Punk is Dad, Vol. V

Oi.

My best friend, BP, has always been reliable when it comes to informing Kimmel (one of my best friends from high school and college) and I informed on when and where noteworthy bands are passing through our neck of the woods. We've made it a habit to check out certain acts - most notably Rancid and The Bouncing Souls - whenever they pass through Chicago, Detroit, or Grand Rapids.  I'm glad he stays on top of this sorta thing 'cause I sure as hell don't.

During the winter, BP discovered that Social Distortion - a pioneering punk band that came out in the early '80s but really hit their stride as a punk-ish rock band in the '90s - was coming to Grand Rapids on July 5th. My 27th Birthday. We all agreed that, while Social D isn't one of our all-time favorites by any means, they're still awesome and for a mere $50 we could check out one of the most essential bands of the genre (and cross that off the ol' Bucket List.) Kind of a no-brainer.

They had asked me in the weeks leading up to this if there was anything in particular that I wanted to do beforehand, considering it was my birthday and everything. I only had two stipulations: 1.) I wanted to shop at a record store on my birthday, because that's become a tradition of mine over the course of the last five or six years, and 2.) I wanted to have dinner at one of Grand Rapids' big breweries (they have a ton of good ones down there.) Both of these were obviously easy to do (and well-received.)

I drove down to BP's Rockford in the early afternoon, and after catching up with him and his fam for a bit, we saddled up and headed downtown to rendezvous with Kimme at the record store for some pre-dinner shopping. 

I'll cut out the intro talk and just let the following pics and video do the talking - enjoy. . .

Kimmel was supposed to meet us at BP's, but - surprise, surprise - he was running late. This shouldn't come as a shocker to anyone, honestly - the dude was late to his own wedding. He had taken his family, who were in town with him visiting extended family at some local campground not too far away, and they wanted to take their two, young boys to some local aquarium to kill some time. This took longer than originally expected, but he was at least able to meet us at the record store at the agreed-upon time. Progress, folks.

Kimmel walks his son, Hank, back to the car (he had taken him around the side of some building to piss in an alleyway - seriously - because the kid couldn't hold it any longer.) After he got his son strapped back into a car seat - and BP and I had said hi to Kat and the boys - they took off and we headed into Vertigo Records, probably the nicest record store in Grand Rapids.

They have an insane amount of good music here. New stuff, rare stuff, stuff from genres you don't usually see well-represented elsewhere (punk, metal, alternative, indie, etc.) Their vintage prices aren't the greatest, as they don't have a lot of the old classic rock stuff cluttering the shelves like they do at, say, Radio Wasteland back home, but it's a refreshing change of pace.

Kimmel lives in downtown Chicago, so he pays out the ass for a two-bedroom apartment and, consequently, doesn't have a lot of shelf space for vinyl (he says he limits his collection to 25 albums or so), so he didn't buy anything. BP bought three or four, though - his collection is probably in the 150 album range.

I, personally, have about 860 albums in my collection at present, but have room for more if I purge here and there. These four I picked up for about $90, which was a steal considering three of the four ended up being limited editions on colored vinyl, and only one of them was used. The Chisel and The Dictators albums were both wants I've wanted for awhile, but Amazon's and Discog's prices were slightly more than what I ended up picking them up for in the store (and they were both colored, limited pressings, which was a bonus.) The Kinks album is a Holy Grail find for Yours Truly - it's my favorite album by them and has been out of print for years. The Bastards one is nostalgic, because I saw these guys (Lars if the guitarist from Rancid, this is his side-band) back when they first toured on this album, back in 2001. . . when I met the entire band afterwards and had a sticker autographed by all of them. That, and Lars personally sold me a Bastards Zippo lighter for a mere $14 because that was all I had on me at the time (though that was my gas money back to WMU at the time, but still.) All in all, one of the best single-day hauls of my entire life.

Heading out of the shop, having secured our treasures for the afternoon.

Seriously check this place out if you ever find yourself in downtown Grand Rapids.

Next up on our agenda was dinner (though it was still kinda early, only like 4pm) - Founder's Brewing. We found an awesome parking spot directly across a side street from the main entrance to the brewery - one of those deals where we pulled into someone's spot just as they were leaving, which is the EXACT same thing that happened to us at the record store (last time BP and I went to Vertigo Records, we had to walk two blocks to get there after parking.)

Man on a Mission.

This is one of the top three breweries in Michigan (the other two being Bell's and Short's.)

I haven't eaten at this place since way back in 2015 when my brother Chris and I came to do a brewery tour of Grand Rapids with my Uncle Larry. Have definitely been looking forward to stopping in here again.

Yup. I'm at the age where you have to pack a pair of readers in your pocket so you can read drink menus and the back of album sleeves. Shut up.

I frickin' love this place.

Waiting for food, enjoying some bad-ass beers.

Founder's hooked me up with a free beer since it was my birthday, which was awesome.

Some chick.

After a couple hours in Founder's, we headed back to the car (conveniently parked nearby, of course.)

These bikes you can rent throughout the city get left like this all the time. Super classy.

They're building some giant amphitheater downtown, right off the highway. No idea how they're going to handle parking for this sum'bitch, there's no available spot nearby for it.

Kimmel wanted to stop off at a pharmacy for some Tums (because he's that old), and while we were putzing around the inside of a local Walgreen's, I spotted these shelves. ''One of these things is not like the other. . . "

This song kept coming up randomly on BP's stereo for some reason, we heard it like three times. And no, he's not a fan of this song. We assumed the Universe was trying to tell us something. . .

Our next, and final, stop of the evening was the venue itself, so BP set off to try and find a parking spot within a couple blocks.

You can imagine how blown away were were, then, when we drove slowly past the venue - GLC Live at 20 Monroe - and spotted an EMPTY PARKING SPACE, right in front of the doors. Like, 100 feet or so. I took a video so you could see how close we were to the front doors, and how far back the line snaked back down the block(s.)

The aforementioned parking spot. We didn't bother getting out to just stand in line with all those dirty peasants, seeing how we could just sit in the comfort of his car and have an eye on things from there. We waited until the line went inside before finally getting out. Like civilized gentlemen.

We didn't have seats for this show, it was a small-ish venue that could fit 500 or so standing attendees (though there was far less inside than that, it was definitely sparse.) Breezing through security, we made our way in, hit the bathrooms to get that out of the way, grabbed some beers (Kimmel bought mine since it was my birthday and everything), and took up our spots on the floor.

The opening band was comically bad. Not incompetent, but the singer was far too dramatic for being a no-name band (and they weren't a punk band at all, which was a let down.)

We couldn't talk to each other due to the volume, so we'd text back and forth on occasion if we had something to say. BP's comment on the band is 100% spot-on if you've ever seen a movie like that before.

After a brief half-hour tear-down between the opener and the main event, Social Distortion took the stage at last. . .

Some of these pics are ours, but some - like this one here, I screenshot off Instagram (so, you know, I'm giving credit where credit's due and all that crap - please don't sue me.)

Mike Ness, the legend himself (at left.) Dude looks pretty good for being 60 or however old he is.

Punk is Dad.

(This was our vantage tonight - not too bad at all, we were somewhat close and only slightly off to the side. . . close to the bar.)

They saved a lot of their best-known songs for the encore, which was a weird choice, but I guess that guaranteed folks stayed throughout the entire show.

This was the 'official' set list, but they played three or four additional ones spread out throughout their set.

I think this guitarist is a founding member, too (the other guys looked younger, though.)

Reach for the Sky

We stayed into the encore, until they only had about one or two songs to go, then left for the car in order to beat the mad rush once the show wrapped up.

We BARELY made it out of downtown Grand Rapids, even with our great parking spot and leaving early. The sidewalks were packed with crowds, even running into the streets and stopping traffic. Grand Rapids' annual firework display was happening downtown, right over the river, so there were thousands of people milling about. BP had to aggressively inch his car out between crowds in order to turn onto a side street and dash onto US-131.

Not the best fireworks picture, but I was taking this from a moving vehicle and BP dodged in and out of traffic. Folks were actually stopped in the right lane of 131, and hundreds of people were crowded along the shoulder, watching the fireworks. There were cops everywhere trying to disburse the crowds, but not nearly enough to be effective. After a tense mile or two, we were able to resume normal highway speeds as we closed the last ten miles before BP's stomping ground of Rockford. I've never seen anything like that in my entire life.

We stopped at a liquor store to pick up a few beers, then headed down into BP's basement to have a couple drinks and watch a few episodes of The Simpsons. After a high-energy evening like we had just had, no one was feeling sleepy quite yet.

Eventually, BP and I drove Kimmel over to his hotel - where him and his family were staying - about a mile or two away from BP's. We nabbed one, final selfie before heading home for the night, another mid-40's Punk Rock Adventure successfully executed. See ya in the Pit, folks. . .

- Brian

Punk is Dad, Vol. IV

Oi.

There are very few bands out there that I'll make a point of seeing whenever they come even remotely close to my neck of the woods. 

For starters, ticket prices are more expensive now than they've ever been, exacerbated by Ticketmaster, of course, but also though the venues, which have all been swallowed up by some booking company that forces them to pay insane fees in order to host artists on tour. It's completely ruined live music for most people - paying to see a remotely known artist generally will set you back a couple hundred dollars, and I, for one, refuse to pay that much to see a band.

But punk rock bands?

The biggest names in punk music still charge under $50 for a ticket, and that's just my cup of tea. I've seen dozens of shows in my lifetime and I've only paid more than this on one occasion: when BP, Kimmel and I went to see Rancid open up for Green Day on the Saviors Tour back in September. That ticket was like $112, but we knew we'd be paying a higher price because, well, it is Green Day, and they're pretty mainstream.

BP's The Lord of the Rings-inspired garage doormat.

BP and I have an understanding that whenever Rancid or the Bouncing Souls come through Michigan, we have to go check them out. Sometimes we have to drive out to Chicago, and Kimmel gets involved, but most of the time we end up in Detroit. This time around, however, the Bouncing Souls were coming to Grand Rapids, which is even easier for us because it's closer and not such a pain in the ass to get in and out of.

For the low price of $32, we were able to check out one of our favorite bands in a super small venue - 400 people, tops - and even while standing off to the side, halfway back from the stage, BP and I were probably 30 feet from the stage. Pretty damn sweet.

Seems a bit pricey for one beer can, Meijer. . .

I took a quarter day off of work, leaving around 1:30pm, and a two hour drive later I was at BP's place in Rockford. We did a beer run to a local Meijer, grilled out at his place for dinner, and, around 8pm, headed downtown to the venue, The Pyramid Scheme. We missed the entire first opening act, and all but two songs from the second - which we were more than cool with - before H20 took the stage. Then, an hour later, it was time for the Souls.

Not one of the greatest Bouncing Souls shows we've ever seen - it was super hot in the tight confines of the venue, the sound mixing was a little muffled, and standing still on concrete for two and a half hours is straight-up murder on a mid-40s back - but it was awesome nonetheless. We'll continue to make pilgrimages to see this band, whenever they come through our neck of the woods, until they throw in the towel.

But, seeing how they're a punk band, that's not likely to happen any time soon.

So here you go, folks - another adventure into '90s punk rock with a couple of mid-40's dads.

Behold. . . .

BP, being Amish, has yet to upgrade to a propane grill, preferring instead to use charcoal like his ancestors did hundreds of years ago.

Grabbed a tall boy of this while we were out on a beer run to Meijer - perfect choice for sunny, high-70s grilling weather. Hoping to get my hands on more of this once summer breaks out.

The DeBoer fam has this big goose statue that's being painted in their garage. Sam said it's a custom with some folks, somewhere (I forget), and that folks dress it up during the Holidays. Maybe it's a southern thing, who knows.

Couple hours later, BP and I hit the road for downtown Grand Rapids, about a twenty-minute drive from his house in Rockford.

Took a hot minute to find available parking, but after being turned away from a few parking garages - like Joseph and the Virgin Mary in the Nativity - we finally found one that had spots available.

We had to drive up to the second-highest level of the garage before we found available parking, but fortunately there was an elevator nearby to take us down to street level.

It was a quick, two-block walk to the venue from there, and as we approached The Pyramid Scheme (shown here with the mural along the side), we saw that the band unloading out front was none other than H20. We walked right through them on our way into the show, which is pretty crazy - you can do that with mainstream artists without getting body-checked by their security detail.

The front half of this place looks like any normal dive bar, but after you walk through this front section you approach the bouncers and a closed door. Through that check point, it opens up into the concert area, which had two raised balconies on either side and a main floor. They had a merch table set off on the right, next to the bar, and some bench seating off the left.

I forget the name of this second band that was opening up for the Souls - something like '***** Hause & The Mermaid,' I forget it all - they were only 'meh.' We caught the last two songs, which sounded like general rock, and the overall vibe they gave off was that of an older band that had never managed to gain traction but was still trying to be relevant and controversial (lots of anti-government stuff, which is fine but when your sound doesn't match your message, it comes across pretty cringe.) We were less than impressed.

As always, neither BP nor myself took any pics or video of the concert itself - I've always found that tacky in a punk setting like this (granted, I took lots of pics and video at Green Day/Rancid, but there was literally nobody sitting behind us at that concert.) Instead, I did what I usually do and screenshot a bunch of pics and video (off of Instagram) that other concert-goers and professional photographers took during the show. They almost always turn out better than what I'd take anyway. 

H20 have never been one of my favorite punk groups. I used to have one or two of their CDs, and there songs were usually featured on the Fat Wreck Chords or Epitaph compilation CDs back in the day, but I haven't listened to them all since college. Not a big fan of that 'pogo' hardcore sound, it comes off kinda cheesy.

It felt like it was 130 degrees in this place, considering the size of the venue and the hundreds of sweaty people crammed in. I have no frickin' clue how the singer didn't pass out on stage in that frickin' hoodie.

That's probably the coolest handlebar mustache in punk rock, folks.

Some younger, replacement bassist they picked up somewhere along the way (all the original guys are pushing 60.) They made a joke about how he just got his Green Card, so he must be Scandinavian (or German) or something - definitely has that look.

Various angles of pics here - I pulled these off various Instagram accounts (you're welcome.)

(I wish there was a way to remove those annoying slideshow buttons while taking a screenshot.)

The Bouncing Souls took the stage around 9:30pm, and the crowd was HYPED.

(That lit area in the back off to the right is where the merch booth was set up.)

LOTS of crowd-surfing tonight (which you'll see in a later video I've included.) Some moshing, too, but the Souls have a lot of songs that don't really trigger impromptu pits.

Some solo shots of dudes in the band. . .

This guy posted like six different videos, so screen recording it off Instragram while trying to swipe to the next video was a pain in the ass. I tried to pause at the end of each one, swipe to the next video, then resume my screen recording, but it's a bit rough. You get what you get, folks.

Since the song was released years ago, 'Ghosts on the Boardwalk' has turned into a nightly acoustic performance. Now, when we last saw the Souls a couple years ago in Chicago - during the height of Covid - their drummer had contracted the virus and they were forced to rely on three, different drummers (from the opening bands, local musicians, etc. instead. Each 'guest' drummer took three songs of theirs throughout the night, because learning the drum parts and entire set's worth of songs would be impossible with such short notice. To fill even more concert time, the singer did a couple acoustic songs in the middle of the set, which, at the time, was pretty awesome. Still, this was during Covid and, well, the world was different back then - folks needed that sorta vibe. Today, in the middle of a high-energy concert, the singer again broke out an acoustic guitar and the rest of the band retreated backstage for a break. But this time it felt jarring. 

I think it was out of place this time around. Last time, the audience knew that the band was without a drummer and trying to fight through the show at any cost, so an acoustic 'mini-set' in the middle to fill time was understandable (and appreciated.) This time, though, coming on the tail-end of an opening burst of eight or nine, fast, intense songs, to stop everything all at once for some slow, melancholy song just felt forced.

After that minor gripe, they were back to business for the rest of the show, playing all the favorites (and a handful of deep tracks and new numbers.) With one or two songs remaining in their set list (which BP had pulled up on his phone from the tour's previous show in Detroit), BP and I fought our way over to the merch table where we each bought a limited edition art print (numbered and signed) of the tour (the East Coast, F*** You tour.) They had vinyl, too - BP bought one - but I already own copies of all their albums that I want, and their pricing wasn't awesome.

We ended up walking out just as the band was closing up, around 10:30pm or so. Got one last show of the venue on our way back to the parking garage, and then from there we headed back to his house for a couple nightcaps before turning in around 1am. See Ya in the Pit, kids.

- Brian