Miscellaneous - Dominion, Ottawa, 4/3/2006

  by Andrew Carver

published: 17 / 3 / 2006

intro

One of Toronto’s grottiest, nastiest, loudest punk rock outfits, the Brutal Knights have a passionate fan base in Canada. Andrew Carver finds their show compelling, but exhausting at the Dominion in Ottawa

The Brutal Knights are building a reputation as one of Toronto’s grottiest, nastiest, loudest punk rock outfits, and spiky-haired and leather-jacketed denizens hitched all the way from Montreal to catch the band’s show at the Dominion, an Ottawa venue famed for its punk rock past (as well, as it was once observed, for having 50 years of broken teeth in the carpet). Ottawa’s Sweet Janes opened the show. Diminutive frontman Grady Finch packs the punk rock howl of a man twice his size, and the bullet-belted dynamo was in top mic-stand mangling form as he and the four other Janes tore through a set of their own tunes and covers of The Weirdoes’ 'Life of Crime' and The Stooges’ 'Search and Destroy'. The assembled punks bounced off one another with aerial vigour in appreciation. The Brutal Knights debut long player has 14 songs in less than 25 minutes. Live, they play them somewhat faster. Guitarists Katie G. Warrior and Randy Sharronto bring an appropriately scabby, frenetic sound to such soon-to-be classics as 'Self-Gay Handjob', 'Katie Likes Cock', 'Wet My Pants' and 'Extreme Lifestyles ‘05', while D-Dawg and punishing drummer MSGezus move the songs along at dangerous speeds. The frenzied audience flailed away, occasionally lunging for the microphone in singer XFlansX’s hands to shout the choruses or random verbal abuse (not always two different things). For an encore, the played The Trashmen's 'Surfin’ Bird', a song so stupid no one could mess it up. They messed it up anyway. I would recommend putting the Brutal Knights on a bill with The Dwarves, but I’m not sure the venue or audience would survive.

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