JOAN JETT and the RAMONES are listed as influences here, and reader, this is no lie. Prepare to be whisked away to a basement show in your senior year. It’s packed with friends, randos, and a janky PA. You’ve endured the awful nü metal band who bought the keg, but then some unassuming looking punks plug in, turn up, and play a set that blows everyone away. You pogo, drink watery beer, and break the chair sitting down too hard.
I first heard this on the iconic No Deal channel, and wasn’t interested from the first song. After a couple of listens, however, I’ve definitely changed my mind. If you like the classic fast and nasty style in the vein of the Texas I Hate, I Skate label that featured bands such as GLAASSSS, ARMY, and others, along with general noisy HC punk bands such as Q, LUMPY AND THE DUMPERS, and generally everything in the Lumpy Records discography, then this is undoubtedly a tape for you. This is just snotty, childish hardcore punk that, while it’s been done many times before, never seems to get old.
This comes from the mind of Martin Meyer, most notably of LUMPY AND THE DUMPERS and Lumpy Records, who brought us eggy tracks on records like Huff My Sack and Music to Hump a Trashcan To. SOUP ACTIVISTS turn down the distortion and chaos some, and provide a sweeping, shambolic sound: synths playing merry-go-round tunes, chug-a-lug guitars, and steady, mid-tempo drums. I get the brattiness of DEAD MILKMEN in the vocals, mixed with the oddball lyricism of the FLESH EATERS, but the comparison already stands to the whole body of work Meyer has been involved in, his Discogs bio listing countless St. Louis projects—I’ve brushed by this music, but I’m excited to take a deeper dive. Live at Sharon’s comes out in front of a studio LP slated for release this fall, so be on the lookout. I’m wondering how this recorded-live-to-tape raw sound will translate to studio production, but I have faith they’ll keep the edge intact. Don’t pass this one by.
