Rather than seeing something and saying something, I stood back to watch the carnage unfold. In a scene straight out of Williamsburg’s dirtier days, people in patch-adorned denim and tight black pants encircled the bar, clamoring for free pony bottles of Colt .45. Members of local punk bands Golden Error and Cerebral Ballzy were among them, as well as omnipresent partiers Ninjasonik. A weather-beaten man with Popeye biceps slung beers under the wooden gaze of two topless mermaids. An old man in an orange jumpsuit and rollerblades—who cited “rock ‘n’ roll” as his stylistic inspiration—caught my arm: “Don’t go anywhere,” he warned. “It’s gonna get crazy.”
Out front, the members of Golden Triangle were pouring flour on themselves and then rolling around in the excess so as not to waste it. “You gotta batter it up before you fry it,” explained singer Vashti Windish. Was it a Southern thing? “Yeah,” replied guitarist OJ San Felipe. “We’re a bunch of beignets tonight.” Once onstage, they made good on their promise, dialing up the heat to frying levels with their weird take on garage rock. The mosh pitting and beer spitting started immediately. OJ crowd surfed several times without missing a strum and then got into the fetal position on top of a speaker for the set’s noisy finale. By this time, all was covered in enough flour and beer to make filthy, cigarette-studded pizza dough.
Livefastdie guitarist Viking Thrust was modest as he set up his equipment to play next. “It’s fitting that we’re playing our last show to three people we know and a room full of people who are just here for the free beer,” he said.Why was Livefastdie dying? “Nobody cares about good music anymore. Everyone just wants to listen to indie pop.”The surging crowd begged to differ, raging even harder than they had for Golden Triangle as the band ground out punk anthems like “Pissing on the Mainframe” and “Pizza and Vomit” in the vein of the Ramones and GG Allin. Hailing from Allin’s hometown of Littleton, New Hampshire, and named for a tattoo on his chest, Livefastdie owed much to the fecally inclined scum rocker.
In the fenced-in mud pit that passed for a backyard, Seva Granik, who’d set up the show, paused to dry out. Was he happy with how the night had gone? “Yeah,” he said. “The garage rock crowd is the coolest crowd in town.” Looking around at all the violently jovial characters assembled, I nodded in agreement.
