Every party has to start somewhere. And Blowout 2010 got warmed up on opening Wednesday night, March 3, at the Majestic Complex in Detroit, as a swarm of bands took over Hamtramck for three wild 'n' crazy nights. And the Wonder Twins were there, of course, to witness the Blowout unfolding.
D'Anne: The Blowout Pre-Party is kind of like a practice run for Blowout. But instead of trying to strategically coordinate your night between several bars in Hamtramck, you just have to bounce between three stages in two rooms.
Laura: The Pre-Party gives you false confidence that the next three nights are going to be completely manageable instead of completely insane.
D'Anne: Still, even in one place, 10 bands in one night is a lot to take in. But we managed to see most of them.
Laura: We got there a little after 9 and the place was already packed.
D'Anne: And, in our excitement, we managed to miss Mirror Twin, not to be confused with Mirror Image [Randy Chabot's new project] or Secret Twins [who played Saturday night]. I was disappointed, since I consider it a duty to support twin-related musical endeavors! Let's keep our fingers crossed they someday form a super group called Secret Mirror Image Twin.
Laura: The first band we saw was Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., and while they aren't twins, there are two of them.
D'Anne: It was fun to see them again. I loved their cover of the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows." It was nice to see Mormons get a shout-out.
Laura: We then headed downstairs to see Computer Perfection in the Majestic Cafe. This was the first time I'd seen them since Fucking Awesome Fest. It seems they've added some folks and rounded out their sound. I liked it.
D'Anne: Yeah. They sounded really good. Though I was kind of distracted by the guy dressed in the crazy newspaper costume.
Laura: I thought it was the Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock. I was waiting for her to impart words of wisdom.
D'Anne: I don't know about that. All I know is that an outfit made of that much newspaper will probably be a lot safer to wear after May 1. Every time he was in the vicinity of someone with a cigarette, I got worried!
Laura: About halfway through Computer Perfection's set, I saw a couple people coming into the café carrying giant trash bags. For a second, I thought they were actually taking out the garbage through the venue during the show, which would have probably violated some health codes or something.
D'Anne: As it turns out, the bags were filled with balloons. Your favorite.
Laura: I actually faced my fear of balloons and had fun. Part of it was the fact that, over the loud music, I couldn't hear people popping them.
D'Anne: That's why I waited until the band was done to pop one in front of you.
Laura: That was not cool.
D'Anne: Just think of it as immersion therapy.
Laura: The Sugarcoats were on at the same time as Computer Perfection, but we managed to catch a bit of their set. I saw them play at the Pike Room back on the day of the Nine Mile Bridge Explosion. (Never forget. ...)
D'Anne: The Sugarcoats, not be confused with the Sugarcubes. Nobody will confuse frontman Corey Weedon for Björk, though.
Laura: The Sugarcoats made me think Bob Seger meets Iggy Pop. Loud and gritty rock 'n' roll.
D'Anne: In between bands, we went to the Garden Bowl to check out the "Keep on Trash" dance party.
Laura: Which looked suspiciously like people bowling! I didn't really see signs of a dance party, trash or no. Although Roxy Music was playing, so the promise of punk and rock 'n' roll classics was apparently being kept.
D'Anne: I was really looking forward to seeing Doop & the Inside Outlaws. Although the promise made in this very paper of necrophilia with Johnny Cash's corpse was not kept. Which is really for the best.
Laura: The T-shirts at their merch table shirts had big guns silkscreened on them. Because Doop and his crew don't fuck around.
D'Anne: They reminded me a bit of Drive-By Truckers meets Whiskeytown. Though I'd take the Outlaws' fiddle player over Caitlin Cary any day.
Laura: Their song "Burn This City" should be about Lansing.
D'Anne: Whoa, Laura! You're going to get arrested for treason. Again.
Laura: OK, OK. Sorry....
D'Anne: In the "and now for something completely different" department, we headed downstairs to catch some Bad Party.
Laura: The first thing we heard when we walked in was singer Nate S. yelling, "It smells like Canadian asshole in here!"
D'Anne: I don't think that's a scent that I'd be able to pick out in a crowded, smoky bar.
Laura: He also said, "All the girls in here want to fuck me and most of the boys."
D'Anne: Well, I stopped yelling that in public years ago.
Laura: They were all about the industrial noise punk. They closed with a cover of AC/DC's "TNT," which was actually really fun.
D'Anne: Then it was back upstairs to see Cannon, which was not a band fronted by Mariah Carey's husband, as you'd claimed.
Laura: Well it got you upstairs to see them, didn't it?
D'Anne: They made me think Kid Rock but more rock, or Black Crowes without the feuding-brother drama. They're the blues rock band you'd see in the background of a buddy cop movie, when cops go into a dive bar to poke around for leads.
Laura: Exactly. But only if that move was made in the late '80s and only available on VHS. Timeless vintage.
D'Anne: Then it was time for the Punk Fitness interlude, which you could hardly wait for.
Laura: I just like to watch the crowd back away in shame when Julie Hecker comes out and lays down the tough love about fitness.
D'Anne: As she said, "People do not dance enough at shows. That's why they're so fucking fat!" She's probably one of the only people who could get away with saying something like that in front of a crowd of pudgy drunk people. All with a smile on her face.
Laura: That's because she knows she could outrun any of them.
D'Anne: So we headed downstairs to see F'ke Blood before Julie forced us to punkercise or something.
Laura: I was really excited to see them. I'm a big Silverghost fan and this is Marcie and Delano's other project.
D'Anne: They were weird. In a good way.
Laura: Like a punk band crossed with a comedy routine.
D'Anne: Their cover of Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law" made my night.
Laura: Next year I call a mandatory AC/DC or Judas Priest cover policy for all bands playing Blowout.
D'Anne: You should start a Facebook petition for next year: "I bet AC/DC and Judas Priest cover songs during Blowout 2011 can get more fans than Glenn Beck."
Laura: I'm on it.
D'Anne: Back upstairs, the Displays were already in progress. They're Detroit's garage-rock boy band. Three mop-top cuties paying homage to their forefathers, like the Who and the Stones.
Laura: Well, I mostly heard the Stooges. As in, every song they played sounded like a variation of the same Stooges song.
D'Anne: Be that as it may, they're cute. And they've got the fancy rock 'n' roll footwork down. They can only get better.
Laura: Agreed. I just feel their set should have been shorter. We had to leave before Chapstik even went onstage.
D'Anne: And I was looking forward to having my face melted.
Laura: Well, you'll have to catch Chapstik at one of their upcoming shows around town. Of course, there's always next year.
D'Anne: Or a terrible blowtorch accident.
Laura: God willing. I mean, God forbid.
D'Anne: Then you'll be the cuter Wonder Twin for sure.
Wonder Twins cuddle up bi-weekly. Send comments to [email protected]
