No Use For A Name, Diesel Boy & H.B.A.

Wicked weather didn’t stop all the little grommets from making it out this eve. H.B.A., or Hidden By Authority as they are known to some, were onstage when I rolled up and the audience was gazing at them like they were circus freaks or something. No love. The band sounded like a cross between Iggy Pop and NOFX. I’d caught them at a house party a few years back and they were rocking. But sadly, for the guys in this band, no one was really digging them at The Brick so they started making fun of the audience, a sure way to win a cautious crowd over, you know. That didn’t go over well at all. They couldn’t get over fast enough for the pop punkers that had come to see NUFAN.

I’d never heard Diesel Boy before, but I’d heard nothing but good things about them. And what I’d heard turned out to be true. These guys were cool, funny and punk (whatever that means these days). They were melodic, but not with all that sugary crap. Their frontman / guitarist, Dave, looks like a dude I went to summer camp with. They sang songs about girls and silly stuff. Fair use of the F-word was witnessed. I think one of their songs was called “Tittie Twister.” The kids loved them. I’ll even admit I kind of loved them too. I want to buy their album Cock Rock, but I’m too po’ and I gotta save my money for booze.

The No Use For A Name guys appeared soon after Diesel Boy left. They jumped right into some stuff off their albums More Betterness and Leche Con Carne, songs you may also have caught on their live disc Live In A Dive. They sounded great and they appeared to be in high spirits, I assumed because this was their first live show in front of a real audience in some time. They used to this opportunity to showcase a bunch of new shit. It sounded like new NUFAN, suprisingly enough. They’re tight. It was the bass player, Matt’s birthday and frontman Tony got the crowd to sing him “Happy Birthday.”

At one point in the set, perhaps it was at the beginning of the encore, they started to play a Slayer tune, but they quit half way through. That would’ve been rad to see them play Slayer. They played a couple of No Use tunes instead. Oh yeah, sure, you may have enjoyed that, you NUFAN fans, but I only go to punk shows to see them play death metal. Death metal rules. When are we going to get some punk bands up here to play death metal, that’s what I want to know.

– Words & photos by M. Cameron Newell

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