Last Night: Wild Yaks, Regal Degal, Cerebral Ballzy & Black Lips

I woke up yesterday hungover and never really recovered. I was dragging ass all day and spent a good majority of it on the couch resting up. But evening came around and things did not get much better. Too bad because a whole lot of fun was happening in a few hours.

First up was Van-efit, which Wild Yaks and Regal Degal were playing. The show was a fundraiser for some dude who's van broke down in Ohio and he needed money to get back out there and get it fixed...something like that. I got to Good Co for the show right around 10pm. Regal Degal was on while I was walking through the door. 

One of my good friends is the drummer for the band so I was glad I made it in time. I've only seen them play one other time, a few months back at Don Pedro's. That show was so insanely loud that I honestly couldn't even figure out if I liked them or not. Last night, however, they sounded great. The vocals were a little low in the mix but overall it was awesome to hear them at a bearable volume. I was at the show with Tom from Radio America who was seeing them for the first time and pointed out a resemblance to Television. 

After Regal Degal played we worked on a few beers and waited for Wild Yaks to set up, which seemed to be taking a very long time. Finally the Yaks got started and the fun began. The room was totally packed and it seemed like everyone there knew the words to every song. In fact, a few times Rob backed off the mic and let the crowd take over vocal duties. 

As with any Yaks show it was awesome. It was also far from flawless. Rob managed to break a string on two songs, which happened to be back-to-back. The singer/guitar player from Regal Degal (who is also in Dinowalrus) decided to just let Rob use his guitar to speed things along. After that things went swimmingly. The set was damn good and they closed with my two favorites, "Blood Red Field" and "River May Come." 

The second they finished we rushed out the door and headed towards The Shank. The show at The Shank was a late show, so it was just starting, but we already had friends there waiting for us so we hurried over. On the way over I desperately started texting and calling friends because I had an extra ticket and didn't want to eat it. But it was too late and I got to pay double admission to get in. An awesome start.

When we got inside some band was just starting up and the venue was filling in. There was already an obscenely long line for the two port-o-potty's conveniently located right next to the bar. If you haven't been to The Shank it's a massive open space covered in graffiti with 50-foot high ceilings and no rules. It's about as DIY as you can get in Williamsburg these days. 

The first band finished up and we headed upstairs to the balcony-esque area which overlooks the main floor. The upstairs area was cloudy from all the smoke. We managed to snag two of the five seats available in the entire venue. We heard the K-Holes starting up but didn't want to lose our seats so we stayed put. I love the K-Holes but I was tired and hungover and that seat was comfortable, especially since my bum knee was acting up. 

While we were sitting there a bunch of dudes started pissing in the corner to avoid an hour wait for the crapper. The corner turned into a lake of piss and spilled beer. A couple of girls, who may or may not have been aware of the source of this lake, started jumping around and dancing in this massive piss pond. It was totally fucking gross. 

Eventually we noticed that the Ballzy dudes weren't hanging upstairs anymore so we figured they must be setting up. We abandoned our post and headed downstairs for the show. Just as we got down on the main floor they started up. Immediately everyone in the room noticed how awful the sound was. You could not hear the vocals at all and the guitars and bass were super muddy. It sounded like shit. 

Nonetheless, Ballzy kept on trucking along. Honor kept grabbing different mics in an attempt to find one that would actually project his voice, that didn't really work out. Then he started climbing the walls and speakers. At one point he leaned on the monitor and it buckled. One of the sound guys had to grab it and he spent the rest of the set holding this speaker in place. Meanwhile the kids in the pit were going apeshit. The crap sound seemed to actually fuel the madness as punk kids were diving into the crowd. At one point someone started carry around a massive cross made out of skateboards. 

I give Ballzy credit for playing through what must have been the worst mix ever. They didn't let up at all but it was painful to listen to and in no way was it their fault. I know it's a DIY joint and all but I've been to tons of DIY shows and that's right up there with the shittiest sound quality I've ever heard and that's including basement shows in high school. 

Towards the end of the set I headed to the back of the room in hopes that the sound might be a little better further back - it wasn't. While back there I noticed that the floor was soaked. I looked along the dark wall and I could make out a ton of people, male and female, pissing along the wall. A good quarter of the venue was flooded with piss, spilled beer, cigarette butts and Four Loko (which they were selling for $10, yikes!). It was fucking gnarly and I'd hate to be the guy who has to clean that shit hole in the morning. 

After Ballzy finished up the crowd was getting noticeably antsy. It was about 2am at this point and the smoke cloud, urine and lack of seating was getting to people. As such it seemed like they rushed the Black Lips on stage to keep people sane. Surprisingly the Black Lips sounded pretty good. The vocals were audible and everything else sounded pretty decent, not great but for a lo-fi band in a DIY space it wasn't bad at all. I'm convinced they did a sound check for the Black Lips and just left the board set up for them and the other bands had to play through their sound settings.   

All of the bullshit scared my friends off. The sound issues made them all abandon ship either during or after Ballzy but I hung in there and I'm glad I did. The Lips made the hellish atmosphere all worth it. Within minutes of the start of their set people just started climbing on stage and dancing. Halfway through the set the stage was so jam packed full of dancing kids that you couldn't even see the band up there. Even with all the commotion they were still able to play an awesome set. At one point I think the power strip for the amps went out because they did two or three songs acappella.

The whole place was dancing and singing along towards the end, it was great. The set was pretty short but it was so late at that point that I don't think anyone minded. If I recall correctly they announced they had one more song and went into "Bad Kids" to close it out. Immediately after the song some drunk dude started yelling at the top of his lungs, "turn up the vocals! turn up the vocals." Sorry dude, shows over.