A couple years ago I was introduced to Hot Snakes right before they were about to play Alex’s Bar in Long Beach. With only a few spins of an album I got there early because it was going sell out. Needless to say, the show was amazing and everyone left in a collective sweat with partially damaged ear drums.
Unfortunately Hot Snakes didn’t last. Since then there have been side projects – some new, some old but nothing has really really kicked things out like Hot Snakes did. A few months back rumors surfaced that John Reis – main dude from Hot Snakes, Rocket from the Crypt, and Swami Records – was starting a new project. First word was that it would be called Speedo, after his long time nickname. I checked the Swami site for info and also looked on Myspace and some other places but couldn’t find a damn thing. Plus, speedo is generally not a search that brings back many music sites.
Crew member Mike Garcia, who also happens to be in Fast Dragon, found one song and sent it over then somehow he got his band on a few of the Speedo shows in Southern California. After a few months word surfaced that the project was going to be titled The Night Marchers and would be coming out on Swami/Vagrant (release date is 4/22/08).
Alex’s Bar is the perfect place for a band like this to get their feet wet. Hard core Speedo fans came up from the bands hometown of San Diego and I’m still not sure where the rest were from. There was a good Long Beach contingent but it was Sunday night and it looked like the show would be running quite late.
Long Beach locals, Tijuana Knife Fight, kicked things off and you could instantly hear why they were on the bill. There’s a common punk and rock theme that ran through all the bands playing. Streamlined, straight-forward, short blasts of rock with aggressive vocals that got the heads bopping for a couple minutes at a time. They played a bunch of tracks off their soon to be released album and finished things up in a tidy 25 minutes or so.
Fast Dragon falls in the same camp as TKF and has been known to tear through their sets in as little as 15 minutes. With some new songs on board they lasted about 25 minutes this night. It was exceptionally high energy and all the guys on stage seemed to be having a great time. The thing I liked best about Fast Dragon was they shared vocal duties with all three front men. Sometimes when there’s only one vocalist and they’re sing-screaming a lot, it can get a bit monotonous.
I told myself I was only going to have two beers since I had already had a couple and I stuck to my promise. The only problem was they were 24oz. PBR’s. By the time Night Marchers came on I was primed for some pure rock n’ roll goodness. John prefaced the set saying it was only their third show ever and there were still some things they were working out. I had heard the album and also rocked their Myspace tracks a few times so I was vaguely familiar with some of the tunes. Bands like The Night Marchers and all of Speedo’s projects are meant to be experienced live. For further proof, def check out the Hot Snakes live CD and the recently released farewell concert album for RFTC. There was a surprising variety in the songs with most being upbeat but some mellowing out a bit. Toward the end of the set Dner/Gar Wood was having some major guitar issues so John handed over his. The only problem was that Dner plays guitar the other way around so he had to flip it upside down then figure out how to play the rest of the song. I’m not sure exactly how complicated that is but it was impressive.
I’m sure The Night Marchers will be playing around a bunch this year so get out and see them. It’ll help restore your faith in rock n’ roll. Good things do come from Southern California.
