When came through town they were joined by the lady-centered garage/punk band . Since then Mika Miko has disbanded and their saxophonist, Jenna Thornhill, has joined the ranks of the Boys.
Out of Austin, the Strange Boys have just put out a new record, “Be Brave,” on In the Red Records. Their set started out with a string of songs from this sophomore album. These tunes shared a lazy, rollicking, rootsy feeling and almost felt a bit flat. Quite a bit different from the sloppy, punchy garage nuggets I was hoping for. I was also hoping for some ungodly wails from Thornhill’s saxophone, but it blended right in with the simple melodies of the harmonica.
The show picked up though when they got to an older song, “Woe is You and Me,” complete with howls from all the band members. As the set went on the old and new blended together under the sound of lead singer Ryan Sambol’s strained, squealing voice and Thornhill did get to some wilder stuff on her saxophone.
If I was a bit underwhelmed by the Strange Boys, perhaps it was because the Nicotine Fits had played such a ferocious set beforehand. This local punk band has a huge, satisfying sound made up of two guitars, bass, drums and organ. Every song sounded so complete. They had an intensity characteristic of any band that punk rock legend Rick Froberg has been a part of. The Nicotine Fits were there to deliver the same kind of enthusiastic, gut-level performance the MC5 was known for — lead singer Pete Sisson sliding up and down the microphone stand and Chris Bullock seemingly adding at least two keyboard slides to each song.
Starting the whole night off was the last set ever by another local band, the GetDown! They’re not breaking up, just finally changing their name after too many encounters with other similarly-named musical groups. This bass-guitar/drum duo is now known as Vicious Women. They played a tight set of raw, buzzing bluesy punk tunes, complete with a cover of Thee Milkshakes’ “For She.”
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Katherine Peterson is a Denver-based writer, former host of Radio 1190’s “Local Shakedown” and new contributor to Reverb.
