Drunkdriver

The only way to beat a good sweat is to join it. No use trying to stay dry or free of reek in an enclosed space. The sole recourse is to embrace it. There is no escape. There is no hiding. The cloud of human stench and stifling air will seek you out. All the more surprising is cold outside air’s refusal to placate the gathering throngs within. Even in the dead of winter, DIY venues like Brooklyn’s Death by Audio—a former warehouse that now functions as an artists’ workspace/recording studio/home base for Oliver Ackermann’s effects pedals of mass destruction amongst other things—assume the role of a makeshift Turkish Bath. Donning a thick parka obviously doesn’t help.

But this was the situation I found myself in upon arrival at DBA on a recent Saturday night. The near-sealed room with clogged bottlenecks in every corner left no escape from the perspiration evaporating into the increasingly humid air. The venue was quickly packing itself by the time I showed up to catch the end of the opener’s set and continued to sardine as the night progressed.

After vanilla sets courtesy of the first two bands, our tribe snaked to the front to await Drunkdriver. However, a lineup change led to a pleasant surprise. Pittsburgh punk quartet Rot Shit, rumored to be playing their last show, was bumped up to third billing, and they did not disappoint. The lead singer made quick use of a sixer of Colt 45 pounders, drenching his grody mane with malt liquor and slamming the foaming can into his dense forehead before the first riff even had a chance to loop around. Songs like “Hipster Grandma,” with their dense bass and deft drumming, brought a smile to my increasingly spinning brain, which seemed to be sweating on its own in supplement to the sweat my body was producing. Once Rot Shit concluded, the floor was slicked in beer, the only logical end to a set where a fair share of the crowd unwillingly sacrificed its alcohol to a thirsty, greedy front man.

Taking on the most undesirable job of the night, drone/noise duo Blues Control stepped on stage, sandwiched between two painfully noisy and raucous pissers. I enjoy the band’s music in my bedroom, but having seen Blues Control open up for Clockcleaner (a similarly arranged loud-quiet-loud lineup to this DBA show), I was certainly not thrilled to pare down my increasing energy to absorb some slow, cerebral sounds. From the outset, though, the band impressed: heads throughout the venue nodded appreciatively. The perfect palette cleanser for this particular set of bands, Blues Control worked haunting piano lines and echoing guitar over beats that ranged from almost danceable to delightfully confusing to the compromised mind.

Drunkdriver hit the drunk crowd like a teenage Buick LeSabre tragedy. Even through the sweltering wait, they did not disappoint. They assaulted the crowd in both the literal sense (pulling hair) and metaphorical (hellish guitar-work), racing through songs with childlike abandon. Drummer Jeremy Villalobos and guitarist Kristy Greene seem to have some sort of sibling telepathy, and admirably hold down the meat of the assault while lead screamer Michael Berdan restlessly leads the pack into a whirlpool of flailing limbs like a circling vulture diving into a carcass feeding frenzy. The jerking, misanthropic tunes split the difference between hardcore and a bubbling tar pit, and once spent (after a jaw-dropping, almost sexually gratifying tom-fueled drum fill from Villalobos) the evening’s activities smacked into a wall and collapsed to the floor. The crowd stumbled into the cold night, weaving and stumbling with the effects of alcohol combined with the disorienting equilibrium-fuck of buzzing eardrums. We embraced the stench while our skin steamed in the brisk night, and dispersed to enjoy the rest of our evening cradled in a drenched, buzzing comfort.