Shop our Big Takeover store for back issues, t-shirts & CDs
Follow The Big Takeover
Though we’d seen both Sleeper Agent! when they came to Philadelphia to open for MISSION OF BURMA back in February and though we’ve also seen THE GERUNDS a good number of times, the combination of these two great bands playing with DOT DASH made the trip to Baltimore worthwhile. I’ve written about Sleeper Agent! and The Gerunds in the past, but Dot Dash is the new band featuring TERRY BANKS and HUNTER BENNETT, both of the excellent and sadly defunct JULIE OCEAN, and drummer DANNY INGRAM, most notably a touring member of SWERVEDRIVER in the early ’90s.
As such, Dot Dash played first and they stuck to the Julie Ocean template, playing fast, short, two to three minute pop songs. The major difference is that with the absence of JIM SPELLMAN, these are (at least to the best of my knowledge) Terry Banks’ songs.
The Gerunds followed them and put on a truly epic performance. The setlist didn’t deviate too much from what we’ve already seen them do on numerous other occasions. The requisite originals were played along with the two DAG NASTY songs (“The Godfather” and “Wig Out at Denko’s”) from Wig Out at Denko’s that they’ve been playing for a while now. Perhaps because everyone in these bands knows each other and the vibe resembled a house party more than a regular club night with 3 random bands, this led to keyboardist/backing vocalist MICKEY LYNCH throwing his keyboards down and crashing into the wall at one point because he was so into it when they were playing “Wig Out at Denko’s”! Plus, though the sound at this place was abysmal, everyone was having so much fun and the bands were so energetic that it really didn’t matter.
SLEEPER AGENT! closed out the night and also put on a tremendous performance. They’ve been honing their sound over the past 6 months or so and seem to have improved quite a bit as a result. Again, the setlist didn’t seem to deviate too much from the previous time that we saw them, though to be honest since they don’t have anything out yet I don’t really know their originals that well yet. They once again played their versions of KILLING JOKE‘s “Kings and Queens” and the PIXIES‘ “Break My Body”, though this time the difference was that Gerunds vocalist PETER CORTNER joined them for backup vocals on the Pixies song! Again, not that we could even hear him that well given the sound, but it didn’t matter! Everyone left happy, satisfied and slightly (or not so slightly!) drunk!
