The Electric Banana

The Electric Banana (Image from Mondesi's House)

The Electric Banana, located on 3887 Bigelow Boulevard in Oakland, began as a go-go/disco/covers club in the seventies. But it hit its stride between 1980-99, when it reigned as Pittsburgh's punk central after owners Johnny and Judy Zarra, better known as Johnny and Judy Bananas, made the switch from mainstream cover bands to the underground sound.

The club name itself is popularly associated with English folkie Donovan, who sang of an "electrical banana" - a vibrator - in his 1966 tune "Mellow Yellow." (Remember, it was a go-go joint when it opened in 1970.) Flip's Electric Banana dance club in Monroeville was popular in the late sixties, so a little copy-catting is also possible. There are other more or less plausible stories floating around; it may have simply sounded cool.

During its twenty year punk run, the club featured national hardcore acts like the Butthole Surfers, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sonic Youth, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Hüsker Dü, Dead Milkmen, Descendants and They Might Be Giants, who mentioned the Banana in their song "Pittsburgh." Though mostly about Mr. Small's, TMBG sing "I still have dreams about a place, Called the Electric Banana where we're falling into space!"

Local acts found a home there too, with bands like the Cynics, Half Life, The Five, Cardboard, ATS, Little Wretches and Carsickness playing the bar often and loudly.

Why go punk? For the money, doh. The other genres were dying off or booked to the max. It didn't help that The Banana was located in an isolated part of Oakland closer to Bloomfield and the Hill, away from the campus walk-about scene that orbited around the Decade and other clubs. They needed a draw.

The story is that Karl Mullen of Carsickness (later of Ploughman's Lunch and a variety of other musical & artistic projects) came in and asked Johnny for a gig. He got it, the Zarras got their full house, and the punk boom began. (Karl, by the way, was virtually an adopted son of the Zarras and was an early habitue of The Banana.)

Nascent Pittsburgh punk was a college phenomena, and drew the artsy kids from Pitt and CMU. Within a couple of years, though, the genre became far more blue collar and rowdier. The Zarras discovered a second benefit from the transition - the club hardly required any upkeep or fancy accouterments like mirrored globes to keep the kids happy.

The Banana had a 2' drum riser that was the stage's high point, a sound system and the bands set up their own equipment in the back of the building under a string of Christmas lights. The drop ceiling was home to a family of racoons. The commode...well, don't go there (unless you really, really had to).

But it worked. Early punkers played out of apartments, basements and rented halls, so the hardcore fans weren't looking for plush surroundings for their head-banging. Nor did their behavior usually warrant the velvet glove treatment.

"The Bananas" were legendary for their "good cop, bad cop" act with the crowd and artists. Banana regulars all have their favorite story of Johnny chasing audience members and sometimes bands out of his club while waving a pistol.

But earth mama Judy, who had been a go-go dancer at the club, would take young bands under her wing and whip up a meal for them, while her hubby, tough as nails on the outside but kindly at heart, would slip struggling players a couple of bucks to get a meal when the show was done, with 24-hour eateries White Tower and Ritters in the vicinity.

And they often needed a little TLC. Johnny's policy was to set the band's pay according to the amount collected at the door, with no guarantee. While he booked acts, often from a pay phone or with a nod and handshake, he wasn't about to promote them, so the night's success was laid at the bands' feet.

Some of the groups that had a little business savvy got the word out to their followers and public, and they did OK (although often suspicious that Johnny kept the lion's share of the door receipts. Hey, caveat emptor! After all, Johnny was the lion king of his den.)

Others, happy to find a warm place to play while ignoring the equally important business end, often found out they were performing an unplanned charity gig. And it wasn't just local acts that had to toe Johnny's line; so did the national punks.

The most famous lore involved the Scottish band Exploited, who played the club in 1991. Their frontman, Wattie, was busy smashing the few pieces of equipment provided by The Banana, mics and stage lights, during the show. After the performance, a brouhaha broke out when Johnny wouldn't pay them, claiming the gate didn't cover the damage done.

It's alleged he chased them out of the building at gunpoint, and the band camped outside in protest. They never did get paid, although true to form, it's said that Johnny drove past them a couple of times during the night to make sure they were OK.

The punks had a two decade run at The Banana, but eventually all clubs come to an end. Hardcore had other venues to choose from, and the Zarra's, surrogate parents to a generation of punkers, turned the building into an Italian restaurant in 2000. It's called "Zarra's: A Taste Of Southern Italy." Good food, and slinging pasta is a heckuva lot saner way to make a buck.

But the club still lives on. First, it left a punk legacy that fueled the City's hardcore scene, and the Cynics, Anti-Flag, Kim Phuc and a number of other bands still carry that torch. And its history is retold through a couple of collector items, like the hippy-inspired op-art posters that adorned local telephone poles and the Warhol/Velvet Underground banana motif used on its signage and matchbooks.

The Electric Banana may be gone, but its scene survived and thrived. So has its no-frills reputation as the birthplace of Pittsburgh punk.

Karl Mullen's Carsickness, The Electric Banana's first punk act, with 1981's "Dull Days"

Bobby Porter

Bobby Porter
Rupert Cleo "Bobby" Porter, 59, died of stomach cancer at the age of 59 in the VA hospital. The mighty mite of a singer fronted garage punkers Young Lust, Thin White Line, and his current band Short Dark Strangers.

A memorial for Porter will be held Sunday, November 21st at 9 PM at Kopecs in Lawrenceville. Friends are invited to speak, and are asked to keep their comments to three minutes.

Born in the Hill in 1951, he learned his craft in a church choir. After high school, Porter joined the Marines and went to Vietnam as a tunnel rat, scurrying through dark warrens under the jungle floor chasing after Charlie. The punk scene was a holiday after that tour of duty.

He got his discharge in the early '70s, and Porter led a southwest band called Otis and the Red Z (southwest as in New Mexico, not Pennsylvania) that played rock & soul. Porter returned to Pittsburgh a few years later to get in on the emerging Three Rivers punk scene and formed Young Lust.

They played clubs like the Electric Banana (Porter lived in Oakland then, and held court at Chief's Cafe when he wasn't singing or clubbing), the Lion's Walk, Cedar Lounge and Phase III. Like most punk bands, they didn't get much mainstream love, but their tapes were played on the college stations.

His shows were legendary. The music may have been from the garage, but Porter's vocals were straight from Memphis. And though slight of stature, he was a physical dynamo.

He would go through a variety of stage antics and back-flipping acrobatics, jump on tables, walk on the bar...it was always a good idea to hang on to your drink when Porter took the stage. And when the band took a break, Porter would do a powerful acapella "Dock of the Bay" to remind the punk crowd of his R&B roots.

In fact, his second band, Thin White Line, made up their own version of the tune, “Dock of the Bus Stop.” TWL was a fixture on the Youngstown and Pittsburgh punk scenes starting in 1983 through the mid-90′s.

That's when Thin White Line became Short Dark Strangers, which described their sound as "Otis Redding or Wilson Picket (with) a punk band backing them."

The band did two tours of Europe and had a healthy performance schedule, hitting towns like Buffalo, Erie, Baltimore and Cleveland. Their home base in Pittsburgh was Howler's, though they performed in several area bars and clubs.

Music was a way of life for Porter, but not a way to earn a living. He took whatever day jobs fit his schedule, from bouncing to pushing a broom. Porter was single, and the life suited him.

Now he and Otis can join in a duet - and hang on to those glasses!

(Bobby's friends have set up a Facebook remembrance page; some great tales, pix and vids on the site.)


Bobby Porter and Thin White Line - Strange Glances

SpacePimps

SpacePimps from Kick Rock Music
Hey, Shady Side Academy seems like an unlikely jumping off point for a punk pop band, but it's the alma mater of the SpacePimps.

Maybe it's not surprising; every school has its normal kids, jocks, frat guys, goths, and the boys in the band roaming the halls. They just preferred to party down at places like Laga and Graffiti instead of the keggers.

Lead singer and guitarist Rishi Raj Bahl hooked up with drummer Jared Roscoe there, and after their senior year added bassist Brian Cain. They've kept the same power-trio lineup ever since, six years and counting.

Bahl is the son of an Indian doctor and his mom is from Wilkinsburg, and the ringleader of the band. He caught the fever after moshing at the Warped Tour '96 as a pre-teen.

The fever didn't quite extend into a rebellious persona; he told Manny Theiner of the Post Gazette that he and the guys are "straightedge" - no dope or booze.

And they are a kinda role model trio. The group operates its own business end, including the booking, promotion, sales, and finances (both of their CDs, 2006's "Turn It Up!" and their recently issued "Stuck Here Forever" are self-released.) They are managed by Patrick Gillespie of Restless Management, their link to the outside industry

Bahl worked on a triple major in college, and is in line to pick up a PhD in business during the fall, a pretty handy background for a developing group. His bandmates are both working their way toward a degree, too, mostly on-line. So handling the business side may be hectic, but the guys are well suited for it.

In fact, their education earned them some national love from Newsweek magazine, who featured them in a 2007 article describing the struggle between getting a sheepskin and banging out chords for a living.

But while they may be called a college punk band, the music has been the focus, not the tassels and gowns. They've moved nearly 10,000 copies of their debut EP, no small task for an indie, and parlayed it into a big following in Japan.

A Tokyo indie label, Kick Rock Music, inked the Pimps and brought them over for a 2007 tour. They headlined four sold-out shows - Pittsburgh probably has more punk bands in town than Japan does nationally - and KRM is handling the newest release for the Nippon market.

And the boys do like to spread their sound around. After starting off with "battle of the bands" gigs and graduating to the clubs, the Pimps have gone on four national tours, and shared a stage with local band Punchline and bigger acts like Fall Out Boy, Reel Big Fish, The Starting Line, New Found Glory and Bowling for Soup. They even got a shot on The Warped Tour.

The latest tour launched with a CD release show June 18th at South Side's Club Diesel (the album’s first single, “Running Away (Leave the Light On),” has been released via iTunes) and takes them into the Midwest for the short term. And they still do it the old school way, piling into a van and schlepping their amps onto whatever stage will take them.

The band's goal, of course, is to get picked up by a label (that item hasn't gotten past the talking point yet) and see how far their music can take them. And with comparisons to groups like Blink-182 and Fall Out Boy, there's a good chance that opportunity will bear fruit.

One last question - how did a clean-cut group of punks become the SpacePimps? As explained to Manny Theiner:

In Bahl's senior year, he suddenly needed to come up with a band name. "We were practicing in Jared's walk-in closet," he recalls, "when Jared's little nephew, who was 6 or 7 and had been watching MTV's 'Pimp My Ride,' said, 'You guys look like a bunch of pimps from outer space.' Jared submitted the name without telling me, and we showed up to the high school battle of the band. The sign said 'The SpacePimps are playing Blink-182 covers,' and I was mortified."

But it stuck.

SpacePimps - "What's My Age Again"

Punchline

Punchline from Starpulse
Punchline is a pop punk band from Belle Vernon that first formed in 1997 as a trio. Its original members were lead vocalist/guitarist Steve Soboslai, bassist Chris Fafalios, and drummer PJ Caruso.

They were all students in BVHS, and began by playing local Mon Valley shows. They recorded "How to Get Kicked Out of the Mall," that was heavy on punk/ska, their initial trademark sound. In later recordings, the ska influence would wane; pop harmonies gradually replaced the Jamaican rhythms.

In 1999, the band self-produced and released their first full-length album, "Punchline."

Guitarist/vocalist Paul Menotiades signed up, and they recorded and co-produced "Major Motion Picture" in 2001. Punchline followed that in 2002 with "The Rewind" EP. The EP's four tracks featured for the first time their now signature pop-punk sound.

In 2003, the band signed with Fueled by Ramen Records, the Tampa-based indie label. "The Rewind" was remixed, remastered, and reissued. Early pressings included a DVD of Punchline in action.

With February 2004's "Action," Punchline continued on its pop-punk trail by featuring sharp harmonies, catchy melodies and riffs, and a strong rhythm section.

Soboslai, Menotiades, and Fafalios interweaved vocals on the disk, and the first 10,000 pressings also included a new DVD. Gotta love that multi-media approach.

That's when they lost their first player. Menotiades left the band in mid-tour, and Greg Wood replaced him for the remaining shows on the schedule.

Wood, a solo artist and member of Connecticut's West Beverly band, eventually joined the group full-time, and played keyboard and guitar on Punchline's 2006 release "37 Everywhere."

Why that title? The album's CD notes explain: "The number 37 is everywhere. It is in your daily routine and it will surprise you. Look for it and it will look for you." Even the liner notes contain 37 references to the number 37, and the band had 37 titles to select from when putting the tracks together. Spooky, hey?

"37 Everywhere," was released in 2006. The album was dedicated to John "Beatz" Holohan (1974-2005), former drummer of Bayside, and had a half-dozen guest punk players pop up on its tracks.

Greg Wood amicably bailed out in the summer of 2006. He left the band to pursue a solo career and to teach guitar. Keepin' that fourth member around was proving to be quite the chore for Punchline.

Wood was replaced by keyboardist Jon Belan, who was a high school bud, former member of The Berlin Project, and now lead singer for Gene the Werewolf.

In early 2008, the band left Fueled By Ramen, which had helped them become a presence locally and internationally. Later that summer, Punchline created their independent label, Modern Short Stories, using the $25,000 winnings from Heavy's Contraband Contest, a net-based battle of the bands. Punchline’s videos were viewed over 1,100,000 times in four months on the site.

It's a unique boutique. Modern Short Stories has released a children's book authored by Fafalios and Tony Hartman, and plans to be a multi-media producer. For now, it has a couple of albums in the works and a DVD planned, both aimed for year-end release.

The album "Just Say Yes" was released on their label in September of 2008, with a limited four-track bonus disc. It marks a transition, from less of a punk sound to more of a heavy rock beat, ala Green Day and Weezer.

Punchline isn't just a studio band, though they've moved over 100,000 albums worldwide. They've cultivated a dedicated fan base (the "Punchkids"), using a blend of social networking on the web and a well-developed, often self-depreciating, sense of humor, and toured like madmen.

Punchline has played with Catch 22, Coheed and Cambria, Good Charlotte, Brand New, Reel Big Fish, Sum 41, Less Than Jake, and was part of the Warped Tour

In 2003, as a FBR act, they appeared in over 200 shows. During the summer of 2004, Punchline strutted their stuff in Japan with Fall Out Boy. In the spring of 2005, they embarked on their first headliner road trip, the Now or Never Tour.

They returned to the Land of the Rising Sun in June of 2006, when they had top billing on a Japanese tour with Paramore and October Fall. Punchline toured the UK for the first time in 2007 as a supporting act on the Good To Go Tour, and returned in 2008 for a second go-around on the GTGT, in addition to a lot of Tri-State dates.

This year, they're riding the bus for a series of American stops. In June, Punchline co-headlined the Major/Minor Tour with the band Socratic.

In September, Punchline set out on the AbsolutePunk Next Favorite Band Tour with groups Farewell, Between The Trees, and Action Item, focusing on midwestern and southern venues, ending in November. They'll follow up by taking to the highway with Hawthorne Heights, Just Surrender, Monty Are I and Nightbeast.

And hey, besides those early DVD's, the band also has a couple of vids to their credit for the tracks "The Ghostie" and "The Hit" from "Just Say Yes."

2009 saw a little more shake-up on the personnel front. In January, long-time drummer and original member P.J. Caruso left the band (on good terms; he said was going back to college and had a day job), to be replaced behind the kit by Pat Dee.

Then in late August, guitarist Jon Belan exited, to howl as Gene the Werewolf full-time. Former guitarist Paul Menotiades (currently playing as part of the singer/songwriter duo The Composure with Jesse Hall) is replacing Belan for their autumn tour "and possible future recordings."

"Delightfully Pleased," their newest release, hits the stores on August 10, 2010 from Modern Short Stories/TDR Records, and will include a limited vinyl edition. The release party is set for Friday, August 13 at Club Diesel. Its music features return to Punchline's roots sound, uptempo and percussive.

The band is now Soboslai, Fafalios, and new drummer Cory Muro, along with founding member Menotiades; the original trio are back together. The band will its US tour dates in the coming weeks.

Hey, the faces change, but everything old is new again, and the Punchline remains the same.


Punchline - "Ghosties"

Up The Revolution, Pittsburgh Style

Photo by Jazmin Million at Toronto's Warped Tour
Hey, Pittsburgh's home-grown, kick-out-the-jams punkers, Anti-Flag, were all ready to welcome the G-20 gang to the 'Burg with a Club Zoo concert, sponsored by the Students For A Democratic Society.

But they were thwarted by Mayor Luke and the Secret Service; the security zone would have made it well nigh impossible to get people into the Strip District venue without a major hassle. Pity; it was the last chance to see them here for awhile.

But don't obsess over missing their cancelled show. You may still get to see them live later in the week, just on the avenue instead of the stage. "We are looking forward to joining the thousands of young people in the streets of Pittsburgh," the band said after they scrubbed the booking, "to resist the failed policies of the G20."

After a little street theater, it's on the road again for the group.

They have their visas stamped for a couple of months on the far side of the Atlantic. Starting October 7th, Anti-Flag will be part of the Eastpak Antidote Tour 2009 with bands Alexisonfire, Four Year Strong and The Ghost Of A Thousand.

For six weeks, they'll gig in England, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Finland.

A trek like that is nothing out of the ordinary for Anti-Flag. They’ve toured in Russia, the Baltic, Scandinavia and Europe. AF has appeared on the Big Day Out festival tour in Australia with Rage Against the Machine, Billy Bragg, Arcade Fire and Bjork.

They were the only band to play two sets each day at the Leeds and Reading Festivals in England. Anti-Flag has headlined at the Rhein Kultur, the biggest free festival in Germany. And hey, they've pretty well criss-crossed the US, too, just finishing up the Warped Tour.

Why all the frequent flier mileage? Because they truly think music can change the world. Justin Sane (No, we don't think he's related to Justin Case), lead guitarist and band co-founder, explains:

"It is not a song, a record, a t-shirt, or a band that changes and shapes the world. It’s community and union. Our band writes songs to build community and union, to create awareness and preparedness for when the students and workers of the world push to level the playing field and bring equality."

All you have to do to understand where the band is coming from is to take a look at the play list on their latest release, "The People Or The Gun," issued by LA's Side One Dummy label and recorded in Pittsburgh at AF's newly-built studio.

It features “Sodom, Gomorrah, Washington D.C. (Sheep in Shepherd’s Clothing),” “The Economy is Suffering…Let It Die,” and “The Gre(A)t Depression.” No Pat Boone stuff there.

And the band does put its guitars where its mouth is. They’ve created the non-profit organizations Military Free Zone (opposing military recruitment in schools) and the Underground Action Alliance (a networking site for social justice).

Drummer Pat Thetic adds “It’s a priority to put the emphasis of our band and every show we play on community, whether it be canned food drives for local food banks, raising money to build wells in Africa, or clothing drives for the homeless.”

Hey, not every band in Pittsburgh is about the girls. Anti-Flag's message is all about social justice, and its chops have their roots in the Clash and the Ramones. And that's a sound worth listening to.


"Press Corpse" live from Pukkelpop 2008 (Kiewit, Belgium)

Not To Be Cynical

Renaissance Fair
In September 1983, the punk-rock cover band Jetsons guitarist Gregg Kostelich struck out on his own and formed the Psycho Daisies with Mark Keresman (vocals), Pam Reyner (bass) and Bill Slam (drums).

Slam quit in a snit when he found out he wasn't gonna be the front man. Bill von Hagen took his place pounding the skins, and they changed the band's name. It was the birth of the Cynics, perhaps the best garage band to ever come from Pittsburgh.

In 1985, the Cynics released their first 45 on California's punk rock Dionysus label, "Painted My Heart" b/w "Sweet Young Thing" (ID 074501) with Keresman doing the lead vocals. It was Dionysus first vinyl ever, and it got them off on a good foot. The label is still going strong today.

That's also the year they shared the stage with Michael Kastelic, sound engineer of the Wake. Wake, a promising band, broke up after some in-house sniping, and Kastelic joined the Cynics, not as a roadie but a full-fledged member of the group and singer. It would prove to be a hook-up made in rock 'n' roll heaven.

A second 45 on Dionysus, "No Place to Hide" b/w "Hard Times" (ID 074504) was their first with Kastelic on vocals. The band formed its own label, Get Hip, and released its debut single "69," a cover of the Arondies hit, b/w "Friday Night" (GH 100) with Keresman on vocals. Released may be too strong a word; it was actually a fans-only disc, sold mainly at the their shows.

In all, the Cynics would release 25 big 7" records, mostly on Get Hip.

They cut their first LP in 1986, "Blue Train Station Sessions," recorded on Skyclad (NAKED 2). The Cynics were then made up of Kostelich, Kastelic, Beki Smith on organ, Steve Magee on bass and von Hagen on drums. Remember Kostelich and Kastelic. They and future drummer Tommy Hohn are pretty much the only constants in the band, which has gone through nine or ten configurations since its Psycho Daisy days.

"The day it hit the streets in New York," Kostelich recalled while talking to the Post Gazette. "I got a call from a promoter who said 'This record is great. I want to talk to Gregg from the Cynics,' because we put our phone number right on the back of the album. This is before you had faxes and e-mails." It led to The Cynics making their first New York appearance.

The wax was followed by 1987's "12 Flights Up," (NAKED 5) and late 1989's "Rock and Roll," (NAKED 25) their biggest-selling album, both on Skyclad (The Skyclad sessions would be reissued by Get Hip). R&R featured an original ballad, "Close To Me," and rockers "Girl, You're On My Mind" and "You Got the Love."

The popularity of "Rock and Roll," sent the Cynics to Europe in 1990, where audiences still pack the house to see them gig.

The LP also caught the notice of the major labels - eleven offered the Cynics recording deals. They spent 1990-92 touring and pondering going on a major label, but ended up empty handed.

But their recordings kept coming. A Spanish label, Impossible Records, released a live recording, "Stranded in Madrid," (017) in 1991. Get Hip later reissued it as "No Siesta Tonight," (GH 1014) in 1994. Get Hip cut the live "VPRO Radio Broadcast" LP (GH 1002) that same year. In 1992, a compilation, "Cynicism," was put out by 1 + 2 Records, a Japanese label (1 + 2 CD 15).

In 1993, they followed up R&R with "Learn to Lose" (GH 1008). Kostelich says it was more grunge than garage. Old Mon can't really tell the difference, but apparently the fans can - it fizzled.

A year later, the Cynics released "Get Our Way," (GH 1030), returning to their garage roots. It was to be their last hurrah for a while.

On New Year's Eve, 1995, Kastelic left the band. It was widely credited to burnout, which was indeed a major contributor, but actually, it was the flu that lit the fuse that blew up the Cynics. The story, according to the Post Gazette's Ed Masley:

A week or two before he left the band, Kastelic and Kostelich had a major blowout on the way home from a Detroit gig. And he was still upset that Kostelich had let stomach flu keep him home from a Cynics appearance at Cavestomp, a garage-rock festival in New York City that went on to play a major role in the current revival of interest in all things garage.

Kastelic was already in New York with the other two guys in the band hanging out at the club when Kostelich decided he was just too sick to load the van and drive the whole way there alone.

As Kostelich recalls, "That was the straw that broke the camel's back for Michael. He thought I blew him off. And that's where the argument started. And the backstabbing. If they would have stayed in Pittsburgh and we'd all gone up together and I bundled up, I could have done it. We used to take pride in not missing shows, but when you're left alone in Pittsburgh and you get the flu that bad, you can't be driving. But Michael, 'til this day, he doesn't believe it."

Told that Kostelich has said that, Kastelic replies with a laugh, "Well, to this day, even if he wasn't faking, he should have come."

Still, all's well that ends well. Kastelic sees his four-year separation from the group as a good thing in the long run.

"If we wouldn't have taken that break," he told Masley, "we probably would have kept plugging away that whole time, and by now, we would have been burned out and definitely broken up. And then, we would have missed this whole resurgence of interest in what we were doing."

Kastelic played with the Honeyburst after the divorce, along with former Cynics bassist Mike Michalski on guitar and current Cynics bassist Smith Hutchings on bass. Kostelnic ran Get Hip, and the life of a business dude was boring him silly.

But after an invite to play a sweet garage-fest arrived, K&K buried the hatchet, picked up drummer Tom Hohn and guitarist Woody Bond of Highway 13 to play bass, and the reunited Cynics headed west.

In July 2000, The Cynics were back at the Las Vegas Grind, a brief-lived festival held in 1999 and 2000, staged at the Gold Coast Hotel. The show starred bands that were part of the garage rock scene of the 1960s, like The Remains, The Standells, Lyres, and other regional acts from across the country and world. It was a perfect place for the Cynics to reemerge.

It launched them on the second half of their career. Two months later, they were off to Spain (Kastelic's wife, who serves as the band's business agent, is Spanish) to gig, this time with Smith Hutchings on bass, and have been touring like dervishes ever since. In fact, it became their main stage.

They do extremely well as artists in Europe, but Pittsburgh shows are rare things anymore, due greatly to the fact that their bassist and drummer live in Spain.

In 2002, the Cynics released "Living is the Best Revenge," (GH - 1050), produced by R&R guru Tim Kerr in Austin's Sweat Box Studio. It was their first session album in 7 years, and covered the gamut of Cynic sound, from uptempo folk to fuzzed out psycho-garage beats.

In fact, a 2003 gig in Madrid almost altered the singing dynamics of the Cynics for good. Kastelnic did a split on stage, and landed on his "unmentionables." It took several weeks for the singer to recover after slicing his urethra. And while the nearly sex-changing accident wasn't funny to him, their Euro promoter waxed ecstatic over the incident - it kept them in the news for weeks!

They got an added and much less painful boost when their records got some love on "Little Steven's Underground Garage," the nationally syndicated show that features Steven Van Zandt's personal rocker list. He plays the old stuff that lights his fire, not the suits, sorta like the Porky/Mad Mike era with guitars.

They got to strut their stuff and fame on August 2004, when they joined acts like the New York Dolls, Iggy Pop & the Stooges, and the Strokes, at Little Steven's International Underground Garage Rock Festival in New York.

The Cynics cut "Here We Are" in 2007 (GH - 1141), produced by Jorge Explosion, who recorded it in mono at his Circo Perrotti Studios in Gijon, Spain. USA Today called it "one of the best neo-garage-rock albums in years."

The Cynics have been keeping the garage torch burning since 1983. Along with bands like the Sonics, the Lyres, the Chesterfield Kings,? and the Mysterians, the Shadows of Knight, New Breed, DMZ, the Fuzztones, the Chocolate Watchband and the Standells, they're keeping it real, 60's style.

Though Old Mon has obsessed (as usual) on their discography, the Cynics have a great live show, honed by countless gigs in Europe, Japan, and at home (In 2010, The Cynics played Russia, Norway and Finland). If you're looking for some nosh-pit energy, catch a performance. Rock 'n' Roll is here to stay, and hey - The Cynics are supposed to have a new album out in 2011.

Kastelic says it never gets old for them. He told the Post Gazette's Scott Mervis "How many chords are there? There's about four or five. Five tops. Three that are good. The thing that garage rock has is that primal beat. It's the drumming of Mo Tucker, it's the drumming of the Standells, that really primal caveman beat. Bah bah bah. It's three chords. It's verse-chorus-verse-chorus, double-chorus-out. Something that's so innate, it's like stick against stone. That's why it will never die. It was around before punk rock."

"People as old as me and Gregg are still finding new things to do with same formula. It's always been the best music to me."


The Cynics - "Girl, You're On My Mind"

to russia with love...

Anti-Flag from Aversion

OK, we've been meaning to write about these guys for awhile. But every time we're ready to post something, someone in the real media beats us to the punch (curse you, Scott Mervis!) Go figure. Anyway, we give up - read all about them here:

Anti-Flag/My Space.

Anti-Flag/Wikipedia.

Anti-Flag/Artistopia.

Music Preview: Pittsburgh Punks Blast Anti-War Message to the World Thursday, April 03, 2008 By Scott Mervis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Anti-Flag: Frequently Asked Questions Thursday, April 03, 2008, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Anti-Flag Rockin' Russia Thursday, March 06, 2008 By Scott Mervis, Pittsburgh-Post-Gazette.

Anti-Flag Ready for 'Bright Lights' Date in Moscow Thursday, January 10, 2008 By Scott Mervis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Anti-Flag's A-F Records Gives Incommunicado a Boost Thursday January 17, 2008 By Manny Theiner, City Paper.

Not Anti American, Just Anti Stupid American May 18, 2001 Synthesis Interview.

Hey, a quick and easy post for your blogmeister, and for once you'll get some good writing! But don't get too spoiled; we'll be back on the beat next post.