Impalers Deliver 20 Minutes of Mayhem at Rare Show: Friday’s parking lot concert was the best live punk we’ve seen all year – Music

[ad_1]

Impellers perform in the parking lot of the Yellow Jacket Social Club on Friday night. (Photo by Kevin Curtin)

“Another Bar, Another Show / High End Condominiums in a Row / Young Professional City Councilors / Driving Up Housing Taxes!” Like “Secret Beach”, the opening track of Impalers’ 2017 LP Cellar Dweller.

These lyrics come to mind as I walked down East 5th Street to the Yellow Jacket Social Club on Friday and thought about how much the surrounding landscape had changed in the ten years since it opened. The vacant lots, warehouses, and graffiti walls are now condos, condos, and even more condos. Yellow Jacket remains unchanged as a skater-punk bar that serves real food with a brunch-ready stone terrace.

The year before Yellow Jacket was released, Impalers was born with a self-titled cassette. The D-Beat hardcore punk unit remains anchored by singer Chris Ulsh and drummer Mike Sharp – known then for Mammoth Grinder and Hatred Surge, although they are now involved in a variety of popular punk, metal and experimental projects. Given that, Impalers rarely play shows and when they do you want to be a part of it. This was one of those nights – a celebration of 11 years as a band.

I pull up to see the show take place in the park gate, filled with over 100 people who have just watched Stunted Youth and Ready Armed System, both of which released killer demos this year. While a large chunk of the audience is aged Impalers, This is Austin’s all-age show, Not That Great also spawned plenty of teenagers.

“Is this your first punk show?” A guy next to me asks his friend.

“It’s my second,” she clarifies.

“It’s my first!” adds another person to your group.

Could you imagine: your first punk show and its impalers in a noisy parking lot? It’s like having your first drink and it’s damn Dom Perignon (I assume that’s the highest standard anyone can drink).

There is no stage. The drums are set up in front of the door of the former Breakaway Records location and a “For Lease” banner from the developers Weitzman Group hangs depressingly directly above the band.

The downbeat comes around 9:40 p.m. Immediately the masses shift and bodies collide in a human hurricane around the five band members. Sharp, one of my favorite drummers in town, drives high-tempo perfection, while Ulsh, also one of my favorite drummers in town, yells into the microphone with his elbows raised and then his arms in a don’t-give -a-shit falling lets pose between the lines. Victor Gutierrez hits his head and lifts his guitar by the neck while inhaling feedback in his spare time.

Pop. Pop. Pop, pop, pop. A mat with fireworks was set on fire. The tattoo of tiny explosions flashes to light up the band. Ulsh – possessed at the moment – is 1,000 percent unimpressed by the detonation, hits the sky and stands in smoke.

To the right of the band, a fan wears a rest in a power shirt with the last word in Power Trip script. This band, the epitome of modern day Texas Metal, lost lead singer Riley Gale to an accidental overdose on August 24th, 2020. Ulsh was the drummer for Power Trip. Two weeks after Gale’s death, another bandmate of the Impalers’ singer, Wade Allison, died. Allison was the founder and sound architect of the great Austin metal / punk heroes Iron Age. Allison’s death was exactly one year to the day before that Impalers show.

Back in the action, a tall man hops on one foot as he navigates the center of the crowd with a leg injury. Meanwhile, Ulsh reaches for a hanging lamp that looks like a lantern, there are many clenched fists in the air at an ominous rhythm, and everyone – from the parking lots to the terrace – looks with excitement and knows that they are seeing some of them a masterful display of raw Texas hardcore punk.

Impaler (Photo by Kevin Curtin)

With one final pool crash, Sharp stands up and moves away from his gear, signaling the end of a show that delivered all the catharsis and chaos we could ever ask for … in – at most – 20 minutes. As people in black clothes flock to the bar and onto the street, the loudspeakers boom the theme song from the old television sitcom Cheers.

“You want to be where you can see / Our problems are all the same / You want to be where everyone knows your name.”

[ad_2]