Polar Opposites

So yesterday (friday) night I went to Salt Lake to see a band called OFF! They're a hardcore punk band from California. Super great. Their singer is none other than Keith Morris. (a previous singer of Black Flag, and the founder of the Circle Jerks). Randomly last year he decided to pull together a band and record some stuff. and now they're touring. So of course I had to go see them! It was the second smallest concert I've ever been to, aside from local ones. probably no more than 60 people there, and 15 of those were from the other opening bands. anyways, keith walked on stage all calm like, set up his mike and taped down the set list. then they started playing. He completely changed into a different person. Dancing around, veins bulging on his neck. He was possessed or something. it was great! best part is, he's probably almost 50 years old. still just as hard core as ever. I was right up in front of the stage. the guitarist was so close I could have reached out and played his guitar for him. In fact, he nearly kicked me in the face a few times. twice during the show he was so close and head banging, that his hair actually hit me. and let me tell you, he does not have long hair! doesn't quite go down to his lips. Anyways, they played every song they've written as OFF! with a few pauses in between where Keith talked about random things.  They played roughly 45 minutes tops and the show was over. But get this, after the show was done, they walked off stage and we cheered for an encore. So finally they came back on and Keith started telling a story. "back in the early days, when my band was starting to get a bigger following, people would cheer for an encore. But we didn't really know what to play. We had written like 4 more songs recently, but we weren't good enough to play them yet. So we'd just start the set all over again." just then, they busted back into the first song they played that night. and they played the first three songs of the show over again. It was so great! I'd never even heard of that! Here's a taste of their music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKkiuD8TRUY

After the show, my dad went over and bought their cd titled "The first 4 EP's" and that's what it is, a collection of their EP's. we listened to it. There are 16 songs on the cd and the whole thing can't be longer than 10 minutes.

Now it's story time. Back in my junior high days, I was often referred to as "the Hippie punk" cause well, I love all that 60's music as well as hardcore punk. My two favorite genres are Hardcore punk and 60's Jam bands. polar opposites. Punk is just so great! I grew up on that stuff (as well as the 60's stuff). I'd personally love to be in a punk band. It seems so fun! Punk typically gets a bad rap as being simple "anyone can do it" music to play. and some of it is, but that's generally not true. Punk musicians are super talented. I mean to be able to play things that fast is ridiculous. I've learned a few Minor Threat bass lines and they are relatively simple, but not when you have to play them to speed! It's funny cause most people these days just think I'm a hippie...little do they know.
Also I think it's super funny that in under a week, I went from seeing the Grateful Dead to seeing OFF!  I mean there were only like 3 songs the dead played that were shorter than 9 minutes. one song of theirs is as long as 16 of OFF!'s.

Man I love music