SMOKE & FICTION: From left, DJ Bonebrake, Exene Cervenka, John Doe, and Billy Zoom of the band X. Photo by Gilbert Trejo
X takes the stage at Variety Playhouse this Sunday, October 27, as part of the group’s farewell tour, supporting their latest—and final—album, Smoke & Fiction. It’s the culmination of a long legacy in red-blooded American punk and rock ‘n’ roll, featuring the original lineup of singer Exene Cervenka, singer and bass player John Doe, guitar player Billy Zoom, and drummer DJ Bonebrake. Since forming in the summer of ‘77, X has stood as the cornerstone of Los Angeles’ first-wave punk scene. Now, 47 years later, the group is taking one last bow.
Smoke & Fiction’s June 2024 release arrived with news that the band was hanging it up for good. The album is stacked with themes of finality and reflection woven throughout singles such as “Big Black X,” which nods to their early days as punk upstarts, to other songs such as “Sweet ’til the Bitter End” and “Ruby Church,” which revisit the romantic tensions that have always simmered in X’s greatest hits.
Smoke & Fiction finds X pushing their sound into the beyond and back, with deeper, darker textures, tones, and arrangements.
Zoom’s rock ‘n’ roll twang and raw punk edges, coupled with Bonebrake’s tight rhythms, ground the album, but it’s Doe and Cervenka’s balance of dissonance and harmony—urgent, commanding, and yearning—that brings it all back home. If this really is the end, X is bowing out with the same fire and fierce integrity that made the group a legend in the first place.
Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin. Photo by Jeremy Saffer.
As a founding member of Italian horror film score masters Goblin, Claudio Simonetti has written and recorded music and soundtracks for director Dario Argento’s Suspiria, Deep Red / Profondo Rosso, and Tenebre as well as for George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. For this latest round of North American shows, Simonetti’s Goblin celebrates 40 years of director Lamberto Bava’s 1985 cult classic film Demons. The group will perform a live score set to a screening of the movie.
After the film, following a brief intermission, the group will play a Goblin “best of” set, tearing through all of the Technicolor blood-stained classics that you want to hear.
Mike Baggetta (left) & Peter DiStefano. Photo by Dan Jones
Mike Baggetta of MSSV teams up with Porno For Pyros’ Peter DiStefano for a duo performance blending together improvisation, some new compositions, and a few cover tunes in a set of dueling guitars and voices.
They’ve been on the road together for the “Punk Jazz 2024 Tour” since the beginning of August, working out material for a new album they’re recording at PULP Arts in Gainesville, FL the night before making their way to Atlanta.
For this second leg of the tour, Baggetta and DiStefano will show off some of the new material they’ve worked up while out on the road. They’ll roll out a Porno For Pyros song or two, and they’ll even play some newer MSSV songs that are coming together for an upcoming third album due out in the Spring of 2025.
Shane Parish returns, this time performing a solo set of acoustic numbers from his most recently released albums, 2022’s Liverpool (Tzadik) and 2024’s Repertoire (Palilalia Records).
The Athens-based guitarist is the driving force behind the math-punk mania of Ahleuchatistas, and is a member of the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet. Armed only with an acoustic guitar, Parish leads an emotional, contemplative journey, where each song becomes a new canvas for his introspective artistry.
“Parish possess a seamless ability to rise above his highly evolved technical skill level as an improviser, arranger, and composer, always allowing the true beauty of the music he’s playing to shine above all else.”
Robocromp is a duo featuring Atlanta saxophonist Jeff Crompton (also of Anagrams) and Chattanooga-based guitarist Rob Rushin. Together, they channel an eclectic blend of avant-garde jazz and experimental rock into mostly original numbers and occasional covers by Ornette Coleman, Abdullah Ibrahim, and the likes.
$15. 8 p.m. Sat., Sept. 28. First Existentialist Congregation of Atlanta, 470 Candler Park Dr NE.
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Corndogorama: The Musical. Photo by Sam Feigenbaum
Corndogorama is back!
It’s been eight years since our friend David Railey—a veritable Vanna White to Atlanta’s indie rock scene—hosted the Corndogorama. The DIY summer music festival is known for its casual community-oriented atmosphere and marathon of local bands on stage.
This year’s resurrection may have seemed like a Record Plug event to the uninitiated. The magazine was a key sponsor and a curator of this year’s lineup, as we sought out and rallied the bands to play all three days—June 21-23, 2024. But make no mistake, Corndogorama is the brainchild of—and the birthday party celebrating—Railey’s decades-long tenure in Atlanta’s music scene. Remember his bands? American Dream? Ancient Chinese Secret? Casionova? Day Mars Ray? Jesus Honey? The list goes on. Corndogorama has endured countless ups and downs since it kicked off at Dottie’s on Memorial Drive way back in 1996.
This year was wrought with an equal number of ups and downs. But hey, we raised $2,515 for Upbeat: The Tigerbeat Foundation for musicians, a non-profit organization dedicated to getting struggling independent musicians back on their feet via an emergency grant program.
Over the years, my [Kip’s] bands (Haricot Vert, Freemasonry, Chocolate Kiss, Clemente, Victory Hands, et al) have played various benefit shows. Oftentimes I never heard how the numbers turned out, so I wanted everyone to know what their collective efforts raised.
The attendance for Friday was decent, Saturday turned out great, and Sunday was a bust. But that’s okay. Three days in the June heat is a big ask. But the bands played on, and we appreciate every one of you who came out, said hello, and watched the show.
It was three days of musical triumphs and logistical catastrophes: No Corndog eating contest? No vendor tents? No flip-flop parade, no ass-kissing booth? No Topo Chico! That sucked! Oh well. It’s been nearly a decade since the Corndogorama went down, and some skills have to be relearned. We’ll be back next year stronger than ever.
Saturday’s crowd warmed our hearts, and it helped cover the whole weekend’s production costs. I [Kip] personally want to thank Amos, Van, and the whole A Rippin Production crew for keeping everything running smoothly, despite Saturday’s murderous heat. They put in the work and kept the costs low to raise as much as possible for Upbeat. Thanks are also due to Shane Pringle, Tim Song, and Boggs Social & Supply, who selflessly took no money from the ticket sales. They worked the full weekend, relying on bar sales alone to cover their end. It’s a good thing y’all drank so much.
Shane’s band Bad Spell tore up the outdoor stage on Saturday.
Pabst Blue Ribbon was an excellent sponsor, donating kegs and money, and Music Go Round saved our tails by loaning us the outdoor backline. Topo Chico! Where were you? We waited for you with bated breath and hope in our hearts, but you left us hanging.
Ups and downs. Maybe we’ll see you next year.
A sincere and exhaustive shout-out goes to all the bands that performed throughout the weekend; those who gave their time and delivered stellar performances reminded us of why we’re in this in the first place. And we know it’s a labor of love to practice even a short set, haul yourselves and your equipment across the city to the venue, put on a show under the squelching summer sun, and then break it all down, load it up, and lug it all back to the practice space.
Absolutely 100%, Corndogorama would not have been able to raise a single penny for Upbeat without your time and energy. We’re sending the most sincere thanks to all of you. There were too many bands to name here, but we see you, and we love you. All of you. Thank you for sticking by Corndogorama (see what we did there?). See you next year! Until then, check out Alexa Kravitz and Sam Feigenbaum’s photos from Corndogorama: The Musical. — Kip Thomas (with some help from Chad Radford)
It’s difficult to believe that it’s been eight years since the last Corndogorama set up with its summer fair vibes with local music galore—nearly 40 bands and two DJs and fire performers are on deck for this weekend.
The long-standing Atlanta tradition returns this year, taking over Boggs Social & Supply on the Westside with three days of deep-fried good times. … Yes, there will be veggie corndogs for the veggies who walk among us, and the celebrated corndog eating contest goes down Saturday afternoon at 4:10 p.m. Who will eat the most corndogs, and how many can they keep down? This is an endurance test that’s not to be missed.
Saddam Death Cave’s Planned Obsolescence EP proves that the hardcore struggle is real, and life’s daily tormentors grow increasingly difficult to rise above as time passes. The 10-inch record’s collective resume channels decades of Southern punk, hardcore, and alternative rock pedigree: Guitar player Marlow Sanchez is an alumnus of All Night Drug Prowling Wolves, Rent Boys, and Swing Riot. Bass player Brian Colantuno played in Mission To Murder. Guitarist Mike Brennan played in Otophobia and still plays in Primate with Mastodon’s Bill Kelliher. Drummer Keefe Jutice was in the Close. Vocalist Gray Kiser fronted Winston-Salem’s straight-edge crew Line Drive.
With Planned Obsolescence, these statesmen of the scene tighten their focus to hone a classic hardcore charge, fusing experience with razor-sharp riffs and manic rhythms. Kiser’s visceral, powerful voice in the opening number, “The Last Living Mountain” is a fiery rip on rising above repression and the mechanisms of societal control. “The Gods They Made” follows through with a high-speed agit-snarl that hits on an existential level. “Aging Well, Aging Often,” Midlife Christ,” and a breakneck cover of Naked Raygun’s “Rat Patrol” vacillate between moving at a full-throttle pace, and proving that humor goes a long way, as fighting the age-old tyrants—authoritarianism, social control, and complacency—culminates here in 10 blasts of passionate, intelligent hardcore. SDC plays them like they mean it.
NOTE: Since the Planned Obsolescence EP was released, co-founding bass player Colantuno has parted ways with SDC. Ex-Otophobia and 12 oz. drummer and guitar player Elliot Goff has joined the group playing bass.
SDC’s first show with Goff playing bass is at Disorder Vinyl on Sun., June 23. They’re playing Athens at Buvez on Thurs., July 18, and at Boggs Social & Supply with Dayglo Abortions on Wed., Aug. 7.
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We’ll talk about the book for about 25 minutes. After that, Tom will play a few songs and sign copies of the book. It’s free to attend and we’ll start at 5:30 p.m. sharp! Copies of A Really Strange and Wonderful Time will be available for purchase at the store. Criminal Records is located at 1154 Euclid Ave NE A in Little 5 Points.
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