Bad Religion

Bad Religion – 4/5/13 at Congress Theater

A few thousand punk rock fans spanning multiple generations packed the main floor of the Congress Theater on Friday night for a three-band show headlined by Bad Religion. The show was originally supposed to include Against Me as well but the band had to cancel off the tour before it got started, much to the [...]

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Redd Kross - Born Innocent white vinyl

Redd Kross – Born Innocent LP white vinyl

It’s hard to believe that Redd Kross has been around off and on (mostly on) for over 30 years now. It’s scary to do the math and realize that their first album, Born Innocent, turns 31 this year. It’s a little surreal to think back to seeing this when it came out and I was [...]

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Jay Bradley vs. Mikey Whipwreck

Resistance Pro: Mane Attraction 3/29/13

Good Friday was made twice as good thanks to Resistance Pro Wrestling bringing their latest event out to the western suburbs of Chicago at the Arabian Knights Barn in Willowbrook, IL. There was a packed house and the card featured some new faces and a former ECW superstar. There even was an appearance by the [...]

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Rockwell/Thompson/450

Pro Wrestling Blitz: Uprising 3/23/12

Spring has arrived (in theory but not in practice as the weather still sucks), the clocks got moved ahead properly so it doesn’t get dark so early anymore, and Pro Wrestling Blitz held their most recent event, Uprising, this past Saturday night out in their home base of Joliet, IL. They had a solid lineup [...]

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Dead Ending II

Dead Ending – Dead Ending II

A five-song EP of hardcore that is as good as it gets and comfortably familiar. Fans of Articles of Faith will find this EP especially appealing!Rating:   Dead Ending – Dead Ending II 12″ EP Alternative Tentacles What do you get when you combine one of the best front men of the early hardcore punk days [...]

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The Middle Class LP random color vinyl

The Middle Class – Out of Vogue The Early Material LP random colored vinyl

The Middle Class were a Southern California punk rock band from the late 1970′s who are often credited with putting out the first hardcore 7″ EP with their legendary and extremely valuable Out of Vogue EP. It was the band’s first release and they’d go on to put out another excellent 7″ and a less [...]

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Bad Religion – 4/5/13 at Congress Theater

A few thousand punk rock fans spanning multiple generations packed the main floor of the Congress Theater on Friday night for a three-band show headlined by Bad Religion. The show was originally supposed to include Against Me as well but the band had to cancel off the tour before it got started, much to the disappointment of a lot of fans, especially the younger ones. That didn’t stop many people from attending however as the main floor was pretty much packed full from front to back.

Polar Bear Club went on first. They went over well with the younger folks in the crowd. They were pretty straight-forward melodic punk/rock by the numbers. They played with a lot of enthusiasm and energy but it just seemed lost on the older generation of punk fans who clearly were there solely for Bad Religion.  They played about a half hour and it seemed to move by fairly quickly.

Next up was The Bronx. They played faster and with more punch than the band that preceded them and they had a lot of fans in the audience. Their 45 minute set was pretty enjoyable for the most part and the younger folks especially went nuts for them. They were about a strong of a band leading into Bad Religion as you could have wanted.

It had been almost two years since Bad Religion last played Chicago and the crowd was more than ready for them. The band came out to a dimly lit stage and started their set with “Past is Dead” which is a track from their new album, True North. It sounded excellent and the band were off to a good start. What came as a most pleasant surprise was that they followed it up with “We’re Only Going to Die” from their first album. That’s easily the best song on that album and with such a large catalog of songs to choose from it was awesome that they picked it.

From there they played some more new songs and then mixed in a healthy selection from their vast back catalog. The sound seemed better than usual for the Congress. The main floor near the front was steadily moving with people moshing and crowd surfing and the band put on a spot-on performance. In between songs, singer Greg Graffin talked a fair amount between certain songs as well which was fairly amusing at times.

The band played a ton of songs, there were plenty of stretches of multiple songs where they just blasted into the next one after completing one and there was never a dull moment in their 70+ minute set. The band even came back for a four song encore and left the crowd sweaty and exhausted when they called it a night and left the stage for good. Overall it was an excellent way to spend a Friday night for punk fans of all ages.

Check out additional photos from this show here!

Redd Kross – Born Innocent LP white vinyl

Redd Kross - Born Innocent white vinyl It’s hard to believe that Redd Kross has been around off and on (mostly on) for over 30 years now. It’s scary to do the math and realize that their first album, Born Innocent, turns 31 this year. It’s a little surreal to think back to seeing this when it came out and I was a young teenager knowing it was more than three decades ago as the time seems to have flown by. Math doesn’t lie though (unless you are doing it wrong) and the fact is that you could call the first Redd Kross album vintage now.

Back when Born Innocent was first released, the band was still called Red Cross but soon after the threat of a lawsuit from the actual Red Cross forced them to change the spelling of the band name to Redd Kross. The first pressing of this album came out way back in 1982 on Smoke Seven Records, a label that put out some great records but didn’t stick around very long. It came and went pretty fast but then was reissued with new cover art and the new spelling on Frontier Records where the album has been in print in one format or another for most of its life.

After the album had been out of print on the vinyl format for a very long time, Frontier Records decided it was time to put it back out and they restored the original cover art but changed it to have the changed spelling of the band name, and reissued it on colored vinyl. Unlike some of the other label’s titles like the first Adolescents album which has been pressed on every color of the rainbow the past few years, this Redd Kross record only has been issued on a couple in the past few years. For its birthday, Born Innocent has been pressed up on a new color of vinyl.

This time out the record comes on white vinyl. It has the restored artwork of the original album as mentioned above with the only modifications being the spelling of the band name and the label information and a bar code.  The album comes with a two-side glossy lyric/photo sheet as well. The music itself is the same fuzzed out, juvenile punk rock and roll full of pop culture reference that made the band famous and sounds as good now as it did over thirty years ago, perhaps even better!

This limited edition slab of wax can be had for an amazingly low postage-paid price directly from Frontier Records. Unlike a lot of labels these days producing vinyl, Frontier isn’t trying to gouge anyone with insulting 25+ dollar price tags. Their records are realistically priced which isn’t much higher than what this thing cost back when it was released. Head on over and get yourself one while before they are gone and add this vintage punk album to your own punk vault. It’s deserving of being in everyone’s collection.

Resistance Pro: Mane Attraction 3/29/13

Good Friday was made twice as good thanks to Resistance Pro Wrestling bringing their latest event out to the western suburbs of Chicago at the Arabian Knights Barn in Willowbrook, IL. There was a packed house and the card featured some new faces and a former ECW superstar. There even was an appearance by the current lineup of Smashing Pumpkins who were signing autographs at the pre-show meet and greet.

Pro Wrestling Blitz: Uprising 3/23/12

Spring has arrived (in theory but not in practice as the weather still sucks), the clocks got moved ahead properly so it doesn’t get dark so early anymore, and Pro Wrestling Blitz held their most recent event, Uprising, this past Saturday night out in their home base of Joliet, IL. They had a solid lineup of matches that was headlined by a triple threat ladder match for the No Limits Championship.

Dead Ending – Dead Ending II

Dead Ending II A five-song EP of hardcore that is as good as it gets and comfortably familiar. Fans of Articles of Faith will find this EP especially appealing!
Rating: ★★★★¼ 

Dead Ending – Dead Ending II 12″ EP
Alternative Tentacles

What do you get when you combine one of the best front men of the early hardcore punk days with a bunch of very talented younger musicians who were likely influenced by said front man’s band? If you are talking about musicians in the Chicago area then what you get is Dead Ending. This supergroup is comprised of Vic Bondi of Articles of Faith (who happen to be one of the best Chicago bands of all time and were very influential in this area), Derek Grant of Alkaline Trio, Joe Principe of Rise Against, and Jeff Dean of The Bomb and a half million other bands. Punk rock worlds collided as these four guys from different generations of punk rock got together to form a punk rock band and the results are pretty stellar and rather familiar.

For lack of a better description, Dead Ending is a hardcore band. They play fast, they have loud guitars, they have a lot of energy, and they have a great singer with a powerful voice. Three of the five songs on this EP are pretty straight on hardcore that while fast, is not thrash. These are also the shorter songs on the record. The other two are longer and more varied, with “Indefinite Detention” being the true standout on the record with its fast verse and somewhat more melodic chorus. It ends up being a powerful song that is equally catchy. The last track is a more mid-tempo song that is heavy in a more plodding sense.

With the band playing this style of music and Bondi’s vocal delivery being how it is, it is hard not to compare this band to Articles of Faith. It’s easy to do because Dead Ending’s music is very similar to that of AoF and having the singer of AoF certainly makes it sound that much more alike. There is nothing wrong with that though. Dead Ending’s music is as good as this style of music gets and is timeless and Bondi’s vocal sound and delivery were built for this kind of music. It’s actually quite refreshing to hear him play this kind of music again after so long and he couldn’t have paired himself up with a better group of musicians who were more than capable to deliver a powerful bed of sound underneath Vic’s voice.

This EP is rather short in length and it almost could have been squeezed onto a 7″ EP but it probably would have come at the cost of sound quality so it is better that they opted for the 12″ size vinyl. It comes on standard weight black vinyl and contains not only a lyric sheet but also a download code for a digital copy of the record. This is something that should become a standard in the record business and it’s great to see it catching on more and more. The record has a nice, full, and loud sound and this style of music was meant to be listened to on the vinyl medium.

Word has it that the band is going to be making a third record and hopefully they stick around for a long time as they have a very comfortable sound that should appeal to both old-timers like myself and the younger generation of punks like the other members of the band. Nice job fellas!


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