Napalm Death / Brujeria / M.D.C. / Frozen Soul – 40 Watt Club, Athens, GA, 1st November 2022

The legendary 40 Watt Club in Athens Georgia, the musical crib and birthplace of R.E.M. and The B52’s, may have never seen such a brutal bill as this. I’ve paid ten times the money (only $25 for this show) to see festivals that didn’t have a line-up of bands with the credentials of these four. M.D.C. (Multi-Death Corporation) open the show at 7:45pm to about 200 people. Singer, political leader, punk legend Dave Dictor is in a smiling mood, high-fiving me on his way up the stage ramp. I haven’t seen M.D.C. live since 1986 at the Cameo Theater in Miami Beach. I think M.D.C. stood for Millions of Dead Children at that point. This after Crass influenced one of many name shifts. Dave looks thinner than I remember. Drummer Al Schvitz is now definitely the second oldest drummer I’ve ever seen live. Only second to Roger Earl of Foghat who I saw earlier this year. And let’s just say that Slow Ride was real slow. Like driving behind a Cadillac in Century Village in South Florida slow. (Century Village is where we herd our seniors in Florida. I’ll be there soon.)

Bassist Mike Smith is electric. Singing back ups and attacking his Fender P Bass in a style not too distant from Mike Dean of Corrosion of Conformity.  Guitarist Russ Kalita has an interesting and unique guitar, I can’t even identify. Guitarist Barry D’live Ward from R.K.L. is not on this tour. However, the R.K.L. beanie kid logo adorns one of M.D.C.’s shirts for sale. No larges left though! All sold out. Grrrr. Dave Dictor doesn’t so much sing, as he just conducts a political sermon with an old school punk band backing him. He attacks all social injustices and problems plaguing our world. It’s the timeless social commentary we love and need from him. Impressive, and not surprising, when he names all the candidates in our upcoming Georgia state election that we should be voting for. Dave Dictor lives far from Georgia across the country in Oregon. His political awareness is as sharp as ever. (and yes i already early voted for all the proper candidates)

Dave tells the history of M.D.C., playing together in some form since 1974. Shockingly, this is the first time M.D.C. has ever played in Athens, Georgia. How this historic punk band and this historic punk club have not intertwined before is beyond me. Dave also explains that after 40 years (probably more) of smoking weed and eating vegetarian it hasn’t killed him like everyone in the 80s told him it would. Drummer Al Schvitz can still play fast and has plenty of bounce left in his sticks. Songs like John Wayne Was a Nazi, Dick for Brains, I Remember and even new ones off their upcoming album, to be released on Cleopatra Records, all sound fresh and vital. Dave Dictor leads the crowd in the now famous chant ‘No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA’ leading into the song Born to Die. The small and crusty crowd skanks up a storm making this a great first meeting between M.D.C. and the 40 Watt Club. Let’s hope this is not the last meeting of the two as we need these warriors to keep on punching. This is quintessential 1980’s political punk at its’ height in 2022.

Next up is Frozen Soul who play a form of Texas Death Metal. This is my second time seeing Frozen Soul. Singer, Chad Green, is now my favorite singer in metal, right there with Johan Hegg of Amon Amarth. I told him this after the show to which he politely laughed. But I’m dead serious. His vocals are conjured from another world. Bassist, Samantha Mobley, just floors it on the low end. The sound is thicker than your momma’s gravy left out for a couple of days. These guys groove with just the right amount of technicality thrown in. This band knows how to write a song. Tempo changes, build up parts, demonic note holding: all crush. The twin guitar attack of Michael Munday and Chris Bonner is crisp, crunchy, tone-rich and tight. Drummer, Matt Dennard, is becoming a road hardened skins man. I also told singer, Chad Green, Frozen Soul would soon be ruling the metal world in a big way. He politely laughed again. But he has to know and feel it is coming for this band. Athens certainly agreed with me as they went wild for them on this Tuesday night. Like Dave Dictor said about them, “Frozen Soul’s got that new angle going on.”

When Brujeria first emerged from the bowels of L.A. in the waning moments of the 1980s, the rumors we heard in South Florida (Flipside and MaximumRocknRoll magazines were our only internet then) were that Brujeria had members of Dag Nasty, Fear Factory and Napalm Death. Since then other L.A. residents rumored to have been in Brujeria include Lemmy from Motorhead, Belinda Carlisle and Jane Weidlin from the Go Go’s (but never at the same time), Kelly Osborne, Lebron James, and Morrissey, before he passed. (Wait, he’s still alive?) As Brujeria hit the stage and unleash their brand of Mexican metal, punk, hardcore, or whatever you want to call it, it becomes obvious that Shane Embury of Napalm Death is indeed playing bass for Brujeria. The Hawaiian shirt and face bandana he sports can’t hide his signature curly do. However, Brian Baker (Dag Nasty) and Dino Cazares (Fear Factory) are definitely not on this tour playing guitars.

Brujeria with three singers, two masked, bait the crowd between songs in Spanish. I can only understand a little bit of it and being a gringo I know I should be scared. The crusty latino faction of the crowd loves it and is screaming back. Mexican flags and metal-horned fists are flying from the crowd of about 275 now.  Original singer, Juan Brujo (unmasked), gets the crowd to empty their pockets of all their Marijuana. Brujeria smoke all the gringo’s Marijuana as a prelude to the song Don Quijote Marijuana. Matando Gueros is played as they fittingly chop off a white guy’s head with their well worn machetes. Brillante! It’s fun for the whole family.

Speaking of the whole family: This show was supposed to be 18 and over. Meh, why? However, standing next to me right up front was a guy and his 10-year old son. I offer to watch their merch so they can go mosh. The father explains to his son what a ‘backstage’ area is and other things about the bar and stage. When Deep Purple’s ‘Highway Star’ starts playing over the sound system he explains to his son how that is Deep Purple, the same band with the riff the kid knows how to play: Smoke on the Water. He sings him the riff. Da Da Da…  Da Da  Da Da…  Da Da Da…  Da Da. The kid is smiling ear to ear. Can you say Adorable with an anarchy A. 5-star parenting. That kid is going to be alright.

Birmingham, UK’s, Napalm Death are currently still touring for their latest album Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism until their new accompaniment E.P. Resentment is Always Seismic drops on February 11th. I’ve seen Napalm Death a few times over the past four decades. And to be clear right off, vocalist Barney Greenway, is one of my favorite humans. I would follow him off a cliff if he said that was the way. His passion for publicly demonstrating exactly how I feel about everything is unmatched. Napalm Death take the stage at 10:35pm in front of about maybe 285 people and immediately make Slayer look like an ice cream cone on Sunday. In classic Barney Greenway form the vocalist hits the 40 Watt stage and immediately goes nuts. He gyrates and spazz’s out in classic punk rock seizure form. It’s all-out raging Friday night anger being unleashed on a Tuesday.

Drummer, Danny Herrera, doesn’t get enough credit in the musician world. He looks like he should be coaching your kids soccer team or baking you the best damn pizza you ever ate. However Herrera is the undisputed king of grind core, thrash, death metal, or whatever what you want to call what Napalm does. His playing technique is pure grind core speed. He holds the sticks so lightly compared to most heavy-handed heavy music colleagues. It’s hypnotic and it’s not slowing down.  Guitarist, Mitch Harris, with his dooming dreadlocks looks like HE IS the apocalypse and his playing hauntingly matches. Bassist, Shane Embury, is the leader wizard unleashing musical devastation upon the terrestrial. It’s a dizzying fury.

Barney is like secular Jesus taking on all the sins and ills of the world right there on stage in front of you. It’s a battle of man vs beast. David vs Goliath. And for all the stress of the world belied upon his shoulders, nightly to bear in front of the world, Barney looks really damn good. He evens receives heckling from a crowd member about how young he still looks. All this angst release must be sparing his hair from greying. Kudos to you Barney. Kudos to you. The small but crusty crowd of punk and metal’s finest in Athens is revved up on a Tuesday night. Napalm slow things down for a moment with the song, Amoral, fromthe latest aforementioned 2020 released album. This song is about as Ministry, Killing Joke, or Crass-like as Napalm gets. And it is stunning.

Napalm play two covers. The first is quite vexing for it is a Bad Brains cover. A BAD BRAINS cover! The song was unrecognizable as performed. I think it might have been The Big Takeover, but I don’t know! But it was a Bad Brains cover!  M.D.C. singer, Dave Dictor, is not a fan of H.R. the famed singer of Bad Brains. In the 1980s there was an incident on tour where H.R. slandered Big Black singer Randy Turner for being gay and Dave Dictor stood up for Randy. It seems H.R. came out as homophobic; influenced by his interpretation of his religion. Most punks I know still like Bad Brains’ music but many won’t go to an H.R. solo show and a few won’t even attend a Bad Brains show now, for H.R.’s stance. I too of course have mixed feelings, as I love Bad Brains, have seen H.R. solo live, and have a H.R. poster on my wall. As a huge supporter of the LGBTQ community myself, I can only hope H.R. wakes up to an acceptance of letting love rule all, each in their own unique way. Heck at this show, I was wearing an Agnostic Front shirt. My own ideology does not always line up with theirs as they’ve said and sang some things that made me cringe a bit.

The second cover song is the Dead Kennedys’ ‘Nazi Punk Fuck Off’, which again is completely unrecognizable in Napalm form. I can’t figure out when to sing along. Neither can, Dave Dictor, as he comes out to belt the lyrics with, let’s say ‘a layering effect’.  Barney goes into a tirade against churches or any any group with enough power to tell an entire gender of humans what they can and can not do with their bodies. I believe he put it, “As a woman it must be terrifying and as a man I find it totally insulting”. At that point as I peered around the half-filled club of about 300 like-minded people, I thought of how completely outnumbered we were in Georgia. We are surrounded by gun-toting republicans, nationalists, fascists and white supremest supporters who embrace hate and reject love. They preach politics of spite and laugh at global warming if they are forced into thinking about it for a moment. The idealistic maybe, but most evolved and progressive of us, at the height of humanity and forwardness of society, are quite alone at the peak here in Georgia. And the many around us are vicious and want to drag us back down into the muck or worse just round us up like this and shoot us.

Napalm Death continue on to lay auditory waste to all who get in earshot of this fascism annihilation machine. They are the pinnacle of society and music in this age of quarrel and destruction. All four of the bands earned their star tonight for giving a weekend performance on a Tuesday night. And even though there was only half a crowd present to witness, I would not have wanted to match my punk and metal wits or trivia battle with any one of these true loyal lifer fans!