Oakland has lost its most chaotic band
Oakland’s Battleship is no longer. Singer Aleks and guitarist are both moving away, leaving a pretty big void in Oakland’s punk rock scene. Battleship was probably the only punk band in the East Bay that wasn’t either: A. a crusty, Discharge ripoff, or B. An angular, no wave dance-punk band. (For East Bay music scenesters, those types of bands are you only two options now, so if you want to hear something different, start your own band now!!!)
For me though, I loved Battleship because their live show was almost a revival of the greatest live band to ever exist, Behead the Prophet No Lord Shall Live. Seriously, if Battleship had a violinist and Aleks was more open with his homosexuality (ZING), their shows would be time portals to Seattle/Olympia, between the years 1996 and 1998. They would’ve been regulars at the Capitol Theater and the Velvet Elvis.
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“The Devil Always Wins”
My wife and I have been waiting for this show since Pink Reason’s “Cleaning the Mirror” came out. (I would also like to add that, thanks to connections I have, I bought it before it was even put out on the floor at Amoeba.) That album didn’t leave our record player for weeks. Though it’s solid, we really only played one side — the second — which led with our fav song “Dead End.” Though it’s a poor recording and the drums are totally out of sync, the melody literally haunts you, more than any goth song. I’ve never actually heard emotion so heartfelt come through a recording so clearly before. If, God forbid, some pro band or money-hungry producer ever heard it, they’d turn it into some hideous “pop song” and whoever did it would become the next “Kurt Cobain.”
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Shearing Pinx @ Hemlock S.F., 7/1/07
This was an all around good show, even though my band Red Nurse practically cleared the room with the volume of our set. But it was great that Shearing Pinx made it down; just two days before in Portland, their second stop, their van broke down. So the day of the show they made the 13-hour drive and played to a half-filled Hemlock. Pure punk rock.
As far as the music goes, just listening to a few songs basically describes the rest of their set: noisy, abrasive no wave with bits of free jazz thrown in as bridges or choruses. There’s some pretty sweet riffs thrown in there, but if you’re not a fan of “punk free jazz” (which is really guitarists just strumming anything on their guitars that seems noisy while their drummers impersonate a Keith Moon solo), then this might not be your thing. (Or maybe it wil convert you? Who knows?)
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