Full Value Review - Madlins 12-17-04 Review

MADLINS 12/17/04 FRIDAY SHOW

This Madlins show of 12/17/04 stands at the two week mark until New Year’s Eve and the return to Indiana of my youngest son, Jaryn, who arrived yesterday for his first trip to this piece of backlot Hollywood we like to call Temecula. Besides the absence of strolling hookers, a bar on almost every corner, adult book stores, and boarded up storefronts that you find in many towns and cities, Temecula has great weather and a thriving new music scene here at Madlins. Tonight is Jaryn’s first taste of Barbieland. He is thirteen and tomorrow I’ll put him on my cell phone plan so he can be part of the scene, like all the people who read these reviews and belong to the myspace.com community, but for his first visit, it’s ‘baby steps’, just the weather, the hills, the beach, and of course, Disneyland. Tonight’s line-up is:

SET 1 – GOD WILL PUNISH

As I’ve stated in past reviews, many of today’s new music bands, both signed and unsigned, have a solid basis of religion (Sons of Light) and politics (the Jeffersonian type). Punk rock, which started when ‘rock’ grew soft and less rebellious, fits this niche perfectly. Sons of Light are at ‘war’ with the Sons of Darkness, who now run the world and so they rebel against the status quo. It is within this framework that GWP seems to operate, as well mannered punks with multicolored hair spikes, black stud belts, and contrasting color patches of hair along with older college kid types and parents showed up to hear the band from Menifee, CA, a town just northeast of Murrieta off the I-215 Freeway. The 3-piece group, aged 24-19, is made up of Matt Chan (singer/guitar/songwriter) with a power punk rock background, Adrian Daugherty (drums), and Benjamin Williams (bass). This straight 3cord punk music leans more toward rock than hardcore or headbanger metal. Lively stuff, this retro punk, as the last song had Apryl Lynn (Bill’s young daughter in our group picture) doing jumping jacks to the beat. See myspace.com for their space or link from Jackie’s space of ‘friends’

SET 3 – DISTORTED YOUTH

Setting the pace at the other end of punk rock in the political punk arena is DISTORTED YOUTH, drawers of yet another eclectic crowd ranging from hotties in short skirts and Uggs to studded jackets. From playing around (Planet) Hemet, the locals and fans jammed to speed punk songs like ‘Distorted Motel’ to the political rants of ‘Dirty F**king Taliban’ to ‘The Beer Song’, something we oldsters can all chug to. All this from the three month old collaboration of Mike Mayhem (drums), black hoodied-off by the fourth song-The Chad (guitar), Slappy Seth (bass) black cap hiding his Mohawk, and shaved head frontman with a black wifebeater, Chuck Savage. Besides doing a ‘just finished it today’ song (a growing tradition for Madlins bands) the boys did a CKY cover, ‘The Quality What’s Left’.

– PT ROTHSCHILD