By Melissa Antoinette Garza
I’m happy to say that punk is still alive despite talentless stars like Gwen Stefani, or the new Gwen “Iggy Azalea who try to ruin music for all of us. Whether MTV pushes Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj or Taylor Swift, the stars in today’s commercial medium have little talent and lots of attitude. Their music is tampered with to make it bearable and they are succeeding with the youth in trying to ruin music and real musicians.
It’s bad enough that Iggy and Gwen at times comes out using racist voices as offensive as Amos and Andyto try steal the sound of true hip-hop and rap stars. It’s just sad. As a woman, I want some strong, bad-asses with tons of talent rocking truly great music. Wednesday night, I got that, but we’ll talk about the great band Dog Party, a bit later.
The Paradise Rock Club in Boston is standing room only and the venue is great to be close to the musicians performing. Also, kudos to the staff who filled my diet coke cup a dozen times. Now, I’ve loved The Aquabats forever. They’re fucking awesome. There’s no other way to put it. They’re punk-rocking super heroes who beat the hell out of a monkey in striped prison gear called Donkey Convict. Their music encourages the crowd to hug your neighbor, hold hands with everyone, jump the fuck around and dance. During this amazing show, a huge screen hangs in the background as images of vintage shows like Square Pegs is shown. If you pay attention, you’ll see the cartoon from One Crazy Summer and the evil clown from Poltergeist. You’ll probably recognize a lot of the images but some will make you say, “what is that from?” There was a cool clip of a skeleton that I really want to know where it was from.
If you read Wikipedia they describe The Aquabats music style stating that it “mixes rock and punk with elements of new wave, ska and synthpop.” That’s probably true. I describe it this way. It’s amazing and if you’re cool you like it and if you don’t you suck. Keep listening to your Rhianna nonsense because congrats The Aquabats show is cancelled and I blame you for not watching it. I hate you guys. For those that are cool, bug the hell out of HUB and NETFLIX to give us the rest of season 2 and order season 3!
By the way, did I mention Greg Hawkes from the legendary band The Cars showed up and sang “You Might Think.” Yep, and you probably missed it. History was made thanks to The Aquabats and Greg Hawkes; and you were probably home begrudging the fact that you had work the next day. Well, so did I punks, and I went.
So, I arrived at like 6, found a pole to lean against and found out there was an opening band I never heard of. Dog Party. Remember, I talked about them first. My first reaction was, “hmmm – okay whatever.” I’m easy going and if they’re good enough for The Aquabats they’re good enough for me. That said, I did not expect the reinvention of music.
So first I see the drummer/co-vocalist with bright pink hair. I love pink hair, but nowadays a lot of people dye their hair crazy colors. Mine is bright red and I’m pretty sure if I sang in public, I’d be shot. Anyways, the name of this musician is Lucy Giles and her voice is amazing. To hear someone I had never heard of sing that way LIVE blew me away.
Standing center stage is her sister Gwen Giles who plays guitar and is the other co-vocalist. She is the only other member of the band and is equally important and equally astonishing behind the mic.
When I realized the band was an all woman group, the event became a little more significant. It was an all-ages show, which means young girls who listen to this commercial crap would be hearing something very new and very different. I was hoping for good. I wanted these girls to walk away saying, “I can fucking rock and be a badass.”
I didn’t expect that the kids, parents, and myself would be gifted with something unique that I can only explain as a mixture of Patricia Quinn, Nirvana, and The Talking Heads. There’s elements of all that is punk and rock and cool. There’s pure emotion in both womens’ voices but they never lose their strength or femininity. I purchased all 4 of their CDs and they were kind enough to sign them.
These women need to rise above all the commercial bullshit and be heard. Fuck MTV if they’re not paying attention to these two! Buy their CDs or MP3s and listen to their music. If you have kids raise them on this and stop them from listening to all the nonsense that is going to make them into frat boys and sorority girls who attend racist stupid parties and use homophobic or transphobic slurs. We need something genuine, positive, and inclusive, all the while rocking the fuck out and realizing that the general system of living is something they’re not apart of nor want to be. They are The Sex Pistols of today. They are The Ramones for this generation. Don’t let your kids miss out!
In conclusion, if you have the opportunity to see these bands and you don’t, you’re a fool who is giving up something you will fondly remember on your death bed.
For more information on The Aquabats please check out their website: http://www.theaquabats.com/ or their Twitter link: https://twitter.com/TheAquabats
To hound Netflix and demand they pick up The Aquabats show, send requests to their Twitter as they don’t take suggestions from their website anymore: https://twitter.com/netflix
As the Hub Network no longer exists and it has been bought by Discovery Family, you can contact them at: https://corporate.discovery.com/contact/viewer-relations
To listen to the kick-ass tunes of Dog Party check them out on BandCamp for FREE: https://dogparty.bandcamp.com/album/dog-party
To contact Dog Party on Twitter their link is: https://twitter.com/dogpartylive
