The Slackers @ The El-N-Gee Club, New London CT
Live Reviews | Sep 22nd, 2000
Date: Friday, September 22nd 2000
Opening Bands: Cartel, Speak Easies, Soul Merchants
Venue: The El-N-Gee Club New London CT
Wow, I’m finally back at the El-N-Gee… I haven’t been here in half a year or so. Last time I was here Pilfers and KITH played and tore the place down. Now THAT was a show! But anyways… My friends and I decided to come dressed to skank, and god we looked awesome. Me dressed in pinstripe pants and shirt and with my fedora on, George dressed in Plaid pants with hat and shirt and tie (rudie style), Petey dressed in his cutoff slacks, his shirt, and his CHECKERED tie, and the Beast dressed in his usual punkness of plaid shorts and beater and Op Ivy shirt. God we looked awesome.So…. We get there and of course, we’re early.
The show starts an hour later than advertised EVERYWHERE, including on the G’s phone service…Whatever. So we decide to walk around New London a bit. We go into a comic store, look around a lot, and I wanted some food. So we go to a pizza place. WORST pizza on earth. For $1.25 I got a piece of pizza as big as my palm, coated in grease. C’mon now! I wanted pizza, not a freaking appetizer from the freezer… Oh well, I should have looked first. So we went back to the G and waited outside for a bit.. Getting stares from all the preps that were waiting for the show. What’s wrong, prep’s never seen a rudie before???? And they finally opened the doors… The lowdown on the bands… -Cartel Canadian Ska-Punk with female lead, trombone and… Accordian! Cool, very cool set. Lots of energy as well. I’m not into female vocalists as leads (I’m not sexist…. But I’ll get flack for that thought anyways) but they were still probably the best band of the night there for me…..
The Speak Easies Wish they hadn’t played. Slow slow SLOW traditional ska with again, female vocalists. Now I had taken Cartel just fine, thinking “Hey, at least the music is really really cool.” But c’mon… SLOW as hell Ska with the same damn guitar part over and over and freaking over again….. God I can only take so much…… -Soul Merchants God damn this was NOT what I expected.
From what I can take it Soul Merchants are ex Johnny Too Bad, Jimmy Scooter, and Cobra Skamander. (Correct me if I am wrong, PLEASE!) I expected something like JTB basically, never having heard the other two bands. NowI am a huge Johnny Too Bad fan, wishing I had had the privilege of being in the scene when they were…. At least my friend picked up the CD… So….Slow, reggae like ska that droned on and on in my mind. ONE fast song I could Skank to really…. (I love fast skanking, not slow skanking…) And that’s all about Soul Merchants really. Talented, yet not my forte…..
And lastly, The Slackers…. Well, they are REALLY REALLY talented. But when they are on stage for an hour and 45 minutes, it takes a lot out of you… Yes I skanked a lot, but again it wasn’t my type of music…. Slow Ska and I don’t mix too much….. I need my circle pits…. So they were great and all and lasted forever and ever and ever… Whoohoo….
