Royer’s random ramblings between songs?
Who needs words when photos can describe it all? I have seen all these bands before, so I do not have much to say about them by now. Trust in me that these local bands truly rock and represent the punk rock scene very well. If you want to start finding more great local punk rock shows, follow these bands around to other shows, and check out where they play, as well as what else they like. You may discover something great that you never knew existed.
A Punk, A Camera, and An Empty Stomach 